Rainer Maria Rilke 497 words, 40K views, 15 comments
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On Jun 10, 2013Thierry wrote :
To more or less understand this passage I first have to be sensitive to its peculiar context and stay close to the words the poet uses. Otherwise I might end up generalizing or drifting away from what it actually says. The context is that of a young poet turning for guidance to the great man whose poetry he loves and admires. Maybe seeking a form of assurance that poetry is really his vocation.
It is not that the world, the outside, can determine our fate, confirm or infirm that vocation through either appraisal or criticism, answers his mentor. Before 'this steps forth out of us to other people' (who will reflect it) an all too important process has taken place if we are receptive to the 'unfamiliar presence' that manifests itself in moments of sadness, melancholy. As this is felt, this becomes part of our being and alters our fate.This is how discreetly 'the future enters us' (through the present moment) and 'it is necessary' that this presence, unfamiliar as it may be, be absorbed, becomes 'our innermost being' as it is the agent of transformation itself.
So the making of a poet is in no way predictable from an outside perspective: 'the future stands still'. What we call fate owes nothing to the world outside but emerges from us long before the world can, in a way or other, reflect it. If we let infinite space move through us, we move in infinite space.
On Jun 10, 2013 Thierry wrote :
To more or less understand this passage I first have to be sensitive to its peculiar context and stay close to the words the poet uses. Otherwise I might end up generalizing or drifting away from what it actually says. The context is that of a young poet turning for guidance to the great man whose poetry he loves and admires. Maybe seeking a form of assurance that poetry is really his vocation.
It is not that the world, the outside, can determine our fate, confirm or infirm that vocation through either appraisal or criticism, answers his mentor. Before 'this steps forth out of us to other people' (who will reflect it) an all too important process has taken place if we are receptive to the 'unfamiliar presence' that manifests itself in moments of sadness, melancholy. As this is felt, this becomes part of our being and alters our fate.This is how discreetly 'the future enters us' (through the present moment) and 'it is necessary' that this presence, unfamiliar as it may be, be absorbed, becomes 'our innermost being' as it is the agent of transformation itself.
So the making of a poet is in no way predictable from an outside perspective: 'the future stands still'. What we call fate owes nothing to the world outside but emerges from us long before the world can, in a way or other, reflect it. If we let infinite space move through us, we move in infinite space.