'Were it possible for us to see further than our knowledge reaches, and yet a little way beyond the outworks of our divining, perhaps we would endure our sadnesses with greater confidence than our joys. For they are the moments when something new has entered us, something unknown; our feelings grow mute in shy perplexity, everything in us withdraws, a stillness comes, and the new, which no one knows, stands in the midst of it and is silent.
I believe that almost all our sadnesses are moments of tension that we find paralyzing because we no longer hear our surprised feelings linger. Because we are alone with the alien thing that has entered into our self; because everything intimate and accustomed is for an instant taken away; because we stand in the middle of a transition where we cannot remain standing.'
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I believe that almost all our sadnesses are moments of tension that we find paralyzing because we no longer hear our surprised feelings linger. Because we are alone with the alien thing that has entered into our self; because everything intimate and accustomed is for an instant taken away; because we stand in the middle of a transition where we cannot remain standing.'
Letters to a Young Poet - Rainer Maria Rilke
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