A POET'S ADVICE (By EE Cummings)
A real human is somebody who feels and who expresses his or her feelings. This may sound easy. It isn't.
A lot of people think or believe or know what they feel---but that's thinking or believing or knowing: not feeling. And being real is feeling---not just knowing or believing or thinking.
Almost anybody can learn to think or believe or know, but it's very difficult to learn to feel. Why? Because whenever you think or you believe or you know, you're a lot of other people: but the moment you feel, you're nobody - but - yourself.
To be nobody - but -yourself-- in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else--means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.
As for communicating nobody-but-yourself to others, that means working just a little harder than anybody who isn't real can possibly imagine. Why?
Because nothing is quite as easy as just being just like somebody else. We all of us do exactly this nearly all of the time--and whenever we do it, we are not real.
If, at the end of your first ten or fifteen years of fighting and working and feeling, you find you've loved just once with a nobody-but-yourself heart, you''ll be very lucky indeed.
And so my advice to all young people who wish to become real is: do something easy, like dreaming of freedom--unless you're ready to commit yourself to feel and work and fight till you die.
http://www.thepositivemind.com/HTML/APoet'sAdvicepoem.html
Does this sound dismal? It isn't.
It's the most wonderful life on earth.
Or so I feel.
--e. e. cummings
====
今天买到一本Buckminster Fuller的Critical Path,依史汀推荐的。
序言中翻到这一篇,蛮好的。第一句的A real human,我书中是写作
A poet。但愿是不同版。
- Re: A POET'S ADVICE (By EE Cummings)posted on 09/21/2009
a wonderful encouragement for today's writing! - posted on 09/29/2009
http://thesmartset.com/default.aspx
Ask a Poet
Life Sentences
Advice and insight from a professional poet.
By Kristen Hoggatt
What’s the meaning of life?
— Alicia
Well, I would say it’s to write as many good poems as possible, but that’s way too predictable of me, isn’t it? That statement is true for me, or at least it fits into my own unique equation along with other variables. The meaning of life is different for each person on this planet. People who think of themselves as poets, generally speaking, want to leave a legacy, great or small. We want future generations to read our work, whether it’s one poem or 10 books of poems. Sometimes we project our meaning of life onto other beings:
Teaching the Ape to Write Poems
They didn't have much trouble
teaching the ape to write poems:
first they strapped him into the chair,
then tied the pencil around his hand
(the paper had already been nailed down).
Then Dr. Bluespire leaned over his shoulder
and whispered into his ear:
"You look like a god sitting there.
Why don't you try writing something?"
(James Tate)
But the truth is, that never works; everyone and everything has to discover what their meaning of life is on their own. Isn’t it irritating when you ask a question and the answer is, “You have to figure it out for yourself”? Well, that’s what I’m going to tell you. The meaning of life, for you, might be art/occupation/family/religion. It might be your morning walk through the trees. It might be your kind smile, which sets off a chain reaction each morning as you greet your coworkers. But I can’t tell you what it is.
Can I be straight with you, Alicia? I think about the meaning of life a lot, which my twisted psychology translates into thinking about the end of life. I’m not even 30 yet, but I think about death more often then I’d care to admit, in part because I worry that I haven’t left my legacy yet. I’m not as cool and collected as my column suggests — I mean, not all the time. Sometimes when I can’t sleep at night, I read my columns to comfort myself, because I think I make a lot of sense. I’m channeling the wisdom of centuries of poets so I’m not being totally egocentric — a little bit, but not totally. “What is the meaning of life?” Walt Whitman says, “I exist as I am, that is enough.” Enough life, enough legacy, enough meaning. Be happy, Alicia. Breathe. • 28 September 2009
Please paste HTML code and press Enter.
(c) 2010 Maya Chilam Foundation