You have had many great sorrows, which have passed away. And you say that even this passing was difficult and jarring for you. But please consider whether these great sorrows have not rather passed through you? Whether much in you has not altered, whether you have not somehow changed in some part of your being, while you were sorrowful?
Only those sorrows are dangerous and bad which we carry about among our fellows in order to drown them; like diseases which are superficially and foolishly treated, they only recede and break out after a short interval all the more frightfully; and gather themselves in our inwards, and are life, are unlived, disdained, lost life, of which one can die.
If it were possible for us to see further than our knowledge extends… perhaps we should then bear our sorrows with greater confidence than our joys. For they are the moments when something new, something unknown, has entered into us; our feelings grow dumb with shy confusion, everything in us retires, a stillness supervenes, and the new thing that no one knows stands silent there in the midst…
And therefore it is so important to be solitary and heedful when we are sad… The more patient, quiet and open we are in our sorrowing, the more deeply and the more unhesitatingly will the new thing enter us, the better shall we deserve it, the more will it be our own destiny…
—Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
May we greet sorrow with patience and compassion,
Simeon
Quote of the Week
“Sorrow prepares you for joy. It violently sweeps everything out of your house, so that new joy can find space to enter.”
— Rumi
Nietzsche on Embracing Life - Forever
Eternal recurrence asks us: would you live this life again, just as it is, forever? In this video, we explore how Nietzsche’s provocative question confronts our resistance to pain and change—and invites us to transform even our sorrows into affirmations of life.
Suggested Reading
Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke
In Letters to a Young Poet, Rilke speaks across time with tenderness and depth, encouraging us to embrace solitude and trust the quiet transformations of the heart. These letters are gentle but profound companions for the soul’s unfolding, and they have helped me go through difficult times.
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