Happy.

I don't want to think and I don't want to feel
I just want to pretend like nothing is real
the pain and the hate and the fear and the sin
are nothing compared to the indifference within
time passes me by, but I am miles away
alone, by myself, with nothing to say
an emptiness creeps in as my body goes numb
who is this person that I have become?

I have just read the most beautiful of things, "Letters to a Young Poet," by Rainer Maria Rilke. A struggling poet writes to his role model in the early 1900's asking for advice and critiques of his poetry. What follows are these 10 letters written in response. You can read all 10 here.

The first letter is especially great. In it Rilke says, in short, that he cannot truly critique his poems as writing, and art, are very personal and individual. If you are a writer, in that, you wake up and all you can think about is writing every second of the day, nothing else matters. You are supposed to be a writer and that is that.

"There is only one thing you should do. Go into yourself. Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart; confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write. This most of all: ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night: must I write? Dig into yourself for a deep answer. And if this answer rings out in assent, if you meet this solemn question with a strong, simple "I must," then build your life in accordance with this necessity; your whole life, even into its humblest and most indifferent hour, must become a sign and witness to this impulse."

"A work of art is good if it has arisen out of necessity. That is the only way one can judge it. So, good Sir, I can't give you any advice but this: to go into yourself and see how deep the place is from which your life flows; at its source you will find the answer to the question whether you must create. Accept that answer, just as it is given to you, without trying to interpret it. Perhaps you will discover that you are called to be an artist. Then take the destiny upon yourself, and bear it, its burden and its greatness, without ever asking what reward might come from outside."

I read this with great joy and with great thankfulness because I have found something that so joyously consumes me. I have something to live for, breathe for, die for; something I can so easily devote my life towards. I am a rider and that is that.