There’s a chance of realizing one’s idea, because it is precisely the torments of one’s family history and the torments of the present, which is as much of a torment as one’s history has been, torment and nothing else, it is precisely these past and familial torments, if they are bad enough, the worst possible, which enable one to realize one’s idea to a high and even the highest degree.
The greater the idea and the higher our aim by way of that idea, the greater our historical and our familial torments are required to have been. Suddenly I realized what an enormous capital my idea could draw upon, in the accumulated capital of torments I had suffered from my family origins and my personal history and all the history connected with me in any way, and I was able to put all these resources to work, in full possession of my faculties, once I had them suddenly at my disposal. For what was Altensam to me other than family as a torment, history as a torment, the present as a torment, leaving out of account the few bright spots such as the quite extraordinary natural conditions here, the extraordinary rock formations, animals, plants andsoforth, as the only chance of retreat andsoforth, so Roithamer. Human, natural, and art history as torment, as the possibility of reaching my aim, so Roithamer. At the terminal point of the conditions that have always prevailed here. The basis, Altensam, “basis” underlined, on which I have been able to realize my idea, finish the Cone, hence Altensam and everything connected with Altensam was absolutely necessary, because each thing always derives from all the others, so Roithamer. The Cone, as it is, is unthinkable without Altensam, just as everything is unthinkable without everything else andsoforth, so Roithamer. The terrifying idea, so Roithamer, which, the more terrifying it is, the closer to realization it is. And so everything at the terminal point of my observations made in my childhood and youth in Altensam has been necessary toward the realization and completion of the Cone, everything about (and in) the Cone, everything else andsoforth, so Roithamer. By studying Altensam and my sister and trying to think Altensam and my sister through and by continuing to extend these efforts on and on until they could be extended no further, I enabled myself to build the Cone and realize and complete it. Because I let myself in for the sheer terror of this undertaking to build the Cone, let myself in for the monstrousness, “the monstrousness” underlined, of my life, so Roithamer. As if I had lived, existed, all along, all those years of development, which were nothing else than my development in the direction of the Cone, the direction of this monstrousness. One is called upon to approach and realize and complete the monstrousness, and everyone has some such enormity in his life, or else to be destroyed by this monstrousness even before one has entered into it. In this way people always tend to waver at a certain point in their lives, and always at the particular crucial point in their lives when they must decide whether to tackle the monstrousness of their life or let themselves be destroyed by it before they have tackled it. Most people prefer to let themselves be destroyed by this monstrousness rather than to tackle it, because they aren’t equipped by nature to tackle and realize and fulfill their monstrousness, they’re rather inclined, by nature, to let themselves be destroyed by their monstrousness before they have tackled it. The matured idea is enough in itself to destroy most people, so Roithamer. And such an enormity as a work of art, a lifework of art — regardless of what this monstrousness is, everyone has such a possibility in him, because his nature is in itself such a possibility — can only be tackled and realized and fulfilled with the whole of one’s being. In so tackling such a monstrousness we have entered into pure defenselessness, into being alone with ourselves within ourselves, alone with our idea as an enormity, and everything is against us.
Because we believe that we can’t do otherwise we keep wanting to give up, because we can’t know that we are by nature quite well equipped for such a monstrousness, which we begin to see only after we’ve realized and completed this monstrousness as an idea, just as I hadn’t known whether I was capable of building the Cone before the Cone was completed. But once we’ve reached our aim, we no longer know anything about the way to our aim and we keep finding it impossible to believe, for the rest of our lives our doubt keeps increasing and we can’t believe that we have reached our aim, the realization and completion of our idea as, for example, a Cone, so Roithamer. At the end, when we have reached our aim, no matter what aim, even if this aim is the building of a so-called work of art, we find ourselves frightened by it. Attempt at a description of Hoeller, of Hoeller’s wife and Hoeller’s garret: before I tackled the study of statics I went to Hoeller in order to observe Hoeller, first to observe Hoeller and then I studied his house, the house he built out of his own head and with his own hands, the study of one thing always presupposes the study of something else from which the first is derived. Hoeller had most readily taken me into his house and into his family, I’d felt that it wouldn’t be enough for me to just visit briefly in Hoeller’s house, but that I needed to live in it as long as necessary, free to observe him in person and his building construction and his family, in his house and together with all of them, as long as necessary, in the way in which I thought I would have to live there in order to be able to tackle the realization of my idea of building the Cone. For the idea of building the Cone, even Hoeller hadn’t been able to imagine a cone as a building, and Hoeller also had to consider my idea of building the Cone in the center of the Kobernausser forest as a crazy idea, I’d been able to observe that in him, for the idea to build the Cone could be realized only after I clearly understood Hoeller’s house, I’d said to Hoeller, and that it was necessary for me to use Hoeller’s garret as my base of operations, for Hoeller’s garret had always, from the first moment I saw it, seemed to me to be the ideal place in which to do my thinking. To observe and explore Hoeller’s house as well as Hoeller’s person was the first thing I had to do before I could tackle the realization of my plan to erect the Cone. I tried to make my intentions clear to Hoeller and he understood me immediately. And then Hoeller informed his family of my reasons for staying in his house, he even told the children for what purpose I would be living and staying with them for weeks at a time, quite on my own, to work on my idea. That I would have to explore the Hoeller house, understand it and explore it thoroughly, in order to begin planning my own building. To this end I needed nothing but perceptiveness and the proper application of my perceptiveness to the object under observation, namely, the Hoeller house. So I had brought nothing with me except the absolutely necessary and the will to be able to understand and explore the Hoeller house, to understand and explore the Hoeller house and also Hoeller himself and his