We spend billions of dollars a year trying to escape loneliness. We scroll, we date frantically, we work late, we numb. Rilke says: Stop running. “Love your loneliness and bear the pain it causes you with a simple, soft song.” He understood that loneliness is the price of originality. If you are always surrounded by the noise of the crowd, you can only ever think the crowd’s thoughts. The artist—and by extension, anyone trying to live an authentic life—must guard their solitude like a fragile animal.
The young poet, Franz Xaver Kappus, was a 19-year-old military cadet. He felt trapped by uniforms, drills, and the suffocating expectations of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He sent Rilke his poems, hoping for technical advice on rhyme or meter. Instead, Rilke performed a kind of surgery on his soul. cartas a un joven poeta rainer maria rilke
He tells the young poet to stop looking outward for validation. Don’t look for God in the church, don’t look for art in the galleries, and don't look for love in the mirror of another person just yet. Look at the boring, mundane, difficult things right in front of you. We spend billions of dollars a year trying
Letters to a Young Poet is not a self-help book. It won't give you ten steps to happiness. In fact, it might make you more uncomfortable with the shallowness of your daily life. “Love your loneliness and bear the pain it
He isn't romanticizing misery. He is saying that the voice you need to listen to is the one that only speaks when you are alone.