My thoughts – I think rilke’s advice applies not only to budding poets but to all those in search of their true passion in life ………….. to delve into  their core …………….  and look for answers within …….. with a free mind   .

http://www.openculture.com/2013/03/dennis_hopper_reads_from_rainer_maria_rilkes_timeless_guide_to_creativity_iletters_to_a_young_poeti.html

“Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet is a great book,” Hopper says in this short film from 2007. “For me the letters are a credo of creativity and a source of inspiration. After reading Rilke it became clear to me that I had no choice in the matter. I had to create.” The ten-minute film, Must I Write?, was directed by Hermann Vaske and photographed by Rain Li. Hopper reads the first of the book’s ten letters, in which Rilke tells the young man to stop seeking approval from others:

You are looking outward, and that above all you should not do now. Nobody can help and counsel you, nobody. There is only one single way. Go into yourself. Search for the reason that bids you write; find out whether it is spreading out its roots in the deepest places in your heart, acknowledge to yourself whether you would have to die if it were denied you to write. This above all–ask yourself in the stillest hour of your night: must I write? Delve into yourself for a deep answer. And if this should be affirmative, if you may meet this earnest question with a strong and simple “I must,” then build your life according to this necessity; your life even into its most indifferent and slightest hour must be a sign of this urge and a testimony to it.

A work of art is good if it has sprung from necessity. In this nature of its origin lies the judgement of it: there is no other. Therefore, my dear sir, I know no other advice for you save this: to go into yourself and test the deeps in which your life takes rise; at its source you will find the answer to the question whether you must create. Accept it, just as it sounds, without inquiring into it. Perhaps it will turn out that you are called to be an artist.

Then take that destiny upon yourself and bear it, its burden and its greatness, without ever asking what recompense might come from outside. For the creator must be a world for himself and find everything in himself and in Nature to whom he has attached himself.

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