Cartas a un poeta, entendiendo la vida y viviendo con paciencia

Aquellos que me conocen, sabrán que una de mis frases favoritas la descubrí en uno de esos imanes con frases inspiracionales que la gente pega en los refrigeradores. Estaba en una fiesta cuándo leí esta frase que dice:

«Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer” Rainer Maria Rilke

Tras leer esta frase tuve que dejar mi bebida y buscar una servilleta y una pluma para no olvidar estas palabras ya que el contenido de esta frase respondía una de las preguntas que siempre me había hecho en esta vida.

En fin, ahí hubiera terminado la historia de no ser porque Kate me regaló hace dos días un libro titulado “Letters to a young poet” que al parecer es la obra original en la cual se encuentra esta frase de Rielke.

Tal cómo lo sugiere el título, “Letters to a young poet” es un conjunto de cartas que Rielke escribió a un joven de 19-20 años. Estas cartas contienen consejos  para la vida y cubren temas cómo la soledad y el amor. A pesar de que Rielke no conocía (y nunca conoció) al joven poeta, Rielke decidió ayudarlo ya que se sentía identificado con el mismo.

¿Qué opino de este libro?

La verdad es un libro asombroso. Cada página contiene enseñanzas muy valiosas e ideas que valen la pena recordar. En muchas páginas nos llega incluso la sensación de que el autor no le está escribiendo al joven poeta sino que le está escribiendo a una versión de si mismo en el pasado.

A continuación les pongo unos fragmentos que me llamaron la atención…

Acerca de conocernos a nosotros mismos…

Go into yourself and see how deep the place is from which your life flows; at its source you will find the answer to the question of whether you must create. Accept that answer, just as it is given to you, without trying to interpret. Perhaps you will discover that you are called to be an artist. Then take that destiny upon yourself, and bear it, its burden and its greatness, without ever asking what reward might come from outside.

Acerca del camino que hemos elegido…

Be happy about your growth, in which of course you can’t take anyone with you, and be gentle with those who stay behind; be confident and calm in front of them and don’t torment them with your doubts and don’t frighten them with your faith or joy, which they wouldn’t be able to comprehend. Seek out some simple and true feeling of what you have in common with them, which doesn’t necessarily have to alter when you yourself change again and again.

Acerca de la felicidad y la tristeza…

If only it were possible for us to see farther than our knowledge reaches, and even a little beyond the outworks of our presentiment, perhaps we would bear our sadnesses with greater trust than we have in our joys.

Acerca del mundo en el que vivimos…

We have no reason to harbor any mistrust against our world, for it is not against us. If it has terrors, they are our terrors; if it has abysses, these abysses belong to us; if there are dangers, we must try to love them… Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.

Acerca del Destino

What we call fate does not come into us from the outside, but emerges from us. It is only because so many people have not absorbed and transformed their fates while they were living in them that they have not realized what was emerging from them; it was so alien to them, that, in their confusion and fear, they thought it must have entered them at the very moment they became aware of it, for they swore they had never before found anything like that inside them. Jus as people for a long time had a wrong idea about the sun´s motion, they are even now wrong about the motion of what is to come. The future stands still, dear Mr. Kappus, but we move in infinitive space.

Las 10 cartas de Rilke están disponibles (gratis) en Internet. Si les interesa leerlas pueden hacer click aquí.

Es importante mencionar que aunque las cartas no son muy largas, no es tan fácil leerlas no por el vocabulario sino por el contenido y las enseñanzas que contienen. Por lo tanto recomiendo leerlas con calma.

M.