Solitude and Rilke’s ‘Letters to a Young Poet’
August 13, 2006 | 12:00am
This Week’s Winner
Jean Lorrie M. Tabora is a Psychology graduate from Miriam College. She is in the human resources department of a call center company. "I have a fondness for music, cats and chocolates. I’m also a fan of Invader Zim. Whenever I think of life, I go: ‘Space Shuttle! Space Shuttle!’ Living is like that. It’s just a matter of getting yourself ready for the ride. If today isn’t going great, tomorrow is another story."
Letters to a Young Poet is the first work by Rainer Maria Rilke I’ve ever fully read. I’m not certain why it took me this long to pick it up. Perhaps I was a bit wary of it. You always hear people saying, "This is good," as they wave this book or that under your nose only to be disappointed after you’ve read it. But reading these letters never came close to that. The 10 letters are as alive, as strong, as compelling as in that moment Rilke wrote them. In the letters, I came across one man’s uncompromising observations on life, his meditations on patience, on solitude, on God, among other things.
In the first letter, he advises the young writer to ask himself, "Must I write?"; and if the answer is yes, to try and live out his life with this need in mind, to write of "sorrows and desires… with quiet, loving, humble sincerity." What very sound advice this is. For anyone who does not have the creative skills yet, to write as honestly as one can is the best way to practice the art. And though insight may be lacking – the depth, the complexity that comes from a more experienced writer – if one is sincere enough, that element of honesty will not fail to reach the reader. This is the same emotion at work in this book. It is the sincerity filling the letters that moves us.
When the author wrote, in his second letter, of how "in the deepest and most important things, we are unutterably alone," he was sharing his idea on solitude. A number of people, including me, are not comfortable with solitude. I used to believe it only meant being alone, lonely and miserable. I’ve never associated anything other than sadness, distress and the like with solitude. I’m sure most of us share the same view. But in the letters that followed, Rilke described a different solitude, one that is not merely isolation. In the process of describing this solitude, Rilke helps us look upon it as a rewarding experience rather than a lonely one, as a means by which we can acquire all the time we need to ask and wonder about the questions that we live our lives by – questions on certainty, on love, on God.
Rilke spoke of how we cannot exist in a state of communion with other people at all times, whether they are friends or family. Once in a while, the self must seek solitude, to be left alone, to have its own space, to just be. Solitude allows us to understand ourselves perhaps a lot more than we think possible.
Give yourself time. This statement captures the sentiment perfectly. Most of us have heard it before. I, for one, have never completely understood the truth of it until now. Or perhaps, it would be more accurate to say that I’ve never taken the time to do so, until now. Rilke says that most of us, especially artists, must bear solitude not only with dignity and poise, but with intellectual and emotional pleasure as well.
In these letters, Rilke also addressed the idea of patience, of its importance in the artist’s life – that to be an artist is to go through life "ripening like the tree." Meaning, the creative drive that compels us to write or compose, to sculpt or paint, or carry out other artistic endeavors will not immediately gift us with the skills and insightful perception that we need; that to be an artist, one must first welcome and embrace the faith of a seed, to grow in the dark, to begin knowing nothing else but a wish to learn more, to ripen with knowledge and a bit of wisdom – to commit oneself to a life-long engagement since anything less than that will not survive.
This is why patience is necessary – development doesn’t happen overnight.
And because, in Rilke’s world, everything happens in its own time, nothing must be forced, nothing must take form before it is ready, and everything must be left alone until it is the right time.
In this day and age, where speed is valued, where rushing through our work is often the only way most of us survive, the patience, the kindness that Rilke offers readers in these letters not only serves to soothe the irritations, the frustrations, the tedium of a long, exhausting day but mends the confusion and unrest in our spirits as well.
