Why bother writing a blog?

Have you ever had the feeling of reading the right words at the right time? The reading of Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet was one such experience for me... I can only describe the process as a bone-dry sponge hitting the water: the hard–won wisdom shared in the short tome seemed to saturate its way into my inmost being.

I was delighted to discover that from the very first letter, Rilke’s words gave voice and form to my internal musings about the creative process; by the end of the book I was imagining that the poet was writing his letters directly to me, as mentor to student.

I’ve been thinking a lot about artistic endeavors lately. So much discussion about books, music, cinema or painting tends to revolve around the word controversial without ever seeming to get around to the heart of the matter: What truth about the human condition does the work convey?

It’s as if we’re so shallow and idea poor that we’re stuck confusing cleverness for genius; we hail a man an iconoclast when he was merely being shocking.

Maybe the reason we don’t see much great art anymore is that we insulate ourselves too well against the hurts and pains of existence. A life untouched by disappointment or tragedy will probably be left unexamined—there’s no impetus to explore the deeper meaning of things. And that’s exactly where Rilke would have us go to perfect our writing.

To Rilke, your first and foremost audience is yourself. Your work will have a truth and clarity if you write about the things that you know and that are important to you: everyday events, memories, and even “insignificant things” that you hardly notice happening around you. Just as in any other creative art form, personal meaning is everything.

Solitude is absolutely essential to this process of discovery because answers don’t come easy (if at all) for many of life’s questions. Many experiences, both good and bad, seem to just leave us with memories and question marks hanging in the air. Isolation rewards the writer, not with the “answers,” but an increased clarity about the human condition. Not Absolute Truth, but with the truth as he understands it. It’s that conviction that breathes life into writing and makes it “real.”

I’ve received great comfort from that. Maybe my greatest agonies and disappointments are the kindling by which my writing will ignite. Perhaps then, through this patient and steady process, my deepest wounds may become my greatest glories.