One

Paris, February 17^th 1903

 

MY DEAR SIR,

 

YOUR LETTER only reached me a few days ago. I want to tan you for its great and kind confidence. I can hardly do more. I cannot go into the nature of your verses; for all critical intention is too far from me. With nothing can one approach a work of art so little as with critical words: they always come down to more or less happy misundstandings. Things are not all so comprehensible and expressible as one would mostly have us believe; most events are inexpressible, taking place in a realm which no word has ever entered, and more inexpressible than all else are works of art, mysterious existence, the life of which, while ours passes away, endures.

 

After these prefatory remarks, let me only tell you further that your verses have no individual style, although they do show quiet and hidden beginning of something personal. I feel this mostly in the last poem, “My Soul.” These something of your own wants to come through to word and melody. And in the lovely poem “To leopardi’ there does perhaps grow up a sort of kinship with that great solitary man. Nevertheless the poems are not yet anything on their own account, nothing independent, even the last and the one to Leopardi. You kind letter, which accompanies them, does not fail to make clear to me various shortcomings which I felt in reading verses without however being able specifically to name them.

 

You ask whether your verses are good. You ask me. You have asked others before. You sent them to magazines. You compare them with other poems, and you are disturbed when certain editors reject your efforts. Now (since you have allowed me to advise you) I beg you to give up all that. You are looking outward, and that above all you should not do now. Nobody can counsel and help you , nobody. There is only one single way. Go into yourself. Search for the reason that bids you write; find out whether it is spreading out its roots in the deepest places of your heart, acknowledge to yourself whether you would have to die if it were denied you to write. This above all – ask yourself in the stillest hour of your night: must I write? Delve into yourself for a deep answer. And if this should be affirmative, if you may meet his earnest question with a strong and simple “I must”, then build your life into its most indifferent and slightest hour must be a sign of this urge and testimony to it. Then draw near to Nature. Then try, like some first human being, to say what you see and experience and love and lose. Do not write love – poems; avoid at first those forms that are too facile and commonplace; they are the most difficult, for it takes a great, fully matured power to give something of your own where goo and even excellent traditions come to mind in quantity. There fore save yourself from those general themes and seek those which your own everyday life offers you; describe all these with loving, quite, humble sincerity, and use , to express yourself, the things in your environment, the images from your dreams, and the objects of your memory. If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself, tell yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches; for to the creator there is no poverty and no poor indifferent place. And even if you were in some prison that walls of which let none of the sounds of the world come to your senses – would you not then still have your childhood, that precious, kingly possession, that treasure –house of memories? Turn your attention thither. Try to raise the submerged sensations of that ample past; your personality will grow more firm, your solitude will widen and will become a dusky dwelling past which the noise of others goes by far away.—And if out of this turning inward, out of his absorption into your own world verses come, then it will not occur to you to ask anyone whether they are good verses. Nor will you try to interest magazines in your poems: for you will see in them your fond natural possession, a fragment and a voice of your life. A work of art is good if it has sprung from necessity. In this nature of its origin lies the judgment of it: there is no other. Therefore, my dear sir, I know no advice for you save this: to go into yourself and test the deeps in which your life takes rise; at its source you will find the answer to the question whether you must create. Accept it, just as it sounds, without inquiring into it. Perhaps it will turn out that you are called to be an artist then take that destiny upon yourself and bear it, its burden and its greatness, without even asking what recompense might come from outside. For the creator must be a world for himself and find everything in himself and in Nature to whom he has attached himself.

 

But perhaps after this descent into yourself and into your inner solitude you will have to give up becoming a poet; (it is enough, as I have said, to feel that one should live without writing: then one must not attempt it at all). But even then this inward searching which I ask of you will not have been in vain. Your life will in any case find its own ways thence, and that they may be good, rich and wide I wish you more than I can say.

 

What more shall I say to you? Everything seems to me to have its just emphasis; and after all I do and seriously throughout your whole development; you cannot disturb it more rudely than by looking outward and expecting form outside replies to questions that only your inmost feelings in your most hushed hour can perhaps answer.

 

It was a pleasure to me to find in your letter the name of Professor Horacek; I keep from that loveable and learned man a great veneration and a gratitude that ensures through the years. Will you, please, tell him how I fee; it is very good of him still to think of me, and I know how to appreciate it.

 

The verses which you kindly entrusted to me I am returning to you at the same time. And I thank you once more for your great and sincere confidence, of which I have tried, through this honest answer given to the best of my knowledge, to make myself a little worthier than, as a stranger, I really am.

