There is a specific kind of quiet that comes from reading Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet . It is not the silence of a library, but the deep hush of someone telling you a secret you’ve always needed to hear.
For Rilke, love is two solitudes protecting each other. It is not about merging or losing yourself. It is about two people standing so firmly in their own truth that they can look across the distance between them and say, “I see you.” cartas a un joven poeta rainer maria rilke
We spend billions of dollars a year trying to escape loneliness. We scroll, we date frantically, we work late, we numb. Rilke says: Stop running. “Love your loneliness and bear the pain it causes you with a simple, soft song.” He understood that loneliness is the price of originality. If you are always surrounded by the noise of the crowd, you can only ever think the crowd’s thoughts. The artist—and by extension, anyone trying to live an authentic life—must guard their solitude like a fragile animal. There is a specific kind of quiet that