We think love is about finding someone who completes us. Rilke thinks that is a disaster.
He warns that young people usually throw themselves at each other to avoid facing their own loneliness. But that isn't love; that is distraction. Real love is difficult. It asks you to become a whole person first. cartas a un joven poeta rainer maria rilke
Our world moves at the speed of a click. Rilke’s world moved at the speed of sap rising in a tree. He writes: “Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign tongue.” He tells Kappus that he is trying to answer questions too early. You cannot force the answers any more than you can force a tree to blossom in December. The task is not to find the solution tonight. The task is to live the question until you grow into the answer. We think love is about finding someone who completes us
Permission to be slow. Permission to be unsure. Permission to be lonely without being broken. Permission to trust that the ache you feel is not a sign that you are doing life wrong, but that you are, perhaps for the first time, doing it right. But that isn't love; that is distraction
He tells the young poet to stop looking outward for validation. Don’t look for God in the church, don’t look for art in the galleries, and don't look for love in the mirror of another person just yet. Look at the boring, mundane, difficult things right in front of you.