In his sixth letter, Rilke penned a line that I particularly look upon with high esteem and admiration. In response to the young poet’s ideas regarding God, of how he no longer believed in God, and of how this, in turn, became a source of pain for the young poet, Rilke asked: "Do you believe that anyone who really has him could lose him like a little stone?" When I read it, I jumped up from my seat and let out a fervent: Yes!
This is, of course, one of the joys of reading: finding a sentence, a line or a word that is so right that you recognize the absolute truth it contains. For, really, how many of us have turned our backs on God after being disappointed, after being hurt, after being harmed? We think because we know how to pray the rosary or help other people, because we belong to a religious congregation or give donations to the local church, because we light candles and kneel in front of altars, that we really have him in our lives?
You cannot lose what you never had. Oh, how wonderfully humbling it is, in this case, to be told, to be taken to task.
"Hold on to what is difficult." This is in Rilke’s seventh letter. More often than not, we find ourselves backing out of most situations because of the difficulties they entail. Rilke says that anything difficult must be trusted and honored, because difficulty brings about the kind of sensitivity that can help us live with a little more ease in the world.
He then touches on one example of the difficult: love. "For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all the other work is but preparation." So the question we find ourselves asking is, how is love difficult? Rilke describes love in the context of solitude, that for one to be able to love, one must first be whole, be as complete as, in Neruda’s words, "a single grain of sand." So that to say "I love you" is to compel another being to achieve this kind of completeness. And how does one achieve it? By being alone. By divining our own motivations, along with the principles and the faiths that we keep. By being able to understand why we believe in some things and not in others.
For how effective would it be for two people to come together in love when they have yet to find completeness in themselves? How long will it last before they find themselves unable to stick to the relationship because of the shaky foundations they built it on in the first place?
Rilke manages to disturb most of our common notions, offering us a new set of eyes able to see with more clarity, sense and patience.
Before closing the book, I found myself returning to one of the first things that Rilke said, of how it is necessary for us to live out the question so that we might one day find ourselves wandering into the answer. The emotion, I expect, will not be far from that same recognition when we find truth. To ask means not taking our existence in the world for granted as, perhaps, most of us unknowingly still do.
Jean Lorrie M. Tabora is a Psychology graduate from Miriam College. She is in the human resources department of a call center company. "I have a fondness for music, cats and chocolates. I’m also a fan of Invader Zim. Whenever I think of life, I go: ‘Space Shuttle! Space Shuttle!’ Living is like that. It’s just a matter of getting yourself ready for the ride. If today isn’t going great, tomorrow is another story."
Letters to a Young Poet is the first work by Rainer Maria Rilke I’ve ever fully read. I’m not certain why it took me this long to pick it up. Perhaps I was a bit wary of it. You always hear people saying, "This is good," as they wave this book or that under your nose only to be disappointed after you’ve read it. But reading these letters never came close to that. The 10 letters are as alive, as strong, as compelling as in that moment Rilke wrote them. In the letters, I came across one man’s uncompromising observations on life, his meditations on patience, on solitude, on God, among other things.
In the first letter, he advises the young writer to ask himself, "Must I write?"; and if the answer is yes, to try and live out his life with this need in mind, to write of "sorrows and desires… with quiet, loving, humble sincerity." What very sound advice this is. For anyone who does not have the creative skills yet, to write as honestly as one can is the best way to practice the art. And though insight may be lacking – the depth, the complexity that comes from a more experienced writer – if one is sincere enough, that element of honesty will not fail to reach the reader. This is the same emotion at work in this book. It is the sincerity filling the letters that moves us.
When the author wrote, in his second letter, of how "in the deepest and most important things, we are unutterably alone," he was sharing his idea on solitude. A number of people, including me, are not comfortable with solitude. I used to believe it only meant being alone, lonely and miserable. I’ve never associated anything other than sadness, distress and the like with solitude. I’m sure most of us share the same view. But in the letters that followed, Rilke described a different solitude, one that is not merely isolation. In the process of describing this solitude, Rilke helps us look upon it as a rewarding experience rather than a lonely one, as a means by which we can acquire all the time we need to ask and wonder about the questions that we live our lives by – questions on certainty, on love, on God.
