It's possible

It is ridiculous. Here I sit in my little room, I, Brigge, who have grown to be twenty-eight years old and of whom no one knows. I sit here and am nothing. And nevertheless this nothing begins to think and thinks, five flights up, on a grey Parisian afternoon, thinks these thoughts:

Is it possible, it thinks, that one has not yet seen, known and said anything real or important? Is it possible that one has had millenia of time to observe, reflect and note down, and that one has let those millennia slip away, like a recess interval at school in which one eats one’s sandwich and an apple?

Yes, it is possible.
Is it possible that despite discoveries and progress, despite culture, religion and world-wisdom, one has remained on the surface of life? Is it possible that one has even covered this surface, which might still have been something, with an incredibly uninteresting stuff which makes it look like the drawing-room furniture during summer holidays?

Yes, it is possible.
Is it possible that the whole history of the world has been misunderstood? Is it possible that the past is false, because one has always spoken of its masses just as though one were telling of a coming together of many human beings, instead of speaking of the individual around whom they stood because he was a stranger and was dying?

Yes, it is possible.
Is it possible that one believed it necessary to retrieve what happened before one was born? Is it possible that one would have to remind every individual that he is indeed sprung from all who have gone before, has known this therefore and should not let himself be persuaded by others who knew otherwise?

Yes, it is possible.
Is it possible that all these people know with perfect accuracy a past that has never existed? Is it possible that all realities are nothing to them; that their life is running down, unconnected with anything, like a clock in an empty room-?

Yes, it is possible.
Is it possible that one knows nothing of young girls, who nevertheless live? Is it possible that one says "women", "children", "boys", not guessing (despite all one's culture, not guessing) that these words have long since had no plural, but only countless singulars?

Yes, it is possible.
Is it possible that there are people who say "God" and mean something they have in common?- Just take a couple of schoolboys: one buys a pocket knife and his companion buys another exactly like it on the same day. And after a week they compare knives and it turns out that there is now only a very distant resemblance between the two - so differently have they developed in different hands. ("Well", says the mother of one, "if you always must wear everything out immediately-") Ah, so: Is it possible to believe one could have a God without using Him?

Yes, it is possible.
But if all this is possible - has even no more than a semblance of possibility - then surely, for all the world’s sake, something must happen. The first comer, he who has had this disturbing thought, must begin to do some of the things that have been neglected; even if he is just anybody, by no means the most suitable person: there is no one else at hand. This young, insignificant foreigner, Brigge, will have to sit down in his room five flights up and write, day and night: yes, he will have to write; that is how it will end.

(Excerpt from The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge by Rainer Maria Rilke, Translated by M. D. Herter Norton. Published by W. W. Norton & Company, 1949)