Status Updates From Letters to a Young Poet

“If it holds terrors they are our terrors, if it has its abysses these abysses belong to us, if there are dangers then we must try to love them”

Mr. Rilke trying to heal my avoidant tendencies rn help

“It is so important to be solitary and attentive when one is sad… the quieter, the more patient and open we are in our sadness… the more it will be our fate, and when one day in the future it ‘takes place’… we shall feel close to it in our inmost hearts. And that is necessary”

I am a dramatic sad poet and I’m going to be okay and my sadness will only lead to more poetry and a poet can do no wrong

“What is life supposed to do with this heap of half-broken things that they call their togetherness and would like to call their happiness… their future?”

Okay so… love is hopeless, just become a poet who lives in absolute solitude. Got it.

“Love your solitude and bear the pain it causes you with a melody wrought with lament… take pleasure in your growth, in which no one can accompany you, and be kind-hearted towards those you leave behind”

Senior year is lonely, I talk to like 3 ppl—this is my own doing. I miss the ppl I knew, regret leaving them behind. Idk if I can let that go for poetry, but this passage gives me some solace anyway

“What matters is to live everything. Live the questions for now. Perhaps then you will gradually, without noticing it, live your way into the answer, one distant day in the future”

Oh okay so I’m crying. I’ve felt hopeless lately, but this just gave me so much reassurance. I have to live so I can write—and I want to write.