Wisdom

There are 11 posts tagged Wisdom (this is page 1 of 1).

Notes: Letters to a Young Poet – Letter 2

Written between 1902 and 1908, "Letters To A Young Poet are ten letters written to a young man about to enter the German military. His name was Franz Kappus, he was 19 years old, and he wrote Rilke looking for guidance and a critique of some of his poems. Rilke was himself only 27 when the first letter was written. The resulting five year correspondence is a virtual owner's manual on what it is (and what is required) to be an artist and a person."

While you can purchase the book, you can also find the full set of letters online for free. I've been going through them slowly and keeping track of my favorite passage from each letter. I'll be sharing those passages here over the next few weeks.

Here's my favorite passage from Letter 2, written April 5, 1903:

Irony: Don't let yourself be controlled by it, especially during uncreative moments. When you are fully creative, try to use it, as one more way to take hold of fife. Used purely, it too is pure, and one needn't be ashamed of it; but if you feel yourself becoming too familiar with it, if you are afraid of this growing familiarity, then turn to great and serious objects, in front of which it becomes small and helpless. Search into the depths of Things: there, irony never descends and when you arrive at the edge of greatness, find out whether this way of perceiving the world arises from a necessity of your being. For under the influence of serious Things it will either fall away from you (if it is something accidental), or else (if it is really innate and belongs to you) it will grow strong, and become a serious tool and take its place among the instruments which you can form your art with.

Notes: Letters to a Young Poet – Letter 1

When I met Lisa Rigano earlier this year she recommended that I read Letters to a Young Poet, and I'm really glad she did because these letters are a goldmine of wisdom.

Written between 1902 and 1908, "Letters To A Young Poet are ten letters written to a young man about to enter the German military. His name was Franz Kappus, he was 19 years old, and he wrote Rilke looking for guidance and a critique of some of his poems. Rilke was himself only 27 when the first letter was written. The resulting five year correspondence is a virtual owner's manual on what it is (and what is required) to be an artist and a person."

While you can purchase the book, you can also find the full set of letters online for free. I've been going through them slowly and keeping track of my favorite passage from each letter. I'll be sharing those passages here over the next few weeks.

Here's my favorite passage from Letter 1:

Don't write love poems; avoid those forms that are too facile and ordinary: they are the hardest to work with, and it takes a great, fully ripened power to create something individual where good, even glorious, traditions exist in abundance. So rescue yourself from these general themes and write about what your everyday life offers you; describe your sorrows and desires, the thoughts that pass through your mind and your belief in some kind of beauty Describe all these with heartfelt, silent, humble sincerity and, when you express yourself, use the Things around you, the images from your dreams, and the objects that you remember. If your everyday life seems poor, don't blame it; blame yourself; admit to yourself that you are not enough of a poet to call forth its riches; because for the creator there is no poverty and no poor, indifferent place. And even if you found yourself in some prison, whose walls let in none of the world's sound - wouldn't you still have your childhood, that jewel beyond all price, that treasure house of memories? Turn your attention to it. Try to raise up the sunken feelings of this enormous past; your personality will grow stronger, your solitude will expand and become a place where you can live in the twilight, where the noise of other people passes by, far in the distance. And if out of , this turning within, out of this immersion in your own world, poems come, then you will not think of asking anyone whether they are good or not. Nor will you try to interest magazines in these works: for you will see them as your dear natural possession, a piece of your life, a voice from it. A work of art is good if it has arisen out of necessity. That is the only way one can judge it.

Notes: The living voice, counts for a great deal

"Honor those you quote by practicing their wisdom and then quoting yourself; be not a mirror but a sprouting seed." I was compelled to publish that thought after seeing popular quote after popular quote retweeted and shared on the Internet.

The importance of practicing the wisdom behind popular quotes instead of simply sharing and forgetting them is paramount. I believe the best way we can honor the authors of those quotes is not by sharing their wisdom, but by practicing it.

After I published my thought, my friend Amit shared the following passage from Letters from a Stoic by Seneca, which gelled very well with this train of thinking (the following was written about 2,000 years ago):

But in the case of a grown man who has made incontestable progress it is disgraceful to go hunting after gems of wisdom, and prop himself up with a minute number of the best-known sayings, and be dependent on his memory as well; it is time he was standing on his own feet. He should be delivering himself of such sayings, not memorizing them. It is disgraceful that a man who is old or in sight of old age should have a wisdom deriving solely from his notebook. ‘Zeno said this.’ And what have you said? ‘Cleanthes said that.’ What have you said? How much longer are you going to serve under others’ orders? Assume authority yourself and utter something that may be handed down to posterity.

Produce something from your own resources. This is why I look on people like this as a spiritless lot – the people who are forever acting as interpreters and never as creators, always lurking in someone else’s shadow. They never venture to do for themselves the things they have spent such a long time learning. They exercise their memories on things that are not their own. It is one thing, however, to remember, another to know. To remember is to safeguard something entrusted to your memory, whereas to know, by contrast, is actually to make each item your own, and not to be dependent on some original and be constantly looking to see what the master said. ‘Zeno said this, Cleanthes that.’ Let’s have some difference between you and the books! How much longer are you going to be a pupil? From now on do some teaching as well. Why, after all, should I listen to what I can read for myself? ‘The living voice,’ it may be answered, ‘counts for a great deal.’ Not when it is just acting in a kind of secretarial capacity, making itself an instrument for what others have to say.

