When my blunt senior
year adviser back then in high school told me to “grow up” when I usually come
in late, I almost fell out of my chair. I honestly did not know how to react with
that at the moment. Was it something too personal? All this time I have been
living a lie if he meant for me to be mature enough. I thought I was living
large; living the life as how it is supposed to be. From the moment there I
realized that he was right, I was still that immature bud who denies herself of
the growth she needs.
Growing up could
mean two things: the literal and the figurative one. If you take it so
literally, growing up would mean “to increase in size or substance by natural
development”, or to become bigger and larger, but it never mentioned to grow up
to be better. But I guess for us people, the larger scale we grow, the better
we become. On the contrary, growing up in the figurative sense would mean “to
grow toward or arrive at a full stature or achieving psychological, social and
mental maturity”. It is taking a leap through the years that have passed. All I
thought this was happening to me, but I guess I was proven out to be wrong.
This pushed me into self-introspecting up until now. And when my Literature
professor told us to read about Rilke’s Letters
to a Young Poet, I cannot help but relate to these striking words:
“….to keep growing, silently and earnestly,
through your whole development, you couldn’t disturb it any more violently than
by looking outside and waiting for outside answers to questions that only your
innermost feeling, in your quietest hour, can perhaps wish for you….”
This line was taken from Rilke’s first
letter to Mr. Kappus about advising him to “go into yourself” in finding his
inner voice when it comes to poetry. In a similar way I can relate to this line
because it basically summarizes my whole journey in my everyday life. Tardiness
has always been the issue I am trying to work on until now. Every morning, I
just can’t get myself out of my bed quickly. This everyday habit of mine has
become the reason why I seem to view life as a boring and repetitive one, and
whatever you do each day would be things you will be doing in the next days and
it goes on and on and on… But Rilke said that we should blame ourselves for
having that kind of everyday life- the plain and usual one. He said that we
must admit to ourselves that we always fail to call forth the riches of what
life has to offer. Life truly is what we make it.
These
things left me thinking about other things underlying the word “life”. Holding
the same book but leafing through the pages, I was immersed with such good
literary piece which also tackled about issues and anxieties of life. I wish to
mention the ones I can truly relate to.
First,
there’s patience. This was basically mentioned all throughout the ten letters
but was elaborated in Rilke’s sixth letter. Being patient despite the
hopelessness in us has always been the key to be able to survive the strife we
face. It is then only possible when we recognize the true source of it, along
with hope, faith, joy and love.
“Why don’t you
think of Him as the one who is coming, who has been approaching from all
eternity, the one who will someday arrive, the ultimate fruit of a tree whose
leaves we are? …Is there anything that can deprive you of the hope that in this
way you will someday exist in Him, who is the farthest, the outermost limit?”
He is the alpha and the omega. In every
trial we overcome and success we experience, we must offer it all to Him who is
the great source of everything. He is not only our Creator but also our Father.
We must be thankful for the life He has given us, and I am truly thankful to
Him for loving me despite my sinfulness. He has always been there with us. He is
the reason of our existence. He is God.
Next,
there’s solitude. This word was first mentioned on Rilke’s first letter, but
was further emphasized on the fourth letter where he said, “But your
solitude will be a support and a home for you, even in the midst of very
unfamiliar circumstances, and from it you will find all your paths..” Yes, no man is an island but there are
instances in life when we need to love our solitude. We need to “try to sing
out the pain that it causes”.
In a similar way, I can relate to this when
I decided to study here in Manila. It was a tough decision though but I managed
to pull it off when I cried a river in front of my parents just to let me in
this University. I needed to cross oceans and seas from my hometown to
“reality”. In here, I began to learn what it takes to be independent. I live by
myself in a dormitory, where I do nothing but take care of myself in totality. Every
day seems to be a great struggle for me to juggle the physical (nourishing
myself and maintaining the cleanliness of my room, plus washing my own clothes
and basically being the mom and dad of myself here), mental (studying,
experiencing and learning new things), psychological (coping with stress) and
emotional (fighting the issue of bullying last year and of course,
homesickness) aspects of my life here without the presence of my family. What even
more spells sacrifice is that I only get to go home thrice a school year that
is during semestral break, Christmas break, and summer. But despite how life
may seem to be very difficult here compared to the life I would probably have
had I chose to study in my hometown; this will serve as an eye-opener for me to
experience reality all by myself. This will also be a good training ground for
me to be more responsible in taking good care of myself and my belongings even
if I am away from my comfort zone (but being your own doctor when you are sick
surely is difficult L ). My second year is almost over and I’m
half way there, but still 85% away from my dreams of becoming a doctor someday.
I can do this!
Lastly, there’s love. In connection with the
nature of solitude, I’d love to mention a few striking lines from Rilke’s
seventh letter:
“We know
little, but we must trust in what is difficult is a certainty that will never
abandon us; it is good to be solitary, for solitude is difficult that something
is difficult must be one more reason for us to do it. It is also good to love,
because love is difficult. For one human being to love another human being:
that is perhaps the most difficult task that has been entrusted to us, the
ultimate task, the final test and proof, the work in which all the other work
is mere preparation…”
These lines, by
far, are my favorite lines from the letter. I was moved by how
Rilke emphasized on the uncertainties of love, most especially the love
experience of youngsters that are filled with error. Young love, as how they
call it, is the result of the wonders of innocence and struggle to grow
instantly, where most young couples believe that what they have is true love
that they resort to the convention: early marriage. Honestly, I wanted to hide
my face in shame while reading this letter since I could not help but relate and
agree to what he mentioned. The young are still beginners in everything, they
are still not matured enough to be capable of it but are capable of learning it
along the way. On a personal note, I too have held my hopes up in finding
“true love” and I thought I already found it in high school but I failed anyway.
And with the heartbreak I managed to overcome, I can say that I have learned
how to not rush everything because everything will fall into the right place at
the right time. I need to love myself first.
With all these, I
would say that Rilke succeeded in making me realize what life truly meant with
his ten letters filled with awe-inspiring things to know. And from this moment
on, I will let life happen to me.
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