My Favorite Poem

The Man Watching

by Rainer Maria Rilke

I can tell by the way the trees beat, after
so many dull days, on my worried windowpanes
that a storm is coming,
and I hear the far-off fields say things
I can't bear without a friend,
I can't love without a sister

The storm, the shifter of shapes, drives on
across the woods and across time,
and the world looks as if it had no age:
the landscape like a line in the psalm book,
is seriousness and weight and eternity.

What we choose to fight is so tiny!
What fights us is so great!
If only we would let ourselves be dominated
as things do by some immense storm,
we would become strong too, and not need names.

When we win it's with small things,
and the triumph itself makes us small.
What is extraordinary and eternal
does not want to be bent by us.
I mean the Angel who appeared
to the wrestlers of the Old Testament:
when the wrestler's sinews
grew long like metal strings,
he felt them under his fingers
like chords of deep music.

Whoever was beaten by this Angel
(who often simply declined the fight)
went away proud and strengthened
and great from that harsh hand,
that kneaded him as if to change his shape.
Winning does not tempt that man.
This is how he grows: by being defeated, decisively,
by constantly greater beings.

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A professor of mine once encouraged me to possess some of the better poetry that I liked by memory. This seemed like a waste of time for me but trusting him as I still do, I went ahead and made the effort to memorize. A remarkable thing happened. The very act of saying the poem aloud gave me a deeper and different understanding than what I previously possessed. Nowhere was this phenomenon more clear than with this poem. A friend of mine learned it in its priginal German and said it yielded even more layers of understanding. We discussed them but not possessing the German myself, the lessons were unavailable to me.

My favorite line: Winning does not tempt that man. This is how he grows: by being defeated, decisively, by constantly greater beings.

Winning tempts us all. Any of us who have achieved mastery in something will instinctively look for opportunities to display that mastery. But such an impulse is trivial. It serves the ego and nothing else. I would see these people on the dojo floor, practicing only what they were good at in situations that provided them with maximum advantage. This methodology gives the illusion of mastery and nothing more. To achieve each of our own individual potential, we must not be tempted by winning. Growth is painful and that's why very few people actually grow.

I like to win too. More than most perhaps. That's why this poem means so much to me. As with all great poetry, I feel as if Rilke wrote this for me specifically.