Notes: Tips for Life

Julien Smith wrote an excellent list of 100 tips for life, people, and happiness. I'm sharing my favorites below:

1. True wisdom and insight is always free.
21. Be comfortable with abandonment, even of parts of your identity.
25. Genius gets you nowhere. Execution is everything.
31. Get a passport. Fill it up with stamps no one has ever seen.
33. Read biographies. It’s like having access to the best mentors in history.
48. Learn to enjoy hunger.
69. Say no to projects you don’t care about.
71. Find your voice.
79. Good connections are about people, not social networks.
93. If you see someone who needs help, stop asking yourself if they need help. Instead, just help.
95. The best conversations are had side by side, not one in front of the other.
99. Courage is a learned skill.

Notes: Evolving Beings: This is Your Year

Evita Ochel interviewed me for her Evolving Beings in Action series several months ago. Recently, she published an excellent ebook, Evolving Beings: This is Your Year, in which she curates bits of wisdom from 52 evolving beings. I'm including my contribution below.

I was sitting at my desk looking out the window at the Boston skyline when a bird flew past and soared off into the distance. I stopped what I was doing and let my eyes and my thoughts follow him. Was this it? Was the rest of my life going to be a repeat of yesterday? Was I going to spend the remainder of my time on Earth playing it safe and making choices based on what society thought was best?

The thought of that spark dying inside scared me to death. Not doing anything at all became more risky than risking it all. Later that evening I wrote an email to my boss and told him I was leaving in two months. I proceeded to sell everything I owned and, inspired by many who shared online their stories of nomadic travel, I formulated a rough plan to spend six months traveling through India, Vietnam, and Nepal with all my possessions on my back in a small 32L backpack.

I didn't have a lot of money to spend (I lost the three rental properties to the sub-prime mortgage crisis in 2007 and filed for bankruptcy the following year), so I budgeted $3,000 for the entire trip. I had no idea how much traveling on a budget would affect the way this journey changed me. The small budget forced me to stay outside of the big cities and living close to the locals opened my eyes to the inequality, the poverty, and the sheer contrast in reality. The misplaced priorities of many of those living in developed countries, including myself, became blindingly obvious.

While I was buying houses, surfing the Internet, and fixing computers, entire families were dying of hunger and living on sidewalks. Children were scrounging for water and sitting in piles of trash. And not just a few people either, but nearly a billion people!

Yet despite all this, most of the people seemed happy. They seemed grateful to just be alive. Their possessions represented necessity, not fluff for simple pleasures, or junk for impulsive wants. Stuff in their lives had meaning and purpose.

It became incredibly apparent to me that in terms of stuff, I needed very little to live a happy and fulfilled life. Things were simply a distraction from what was real and my ability to make a difference in the world was severely limited by how much physical, emotional, and spiritual baggage I held onto.

I have committed to living a frugal, minimalistic lifestyle in all realms: physical, emotional, and spiritual and the freedom this enables allows me to explore all areas of my life with an open mind, an open heart, and an open soul.

Wisdom I Share With You

- Recognize your completeness and the utter beauty that surrounds you and exists within you. Search for the lesson in each situation and donʼt allow fear or pressure from the status quo to enslave your life.

- Find peace and contentment within each moment and be grateful for everything and everyone: we are all connected and each person contributes to supporting the existence of everyone else.

- Free yourself of attachment to things and learn to recognize universal truths. The most valuable things in the world cannot be bought or sold and you already possess everything you need to obtain them. Ask how you can do more with less.

- Look forward, look far into your future, not to create plans or set goals but to anticipate how you will wish you had spent your time. When you die, how do you want the world to look different than today? Is there something that you want to change more than anything else? Go do that. Search for the first step that leads in that direction and then start walking. Ask how your choices affect others and accept responsibility for making the best choice.

- It's easy to get distracted and weighed down by time, but it can either be your friend or your enemy. Time can either be a vessel for change and exploration or a prison for a stagnant and lifeless existence. The choice is yours and the responsibility to do something meaningful with your life is also yours.

Heart Growth

Trees do not grow by greedily snatching the rain from the sky. Instead they cradle each drop, patiently ushering them one by one to the earth below. Only after filtering through the soil and collecting nutrients does the water get absorbed by the roots, carried back up through the trunk, and finally pushed out to the very same leaves and buds it passed on the way down.

Without firmly planted roots and strong trunk, the life-giving potential of the water would be dispersed, misguided, and lost in a splash of confusion. Our individual growth is no different. The wisdom of our teachers -- the inspirational leaders, fearless explorers, and great writers who inspire and motivate -- will only help us grow if we choose to digest their wisdom through our core, channeling and guiding their wisdom through our essence.

When we grow and reach for the stars, we need to grow and reach from that place deep inside, that place where the very essence of our existence illuminates the path ahead. Real growth does not originate from grabbing wisdom and slapping on inspiration but rather through digesting, filtering, and absorbing the nutrients of wisdom through our heart.