Letters to a Young Poet
I have to say that I read “Letters to a Young Poet” in one sitting; its short, but thats not why it took so little time. Rilke’s ideas concerning life, and particularly that part of life that is solitude, spoke to me not only as an artist, but as a human being. To live is to essentially be alone; no one can share the space of your mind, and no one can love or enjoy something in quite the same way you can. According to Wilke, solitude is not a state that we can reject, it is fundamental to existence. Personally, I have always considered myself a solitary person, and the world seems to consider being alone to be a sign of social ineptitude, and yet Wilke acknowledges that the inability to accept solitude is a form of delusion. Wilke perhaps takes his ideas concerning solitude a little far, believing that one can generate ideas from the interior of one’s mind alone and that the outside world is not necessary for the germination of creativity. The world is a resource, the mind a refuge, and thus it is necessary to operate on both planes.
Then there are some ideas that I am not quite sure how to comprehend; Wilke’s advice to “not observe yourself too closely” can be read in multiple ways. My first impulse is to understand his statement as underscoring the importance of not judging yourself and jumping to conclusions immediately, but just to live and learn from life in general. But, on the other hand, how can you know what you want and how you want to live if you don’t listen closely to yourself?