The Value of Sadness for the Individual by Rainer Maria Rilke

- Nothing alien happens to us, but only what has long been our own.

Rainer Maria Rilke

In the collection of letters written by the Austrian poet, Rainer Maria Rilke (Letters to a Young Poet), to Xaver Kappus, there is one letter which stands out among them; letter eight, written in the summer of 1904 in Sweden. In this letter the poet illustrates the value of sadness for self transformation. It is one of the most expressive pieces of writing regarding the mission of the individual to go through pain, in order to grow. Following, are experts from the letter.

Perhaps many things inside you have been transformed; perhaps somewhere, someplace deep inside your being, you have undergone important changes while you were sad (...).

Perhaps we would bear our sadnesses with greater trust than we have in our joys. For they are the moments when something new has entered us, something unknown; our feelings grow mute in shy embarrassment, everything in us withdraws, a silence arises, and the new experience, which no one knows, stands in the mist of it all and says nothing (...).

And that is why it is so important to be solitary and attentive when one is sad (...). The quieter we are, the more patient and open we are in our sadnesses, the more deeply and serenely the new presence can enter us, and the more we can make it our own (...).

That what we call fate does not come into us from the outside, but emerges from us. It is only because so many people have not absorbed and transformed their fates while they were living in them that they have not realized what was emerging from them (...).

We have no reason to harbor any mistrust against our world, for it is not against us. If it has terrors, they are our terrors; if it has abysses, these abysses belong to us; if there are dangers, we must try to love them (...).

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 (...).

You must realize that something is happening to you, that life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in its hand and will not let you fall (...).

Your life, dear Mr. Kappus, which I think of with so many good wishes. Do you remember how that life yearned out of childhood toward the ''great thing''? I see that it is now yearning forth beyond the great thing toward the greater one. That is why it does not cease to be difficult, but that is also why it will not cease to grow.

* Drawings by Marco Mazzoni/ Source: Pinterest.

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