“Go within yourself…”
Words of wisdom from the poet Rainer Maria Rilke.
As we draw close to the end of this seemingly endless year, one of the small pleasures I discovered has been the book “A Year With Rilke: Daily Readings from the Best of Rainer Maria Rilke”.
It has accompanied me each day this year in my journey through writing projects, teaching, blogging, mentoring, and my life in Chicago as an assistant professor at the DePaul University School of Cinematic Arts.
Since the end of a year is a time of self-reflection, here is a recent entry written by Rilke to a young person wondering if they should become a writer or not. It dates from February 17, 1903 and is included in the collection “Letters to a Young Poet”.
“My only advice for you is this. Go within yourself and probe the depths from which your life springs, and there at its source you’ll find the answer to the question of whether you must write. Accept this answer, just as you hear it, without hesitation. It may be revealed that you are called to be an artist. Then take this lot upon you, and bear it, its burden and its greatness, without asking for any external reward. For the creative artists must be a world for himself, and find everything within himself — and in nature, to which he is devoted.”
When I read this, I found myself swept up in reverie, ‘teleported’ in time to October 1978. I can see myself sitting in a shabby motel room in Aspen, Colorado at the far end of Main Street as you enter the mountain town. I had left Yale University with a Masters degree, one thousand dollars I’d saved up working as a janitor at Trinity Episcopal Church in downtown New Haven, then set out west with no destination in mind.
You see, my last year at Yale, every time I drove up the hill to school and entered the main administration building, I had felt a deep pang in my gut, quite literally a physical sensation accompanied by a persistent thought: I shouldn’t be here.
I was seven years into my collegiate and graduate school education with a clear intention of getting a doctorate, then becoming an academic in the field of primitive Christianity, that period of time in the first century A.D. because I was driven by the question: How did we get from the figure we know as Jesus to what emerged as the foundation of the Church?
As fascinating a subject as that was, I found myself more and more consumed by a desire… no, need to explore my creative self, specifically my music, both as a songwriter and performer.
So I decided to take a year off. Head off to points unknown and see where my musical abilities, such as they were, would take me. I knew at my core, if I didn’t choose to pursue those dreams, I might very well become a successful academic, but I would have always been haunted by the question: What if I had followed my musical and creative muse?
Through a series of coincidences, what Jung would call synchronicity, I was steered to Aspen because it had a vibrant live music scene. After all, it was home to John Denver, Jimmy Buffet, Glenn Frey and Don Henley of The Eagles, and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band among others.
In the few weeks I had been in Aspen, I had performed at the Monday Hoot Night at Jake’s Abbey, a long-standing open mic night started by the Smothers Brothers in the 60s where such artists such as Steve Martin had cut their creative teeth. My appearances had thrust me into the center of the local musician scene — Bobby Mason, Chris Cox, Dan Forde, and others — so I had in effect made the ‘first cut’ creatively. In other words, I had talent. But was I meant to pursue music in a serious way?
That is the question I find myself confronted with as I sit in the Tyrolean Lodge in Aspen. I’m down to about $300 of my savings. If I want to apply to doctoral programs for the next academic year, I need to be pulling those together this month. In effect, this is fish or cut bait time.
What do I do? I ‘go within myself’. I take a yellow legal pad, write up top, “Should I continue to pursue music?”, then create two columns: Pro. Con.
I sit. Think. Feel. I jot down impressions and reflections. I take walks. In the bright mountain sunshine. At night in the crisp darkness with a million stars aglow in the Colorado sky.
After a few days, I have pretty much filled the top sheet of that legal pad. The Con column outnumbers the Pro list. By logic, I should give up. I graduated cum laude from Yale, I have professors all lined up ready to write me strong letters of recommendation, I know I would be an excellent teacher and a solid academic.
That is the safe choice, the rational choice. And yet…
My gut won’t let me give up. Give it more time. I decide to stay in Aspen at least a little while longer.
The next Hoot Night, I sit waiting my turn to sing my songs. Then on stage, I see this incredible guitar player. I mean stunning work. It’s like he’s playing both rhythm and lead at the same time, his fingers a blur of action. And his original songs are great. His name: Pat Flynn.
My turn. I play three of my own original songs. The applause is meager… it’s after midnight, most of the crowd having left. But as I get off stage, who is there to greet me but Pat.
“Hey,” he says, “Good stuff. We should get together and jam.”
We do. Eventually we join forces and become Myers & O’Flynn, playing hundreds of gigs in town opening for Richie Havens, John Prine, Taj Mahal, Poco, and many other acts.
I won’t bore you with the details of my circuitous journey, but eventually it led me to a nightclub in Southern California and saying these words: “I can do that.” Thus, a career as a screenwriter, TV producer, blogger, teacher, and all the rest.
So when Rilke writes, “Go within yourself and probe the depths from which your life springs,” I resonate with that. Big time. It all comes back to someone I studied as an undergraduate at the University of Virginia… Joseph Campbell, someone who has influenced me for most of my adult life.
We have one life. One chance at embracing the possibility of becoming who we are meant to be. For us to have any opportunity to do that, we need to KNOW something of our Inner Self. We need to go within ourselves and probe the depths of what we find there.
Go into OUR story… and find OUR animals.
As Rilke points out about the creative life, we must experience both “its burden and its greatness”. But as challenging as being a writer is, as long as it’s an expression of our most authentic nature, that is the path upon which lies our best chance of embracing Life.
So amidst the noise and general busy-ness of New Year’s festivities, take some time to yourself. Maybe pick up a legal pad. A pen. Write down some reflections and observations, both intellectual and emotional. Take stock of who you are and who you could become.
If you’d care to share some of your thoughts, feel free to write a RESPONSE here. Or just do the work in private.
Whatever you do, for those of you who are choosing to pursue your creative ambitions, I applaud you. It takes courage, persistence, and willful intent.
But if this is your calling, you have to heed the call…
To become who you are.
Onward.
