Reflections from Brian Greene’s Interpretation of Rilke’s Elegy

A Repost from July 07, 2023

I am once again reminded of Judith Butler’s observation when she wrote the first chapter of Gender Trouble — there are words, thoughts even, that we often take for granted. Therefore the constant need to excavate meanings beyond their surface meaning is deemed important. If there’s one thing that truly connects Judith’s thought about taking things for granted is the interpretation of the astrophysicist named Brian Greene on the idea of limitations and space.

You should know that I am surprised as you when I read the name Brian hahahaha because it’s the same syllables I’ve been uttering for almost a year now — a year of struggling to defeat the idea of letting go. Anyway going back (hahaha), Rilke’s elegy, which comes as no surprise that I came across with another interpretation from a scholar (Brian Greene), invokes the most profound feeling of re-evaluating what we know about human limitations. But what makes it interesting is the retelling of its narratives that dates back to the first conception of such elegies — which is, through a literal stormy night.

Rilke, in a stormy night in 1922 encountered a “rupture of creative vitality” which became the prelude to writing Sonnets to Orpheus that he was able to produce in a span of two weeks. The marvels of this work has prompted Brian to interpret the unchallenged human perception of HOME, which he explained that our limitations functions like a fuel of our eternal passion to search for meaning and truth about nature and those perpetual attempts shapes the entirety of finding comfort and meaning of home — in both the universe and the self.

In Sonnets to Orpheus, Rilke had spoken about the “elemental sorrow” of being, a slave of our own interpreted reality because all of us are called as “knowing animals”. True enough, we are not at home in this interpreted reality but the antidote lies within accepting our capacity for self-transcendence and accepting our limitations. Rilke builds an appeal to the mind to continue our search for meaning despite the dispossession of our own interpreted world. Judith is right about our passiveness to take words and thoughts beyond its surface. I think if we are so kind to look beyond there could have been tons of reflections that one can read and forward, but it depends on our willingness and who we give access to the spaces of reflection we’re also trying to build. Again, the fulfillment of both Rilke and Greene’s hope is in our hands. You have to choose which side you’re on.

“Not because happiness exists, that over-hasty profit from imminent loss, not out of curiosity, or to practice the heart… But because being here is much, and because all that’s here seems to need us.”

What a great way to end my night!