Consider whether great changes have not happened deep inside your being in times when you were sad. The only sadnesses that are unhealthy and dangerous are those we carry around in public in order to drown them out. Like illnesses that are treated superficially, they only recede for a while and then break out more severely. Untreated they gather strength inside us and become the rejected, lost, and unloved life that we may die of. If only we could see a little farther than our knowledge reaches and a little beyond the borders of our intuition, we might perhaps bear our sorrows more trustingly than we do our joys. For they are the moments when something new enters us, something unknown. Our feelings grow mute in shy embarrassment, they take a step back, a stillness arises, and the new thing, which no one knows, stands in the midst of it all and says nothing.
Borbeby gärd, Sweden, August 12, 1904
Letters to a Young Poet
What a lovely and timely piece for me personally.
ReplyDeleteI can so relate to 'Untreated they gather strength inside us and become the rejected, lost, and unloved life that we may die of.' That has almost happened to me.
OH~
ReplyDeletehappiness is rest
from this learning;
sadness, our school,
our mentor.
xo
erin
What it is it about standing back and observing sadness, as a stranger to be felt, though not listened to, because he doesn't speak? But he must be given space, be looked at, up and down, to find out . . . where does he come from? Why is he here?
ReplyDeleteI think the "new thing" just entered--a small buzz--and the last sentence is true...
ReplyDeletei'm intrigued by this piece of writing simply because in so much of my work with students i see the earliest difficulties with accepting the spectrum of experiencing that includes invariably - sadness. that this becomes the norm for people is borne out by the decisions so many people make to immerse themselves in damaging escapes that reveal more of their fear of emotion than of the emotion itself. thanks for this insightful post. steven
ReplyDeleteOf all the passages so far this year, this one is most deeply resonant with me. These words could do so much to heal:
ReplyDelete"If only we could see a little farther than our knowledge reaches and a little beyond the borders of our intuition, we might perhaps bear our sorrows more trustingly than we do our joys."
If we hold our sorrows with greater tenderness and trust and confidence, then our very sorrows will fertilize our growth towards greater compassion, wholeness, and beauty.
Sadly, it's much easier to seek unwholesome distraction. So many people choose instead to go see a horror flick or pick up a game controller and engage in a combat simulation.