I'm Afraid I Did Not

Sometimes I Long For A Convent Cell, With The Sublime Wisdom Of Centuries Set Out On Bookshelves All Along The Wall And A View Across The Cornfields--there Must Be Cornfields And They Must Wave In The Breeze--and There I Would Immerse Myself In The Wisdom Of The Ages And In Myself. Then I Might Perhaps Find Peace And Clarity. But That Would Be No Great Feat. It Is Right Here, In This Very Place, In The Here And The Now, That I Must Find Them.

If One Burdens The Future With One's Worries, It Cannot Grow Organically. I Am Filled With Confidence, Not That I Shall Succeed In Worldly Things, But That Even When Things Go Badly For Me I Shall Still Find Life Good And Worth Living.

Thinking Gets You Nowhere. It May Be A Fine And Noble Aid In Academic Studies, But You Can't Think Your Way Out Of Emotional Difficulties. That Takes Something Altogether Different. You Have To Make Yourself Passive Then, And Just Listen. Re-establish Contact With A Slice Of Eternity.

Slowly But Surely I Have Been Soaking Rilke Up These Last Few Months: The Man, His Work And His Life. And That Is Probably The Only Right Way With Literature, With Study, With People Or With Anything Else: To Let It All Soak In, To Let It All Mature Slowly Inside You Until It Has Become A Part Of Yourself. That, Too, Is A Growing Process. Everything Is A Growing Process. And In Between, Emotions And Sensations That Strike You Like Lightning. But Still The Most Important Thing Is The Organic Process Of Growing.

I Don’t Want To Be Anything Special. I Only Want To Try To Be True To That In Me Which Seeks To Fulfill Its Promise.