NOTE #15 ABOUT HAPPYNESS

I am on my way to a meeting with the sound specialist who is handling the post-production of my latest film, DER ALBTRAUM DER SCHAMANEN (The Shaman's Nightmare). I am running late, but the incredible beauty of nature in this early winter morning atmosphere on my way to Salzburg is so overwhelming that I have to stop every few hundred metres to enjoy the silence and the view. I know I'm going to be very late, but I've long since lost myself in this strange natural spectacle.

For I see two worlds that merge seamlessly into one another. On the left, a huge wall of black fog and clouds covers the Höllengebirge mountains and holds the night there, as if it will never be day. On the right, however, the sun shines through the silvery morning mist rising from a mountain stream, illuminating the snow-capped peaks and green forests below, which are reflected in all their colours in the lake. One wants to capture the sun's rays and take them with one. They seem so close and tangible.
 
I carefully climb onto the slippery wooden planks of a floating jetty, which is more unstable than I thought and begins to sway dangerously. I don't know what I'm doing here, but something drives me on. I balance myself forward and dip my hands into the ice-cold water of the lake.

And then I begin to understand: the natural wonder before me and I on the swaying planks above the crystal-clear water of the lake somehow form a metaphor for my own life. The raft is the fragility of my existence, the limits of which I have been exploring since childhood. But the natural spectacle before me reflects the two emotional worlds that rage within me. The curse and blessing of an artist's and adventurer's soul. Happiness and unhappiness. Now, at this moment, with my gaze fixed on the unconditional beauty of nature, these worlds unite for a brief moment and I find peace and boundless happiness. Even the sight of the threatening cloud front to my left cannot diminish this feeling.

My moments of happiness are something unreal, never connected to material things. Perhaps they are linked to memories that only live on in my subconscious. They come unexpectedly, like the silvery rays of light from the rising sun in front of me. It won't be long before the black wall of clouds swallows everything and turns day into night before it has really begun. The snow-covered mountains and the unreal green of the valleys will then be nothing more than a memory that slowly fades away. I want to hold on to happiness forever. We all want that.

A pair of ducks swim past me, fearlessly heading towards the black wall of clouds. I follow their example, glance once more at the reflection of the snow-covered mountains in the crystal-clear waters of the lake and continue on my way, straight towards the black wall of clouds in my life. What adventures await me there? What moments of happiness and misfortune are hidden there? But I am not afraid, because what the ducks did not know was that I had taken a few of the silvery sunbeams with me for emergencies.