Rilke spoke of how we cannot exist in a state of communion with other people at all times, whether they are friends or family. Once in a while, the self must seek solitude, to be left alone, to have its own space, to just be. Solitude allows us to understand ourselves perhaps a lot more than we think possible.
Give yourself time. This statement captures the sentiment perfectly. Most of us have heard it before. I, for one, have never completely understood the truth of it until now. Or perhaps, it would be more accurate to say that I’ve never taken the time to do so, until now. Rilke says that most of us, especially artists, must bear solitude not only with dignity and poise, but with intellectual and emotional pleasure as well.
In these letters, Rilke also addressed the idea of patience, of its importance in the artist’s life – that to be an artist is to go through life "ripening like the tree." Meaning, the creative drive that compels us to write or compose, to sculpt or paint, or carry out other artistic endeavors will not immediately gift us with the skills and insightful perception that we need; that to be an artist, one must first welcome and embrace the faith of a seed, to grow in the dark, to begin knowing nothing else but a wish to learn more, to ripen with knowledge and a bit of wisdom – to commit oneself to a life-long engagement since anything less than that will not survive.
This is why patience is necessary – development doesn’t happen overnight.
And because, in Rilke’s world, everything happens in its own time, nothing must be forced, nothing must take form before it is ready, and everything must be left alone until it is the right time.
In this day and age, where speed is valued, where rushing through our work is often the only way most of us survive, the patience, the kindness that Rilke offers readers in these letters not only serves to soothe the irritations, the frustrations, the tedium of a long, exhausting day but mends the confusion and unrest in our spirits as well.
In his sixth letter, Rilke penned a line that I particularly look upon with high esteem and admiration. In response to the young poet’s ideas regarding God, of how he no longer believed in God, and of how this, in turn, became a source of pain for the young poet, Rilke asked: "Do you believe that anyone who really has him could lose him like a little stone?" When I read it, I jumped up from my seat and let out a fervent: Yes!
This is, of course, one of the joys of reading: finding a sentence, a line or a word that is so right that you recognize the absolute truth it contains. For, really, how many of us have turned our backs on God after being disappointed, after being hurt, after being harmed? We think because we know how to pray the rosary or help other people, because we belong to a religious congregation or give donations to the local church, because we light candles and kneel in front of altars, that we really have him in our lives?
You cannot lose what you never had. Oh, how wonderfully humbling it is, in this case, to be told, to be taken to task.
"Hold on to what is difficult." This is in Rilke’s seventh letter. More often than not, we find ourselves backing out of most situations because of the difficulties they entail. Rilke says that anything difficult must be trusted and honored, because difficulty brings about the kind of sensitivity that can help us live with a little more ease in the world.
He then touches on one example of the difficult: love. "For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all the other work is but preparation." So the question we find ourselves asking is, how is love difficult? Rilke describes love in the context of solitude, that for one to be able to love, one must first be whole, be as complete as, in Neruda’s words, "a single grain of sand." So that to say "I love you" is to compel another being to achieve this kind of completeness. And how does one achieve it? By being alone. By divining our own motivations, along with the principles and the faiths that we keep. By being able to understand why we believe in some things and not in others.
For how effective would it be for two people to come together in love when they have yet to find completeness in themselves? How long will it last before they find themselves unable to stick to the relationship because of the shaky foundations they built it on in the first place?
Rilke manages to disturb most of our common notions, offering us a new set of eyes able to see with more clarity, sense and patience.
Before closing the book, I found myself returning to one of the first things that Rilke said, of how it is necessary for us to live out the question so that we might one day find ourselves wandering into the answer. The emotion, I expect, will not be far from that same recognition when we find truth. To ask means not taking our existence in the world for granted as, perhaps, most of us unknowingly still do.
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