Live the questions 🏃
"Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final."
― Rainer Maria Rilke
🍂 Making peace with contradictions
Every year-end, I reflect on contradictions within myself and try to make sense of them. While scanning old notes, I saw I wrote this 10 years ago:
Slowly fading yet still growing,
Days are passing, and times are changing,
The soul is breaking but still glowing,
A paradox— I am freely becoming
I intentionally contemplate about conflicts and contradictions within myself, often recalling one of Danielle Bennett's spoken poetry pieces:
"I am not forcing resolve, because I'm not sure that's the way life folds. But I am reconciling every version of myself, because I want them to meet one day and have a good laugh at how right we swore we were."
Recently, I contemplated two personal contradictions: Planning and Spontaneity.
If you have met me in the past 5 years, you'd know I plan a lot. Some people would have a hard time picturing me as spontaneous. My calendar is my personal assistant.
However, I never liked using Planners; I use them as journals instead. I'm too spontaneous for Planners.
Despite its convenience, I realized I didn't like Planners because of the permanence that comes with physically writing something down, and I have to cross them out if plans change.
It was not until the last few weeks of 2023 that I started enjoying the idea of writing in a planner by changing my mindset: I no longer think of what I should do; I write what I am looking forward to on a specific day. And yes, it can change. And changing what you are going to look forward to can be joyful.
If something better comes along, I don't need to get stuck on the plan that I once wrote. No writing is final.
📓 Letters to a young poet
The last book I finished in 2023 is short but full of insight. It compiles 10 letters from Rainer Maria Rilke to a young poet seeking advice.
The beauty of reading essays from poets is they don't shy away from talking about overwhelming emotions, or the beauty of the mundane.
Two of my favorite takeaways:
Let everything happen to you: Face the sadness and challenges with courage and resilience. Let them wash you new and allow these challenges to unfold into something beautiful.
“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.”
Most importantly, live the questions: Don't get too hung up on the uncertainties in life. Live in the present. Experience life.
"And what matters is to live everything. Live the questions for now. Perhaps then you will gradually, without noticing it, live your way into the answer, one distant day in the future.”
I have a growing love for Rilke's poetry, and it's a good companion during days when you need to reflect and slow down.
May we all find comfort in our inner paradoxes, for they are the tapestry of our lives.
📑 More quick reads
Below are some articles I recently read that made life a bit more meaningful:
Brian Chesky
Justin Wise
Rainer Maria Rilke
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