Three things

I don’t feel much like talking (typing) this week. I spent a lot of energy on Monday thinking about what success is while writing my paper on Nathan Roark and I don’t have much left.

Okay, three things.

1.) Letter to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke.

“one more bit of advice: 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 answer.”

“You are looking outside, and that is what you should most avoid right now. No one can advise or help you - no one. There is only one thing you should do. Go into yourself.”

“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.”

Is this advice for a young poet or advice for a senior in college trying to figure out what to do with their life?

Rilke talks about solitude a lot. Only in solitude can we find God, only in solitude can we find the answers. In class we got real when talking about solitude. I guess you’d call it a moment. Being in solitude is a funny thing, and I think it’s important to make a distinction between solitude and feeling lonely. Well, actually, I take that back. But there is voluntary and involuntary solitude, both of which result with one being in his/her own company. 

IT’S HARD sometimes being with yourself. I know it was really difficult for me in Italy for a semester. I felt alone pretty much every day. It stings, and it can feel like torture, like you’re in a prison. But the shitty thing about that is that in the same condition that can feel so uncomfortable and so oppressive is the condition where one can find ”god” and the answers to all their questions. You have to find some quietude to listen to your gut, or your soul. I would even hazard a guess that the only way that we can find the answer to “what is success?” is in solitude.

2.) Larry (Kent’s friend) who’s last name escapes me, taught us some things last class. I zoned out for half of it because I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about, but he had one bit of advice that went something like: Become the best at what you do because that is the best way you can give back to society.

3.) After writing my paper on success and creativity after interviewing an awesome guy by the name of Nathan Roark, I think I’ve figured out what it takes to be successful. Nathan kept telling me, you can’t be successful before you know yourself, what you need, what gets you riled up, happy, etc. Rilke said pretty much the same thing in that you have to go into yourself for the answers, you have to know yourself. Carl Jung says the same thing, “It is quite possible that we look at the world from the wrong side and that we might find the right answer by changing our point of view and looking at it from the other side, i.e., not from outside, but from inside.” Abraham Maslow, you know, The Hierarchy of Needs, talks about these four categories that we are motivated (don’t necessarily have to) to take care of before we can reach our potential, to self actualize, or be successful (which I’ll get back to). But it is in knowing our own physiological, safety, love, and esteem needs that we can focus on higher things. Ask yourself, “What are my specific needs? What does it take for me to feel safe? To feel loved? To feel good about myself?” When you know these, and in turn know yourself, according to Nathan, according to a bunch of others, you can then become successful. You can work on self actualization, or being what you are meant to be.

 Here's a video I took while riding my bike. I didn't edit it or anything, I thought it captured the moment nicely.