The written word really is my preferred way of learning about and making sense of my experiences.
Especially when I read writing like this:
…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, Letters to A Young Poet
On a different point, I think back to the letters I used to write, in the days before we had email, and I am sure I never wrote quite as well as Rilke did! I love reading the letters of poets and writers and other famous people. I always wonder how they wrote so beautifully and expressed themselves so well – did they write, and rewrite, their letters, until they were happy with them before finally sealing them into envelopes and posting them?
You’d think, wouldn’t you, now we have wordprocessors and rewriting things is so easy, that our written expression would be vastly improved? I sometimes think that the speed at which we can get words out, and all the demands for prompt responses (both real and self-imposed), mean that quality of much of our writing is often shoddier.
One Comment
I still have letters written to me from a girlfriend who moved away at the end of Year 12. The correspondence definitely suffered when we switched to email. On the other hand,I corresponded with another girlfriend via email when she went to the UK- and the friendship went from strength to strength.
In the case of putting pen to paper, there is more time for reflection before expressing those thoughts, rather than bashing something out on the PC. Thank you for that quote from Rilke!