in one of Rainer Maria Rilke's letters to a young poet, Rilke talks about having to be patient- what patience means to an artist and a human being. In the process of changing my lifestyle and becoming who i want to be, I have become fearful of everything. Even breathing can be a burden. Going outside and interacting with people can be discouraging. Abnormally so, you must think.
Back in the day when i would sit in front of my laptop for over 12 hours a day, i wondered what it would be like to fight for what i want and to live the way i should. then i told myself this, "just because i am dancing everyday does not mean i will be happy everyday. there will be gloomy days.. months even, and i will have to struggle with other things, even those that are unexpected." certainly i could envision what my life would bring if i were to pursue what i love. it's similar to being in love with someone and there are certain sacrifices that are made in order to be with that person completely.
perhaps right now, i am afraid to fully make those sacrifices. to be willing to trust myself completely, giving myself the permission to really DO EVERYTHING i must do, to love myself and to be okay even if i make mistakes or fail miserably from time to time. i must wait for that hour when a new sense of clarity is born. in the meantime, i must train and continue to observe, breathe in the beauty and the tragedy of life, and most of all, to be patient.
Here is the excerpt from Rilke's letter:
"Works of art are of an infinite solitude, and no means of approach is so useless as criticism. Only love can touch and hold them and be fair to them. Always trust yourself and your own feeling, as opposed to argumentation, discussions, or introductions of that sort; if it turns out that you are wrong, then the natural growth of your inner life will eventually guide you to other insights. Allow your judgments their own silent, undisturbed development, which, like all progress, must come from deep within and cannot be forced or hastened. Everything is gestation and then birthing. To let each impression and each embryo of a feeling come to completion, entirely in itself, in the dark, in the unsayable, the unconscious, beyond the reach of one's own understanding, and with deep humility and patience to wait for the hour when a new clarity is born: this alone is what it means to live as an artist: in understanding as in creating.
In this there is no measuring with time, a year doesn't matter, and ten years are nothing. Being an artist means: not numbering and counting, but ripening like a tree, which doesn't force its sap, and stands confidently in the storms of spring, not afraid that afterward summer may not come. It does come. But it comes only to those who are patient, who are there as if eternity lay before them, so unconcernedly silent and vast. I learn it every day of my life, learn it with pain I am grateful for: patience is everything!"