 

Yours faithfully and with all sympathy：

Rainer Maria Rilke

 

How these letters came to be written is told by their recipient in his introduction, and to this there would be nothing to add where it not for the close of the eighth letter: " Do not believe that he who seeks to comfort your lives untroubled among the simple and quiet words that sometimes do you good. His life has much difficulty and sadness. ...Where it otherwise he would never have been able to find those words." It is evident that a great artist, whatever the immediate conditions disturbing his own life, may be able to clarify for the benefit of other those fundamental truths the conviction of which lies too deep in his consciousness to be reached by external agitations. Though Rilke expresses himself with a wisdom and a kindness that seem to reflect the calm self-possession, his spirit may be have been speaking out of its own need rather than from the security of ends achieved, so that his words indeed reflect desire rather than fulfillment. In what sort this was the case becomes apparent on perusal of the several volumes of his correspondence. From these , for the most part, the accompanying chronicle of the years 1903-1906 has been prepared. It shows what Rilke was going through in his own relationship to life and work at the period in question (he turned twenty -eight in December, 1903). Perhaps such a record may in a measure explain, too, why sympathy was always so responsive an element of his nature. Certainly - despite low physical vitality that often reduced him to actual ill-health, despite lack of funds and homeless wondering in search of the right places and circumstances for his work, despite all the subjective fret and hindrance because of which some think to see in him a morbidly conditioned fantasy - the legend of the weary poet is dispelled, and in the end we find him always young, always constructive, the eminently positive philosopher of those letters.

 

New York, October, 1934

Dr. Lee shared this book with me. I am loving it...

Yesterday was at Xujiahui. Had karaok in the morinng. Went to Apple Bee's for lunch. Gosh..big lunch that made me guilty.

Today I opened my eyes at 7:30, ready to get to work.

Just as I was yawning, I rejoiced to realize it is Sunday! Went to the park and met a bunch of people for a farewell lunch.

Essentially, I had a day FULL OF TEXT MESSAGES. Never had sent so many text messages in one day, in my life.

Good Night.

意味着要184或185厘米，走在人群中引起公愤。 不管了。要改变只能穿平跟鞋的命运。

LY  China says:
 想你了
 今天买了双CROCS
 还弄得比较可爱
 装了MICKY和SPIDEMAN, DUFFY DUCK的头
 哈哈
 JoAnne Zhao -  Extremophile 99 Wash Your Hands & Cover your Sneeze/Cough says:
  我买了高跟鞋
LY  China says:
 哟
 你已经很高了
 JoAnne Zhao -  Extremophile 99 Wash Your Hands & Cover your Sneeze/Cough says:
 18 4了
   神经伐
  你真可爱
 好像在和小姐妹说话
LY  China says:
 哈哈哈

Note: LY is my high school classmate. A fashionable boy. So cute...

YOU CAN DO IT!

"In reading your updates, I was reminded of a technique I once read that Phil Jackson liked to encourage Michael Jordan and others to use prior to games.  He taught them to visualize the end result, to play the game in their head and visualize victory, which he believed is a powerful motivational tool to help them achieve results.  So I thought to myself, “Maybe Wayne could use some help visualizing regaining strength in his legs again!”  So I took it upon myself to do what I could to help.  Please take a look through the pictures below.  I am confident that by the time you reach the end, you will be walking again."

Personally I believe in the above "theory." Personal practice has proven it.

One of my colleague Dr. Wayne Ho got seriously sick. I pray for him.

http://www.caringbridge.com/visit/wayneho

http://www.sumocomics.com/wayne/wayne.html

I believe the positive energy we pass on will help him. Be strong and believe you can do it!

It is really a good deal. Now I have 3 of them.

5月16号：今天一早到了健身房，昨晚留在LOCKER的手表还在。还有我的运动鞋。险些就丢了！表扬舒适堡一记！也得意一下自己一贯的好运。呵呵。。。

小蜗说快看长颈鹿的大头照，哇靠！ 彩色醋酸纤维幻灯片 says:
我今天骑车回来
路上听歌
手机听，手机在包里，包在篮子里，拉链没拉，一个弹簧屁股，哇靠
手机跳出篮子荡到离地不知道几公分的地方
没脱离线
我还在飞驰
 JoAnne Zhao -  Extremophile 99 Wash Your Hands & Cover your Sneeze/Cough says:
 。。真奔放你那手机！
小蜗说快看长颈鹿的大头照，哇靠！ 彩色醋酸纤维幻灯片 says:
啊哈哈哈哈哈哈哈哈哈哈！！！！！！

 

 

 

 

Today was really a hectic day!

 

Attened Amcham event am with big boss. Someone told me before it is a high class place to go in HK. But in Shanghai it is certainly more democratic! But of course girls are all very dressed up. I was in my MNG light blue blouse and black skirt. Nothing too fancy or feminine. I should do better next time. haha..

 

Anyway, I honestly think our speech is the best. And it is going to be published on the amcham website soon. Welcome you all to take a look!

 

Ran back to the office to handle the issues. And headache began to develop due to fatigue and 'tension', the unconscious tension. Panadol did not help! Almost killed me again... I am just full of pains all the time. :(((  :))))

 

Rushed to Ciro's to meet Jeff for a meeting together in the early evening. And the meeting went on very very well. I am very glad and it is always great learning as well.

 

Met Yi for a dinner. Shared a lot of life's stories. Enlighted and feel very peaceful. When god closed a door he always opens another for us.

 

Feeling grateful... Time for bed.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Just now I did a quiz on the facebook. Funny! It contradicts with what I wrote yesterday. :P

 

 

从5月1号起，每天又开始在晚上查电子邮件并回复工作邮件。

有点像刚刚进公司的状态。哈哈哈。。。

现在命令自己去休息。明哲保身。明天准备见VIP！