Letters to a Young Poet

Ten simple letters with quite a bit of wisdom behind them. This is one of the few books that I would here. Please read it.
want to keep sticky notes in so then I could refer back to them later. The whole text can be found online

Rainer Maria Rilke was a poet in the early 20th Century who wrote letters to a fellow poet who went to the same military school he had--though a few years different.

There are many things that happen throughout the course of these letters. They are in response to an inquiry of critique on poetry. We only get one side of the letters, but they are full of inspiration, not only for writers (young and more experienced) but in almost any avenues of life. He asks his reader to look into himself and ask "Must I write?" You can ask yourself, "Must I ______ <insert what you most enjoy doing--reading, math, accounting, look at the stars, etc>?" When faced with that question myself, I found that I didn't need to write. It wasn't a must. Reading, devouring knowledge, is what I must. (This blog has helped that, which is awesome especially considering how much I disliked reading when I was little.) But you can ask yourself, what must you do?

There are many other things which Rilke discusses with his pen pal. Not only suggested books that he says has wisdom in them, but he discusses critiques (not to read them), solitude, the passion of writing, taking on anxieties and sadness, taking on what is difficult whilst in sadness, that your doubts can be a "good quality if you school them."

It seems Mr. Kappas, the pen pal to which Rilke is writing, had some dramatic changes in his life that kept him depressed and Rilke was one of the people who tried to assist and give advice as to how to overcome them. His advice was profound and from what I've been able to see in my own life, very accurate.

Some of my favorite quotes are these:

"The only sorrows which are harmful and bad are those one takes among people in order to drown them out."

"You shouldn't be dismayed if a sadness rises up in front of your, greater than any you have ever seen before; ...Why should you want to exclude from your life all unsettling, all pain, all depression of spirit, when you don't know what work it is these states are performing within you? ... You know well you are in a period of transformation and want nothing more than to be transformed. ... You must be patient as an invalid and trusting as a convalescent, for you are perhaps both. And more than that: you are also the doctor responsible for looking after himself. But with all illnesses there are many days when the doctor can do nothing but wait. And inasfar as you are your own doctor, this is above all is what you must do now."

"And your doubts can become a good quality if you school them. They must grow to be knowledgeable, they must learn to be critical. As soon as they begin to spoil something for you ask them why a thing is ugly, demand hard evidence, test them, and you will perhaps find them at a loss and short of an answer, or perhaps mutinous. But do not give in, request arguments, and act with this kind of attentiveness and consistency every single time, and the day will come when instead of behind demolishers they will be among your best workers--perhaps of all those at work on the building of your life."