When I began reading the excerpt by Rilke, at first I thought that it was pretty pointless when she wrote of "The Experience" of a boy becoming one with the nature surrounding him. I still don't understand the point of it, and I don't think that that is possible. Or that if it is, then it can only exist for a very short period of time, so why dwell on it? If it can't be something to strive for. You just fall into it, sporadically.
I can relate a little better to some of her other thoughts about how loving another human being is the most difficult task entrusted to us, or when she teaches that we should "have patience with everything unresolved in our hearts and try to love the questions themselves"
I really enjoyed when she wrote about how we view life. She says that if our world has terrors, or dangers, or fears, it isn't against US, but instead they are our own self made terrors, and our own dangers and our own fears. In reality, we make our world. However we choose to perceive things and react to things is how we define ourselves.
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I think it is interesting that "An Experience" had the opposite effect for me. I enjoyed it greatly. Just the choice of words were able to move me to a different place. After I read what you had to say I thought about what the point was. I think that he was saying it is possible to have moments in one's life when you cross over to somewhere else, or when you are able to become one with nature. This experience caused the young man in the story to feel and see things like he had never seen them before. I actually had an acquaintance with somebody that said he had an out of body experience called astral projection and when I read this it reminded me of it. He said he left his body and was able to look down on hiself and everything else. If you could remove yourself from your immediate situation and look down at yourself don't you think everything would be much clearer. You would see so much more. Maybe that's what it was about, seeing so much more.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your blog. You said, "In reality, we make our world. However we choose to perceive things and react to things is how we define ourselves." That is so true. Sometimes it isn't what happens to us, but what we do with it that determines the outcome and our future. You took it a step further with "how we define ourselves." I hadn't really thought of that in that way before. But it is true. We don't just choose a certain way and bring certain outcomes, we do end up defining ourselves.
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing!