Another day, another blog. Makes me even more confused as to what I really want to do with my blog. Again, contemplating on what I ought to write here. What is my vision? What is my goal in writing again? Is it to seek an audience to which I will share my thoughts with, have a discussion with? At a later time perhaps that will happen, so I want to have a more personal goal than that, the ‘reason that commands me to write’, as Rilke said. My previous blogging experience has taught me well that writing in order to seek the approval of others is a lofty ideal, self-centered and conceited, and will only lead to my own demise.
In the meantime as I am reviving my passion for writing, I shall let Rilke’s voice resound and linger in my head, because as his instructions come alive, my reason for writing shall, too, and will rise above the depths of the abyss where I kept it shut. Perhaps it will be a long process, another journey, write in order to find out the reason why I can’t keep myself from writing. So that one day I might find the reason, once elusive, now lucid.
“Go into yourself,” he said. “Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart; confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write.
This most of all: ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night: must I write? Dig into yourself for a deep answer. And if this answer rings out in assent, if you meet this solemn question with a strong, simple ‘I must,’ then build your life in accordance with this necessity; your whole life, even into its humblest and most indifferent hour, must become a sign and witness to this impulse.
Then come close to Nature. Then, as if no one had ever tried before, try to say what you see and feel and love and lose…
Describe your sorrows and desires, the thoughts that pass through your mind and your belief in some kind of beauty –describe all these with heartfelt, silent, humble sincerity and, when you express yourself, use the Things around you, the images from your dreams, and the objects that you remember.
If your everyday life seems poor, don’t blame it; blame yourself; admit to yourself that you are not enough of a poet to call forth its riches; because for the creator there is not poverty and no poor, indifferent place.
And even if you found yourself in some prison, whose walls let in none of the world’s sounds – wouldn’t you still have your childhood, that jewel beyond all price, that treasure house of memories?
Turn your attentions to it. Try to raise up the sunken feelings of this enormous past; your personality will grow stronger, your solitude will expand and become a place where you can live in the twilight, where the noise of other people passes by, far in the distance.
And if out of this turning-within, out of this immersion in your own world, poems come, then you will not think of asking anyone whether they are good or not… you will see them as your dear natural possession, a piece of your life, a voice from it.
A work of art is good if it has arisen out of necessity. That is the only way one can judge it.”
Lord may you guide me in this journey, “let no unwholesome word proceed from [my] mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear.” (Ephesians 4:29)
