Ancestors of a god

...And now in the end, this book's ultimate worth lies in the knowledge of an artistry that is only a path and at last fulfills itself in a single ripe existence. With each work that one raises out of oneself, one creates space for some new strength. And the last space, which comes after a long process, will bear everything within itself that is active and essential around us; for it will be the greatest space, filled with all strength. Only one person will attain it; but all who are creative are the ancestors of this solitary person. There will be nothing else but him; for trees and tall mountains, clouds and cascading waves have only been symbols of those realities that he finds in himself. Everything has converged in him, and all powers that before had fought one another in scattered battles tremble under his will. Even the ground beneath his feet is superfluous. He rolls it up like a prayer rug. He no longer prays. He exists. And when he makes a gesture, he will create, will fling out into infinity many millions of worlds, on which the same game begins: more mature beings will first multiply and then withdraw into solitude and after a long struggle at last bring up one again who has everything within himself, a creator of this type of eternity, a very great one in space, one with the gestures of sculpture. Thus every generation sends its tendrils like a chain from god to god. And every god is the entire pastness of a world, its ultimate purpose, its uniform expression, and at the same time the possibility of a new life. How other faraway worlds will mature toward gods-I do not know. But for us art is the way; for among us the artists are the thirsty ones who drink everything into themselves, the immodest ones who nowhere build huts, and the eternal ones who reach across the roofs of the centuries. They receive portions of life and give life. But when once they have received life and bear the world within them with all its powers and possibilities, they will bestow something-beyond that...

As for ourselves: we are the ancestors of a god and with our deepest solitudes reach forward through the centuries to his very beginning. I feel this with all my heart!

(Excerpt from Diaries of a young poet by Rainer Maria Rilke, Translated by Edward Snow & Michael Winkler. Published by W. W. Norton & Company, 1998)