October 18, 2011

On Security

Sketch, by Auguste Rodin

Outside of poetry and art, security is only and ever achieved at the cost of the most inescapable limitation. This diminishment consists of choosing to be satisfied and pleasured by a world where everything is known and where preoccupation with self is both possible and useful. But how could we want that? Our security must become a relationship to the whole, omitting nothing.

Letter to Ilse Erdman
October 9, 1916

4 comments:

  1. always so much depth in his thoughts...that what i love with rilke

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  2. Who has not known the delusions that come with attempting to find security in "a world where everything is known and where preoccupation with self is both possible and useful." Embracing the whole of life, "omitting nothing," as Rilke says, is the only way to true security.

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  3. security and safety - i've been talking about this a lot lately. this is another conversation of contradiction i am engaged in. i do not want for security or safety, for it lulls me into a stupor, never mind being a great self deceit. and yet a part of me moves toward being lied to. it is this way in regards to death, too. inside of the friction of these contradictory conversations i breathe, showing myself that i am living.

    xo
    erin

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  4. Neat,nothing like a Rodin.

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"Everything is blooming most recklessly; if it were voices instead of colors, there would be an unbelievable shrieking into the heart of the night."

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

Go ahead, bloom recklessly!