Rilke: No One Lives His Life

Ich bin nur einer deiner Ganzgeringen

No one lives his life.

Disguised since childhood,
haphazardly assembled
from voices and fears and little pleasures,

We come of age as masks.
Our true face never speaks.

Somewhere there must be storehouses
where all these lives are laid away
like suits of armor or old carriages
or clothes hanging limply on the walls.

Maybe all paths lead there,
to the repository of unlived things.

When I first read this poem, I got hooked on the line, "we come of age as masks." It occurred to me that this coming-of-age-as-a-mask obscures the fact of the mask itself.

How then could we recognize the tight clinging of the false image?

And what of the cost - what price does the mask extract from our human life?

Rilke makes the price painfully clear - the hiding away our preciousness, our "unlived" selves.

At the same time, Rilke considers the possibility that all paths - all dharmas - might lead to the discovery of our true face, hidden since childhood.

Ahhh . . .

Rilke's Book of Hours, translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy

Comments

[bob]

I search daily, in meditation, for my "unlived"
life. But would I know what to do with it once it's found?

[David Clark]

Living is the wearing of masks
Living isn't the wearing of masks.
All the while we wear our masks,
We are living our life too.
Our masks can't see the living,
The masks have no true existence.
If masks have no existence,
How then could they see?
How can something non-existent cling tightly?
To what could it cling?
Who is it that seeing through
The eye holes of this non-existent mask?

Whew!
My brain hurts!

[Steve]

Bruce Wayne or Batman? Which one shows his true face?

[John Small]

I can't remember the documentary, but it gave the etymology of "person". Literally, "for sound", it referred to the masks in Greek theater, shaped to amplify and direct the sound of the voice.

Just watched Batman Begins two nights ago.

I really like Rilke Week!

J.

[Xiaochen]

What if behind the mask isn't something we want? It seems only nice to take off the mask if something isn't ugly is hidden behind the mask...

But let's find out

[Will]

But what if my mask IS my face?

[Barry Briggs]

Great comments - thanks, everyone!