Wisdom Quote: Poet

(This is the first in a series of short commentaries on various quotes I've gathered over the years that have inspired and guided me with their wisdom and guidance during life's inevitably difficult or confusing times.)

"Everywhere I go I find a poet has been there before me."
--Sigmund Freud

This quote reminds me that the great and pressing issues of our personal struggles contain mythical and poetic dimensions that link us to all that is noble and resonant in life. That doesn't mean that nobility and resonance is evident in everything we do (far from it!) but that a path or connection exists that can lead us there.

I often think of how the twists, roadblocks and revelations of our lives weave together to form for each of us our unique hero's journey. I like to think that this must be true, for the alternative is for life to be merely soap opera or situation comedy, essentially meaningless and imminently forgettable.

I think it's fitting to end this post with one of my favorite poems:

I am not a mechanism, an assembly of various sections.
And it is not because the mechanism is working wrongly
that I am ill.
I am ill because of wounds to the soul,
to the deep emotional self
and the wounds to the soul take a long, long time,
only time can help and patience,
and a certain difficult repentance
long difficult repentance, realization of life’s mistake,
and the freeing oneself
from the endless repetition of the mistake
which mankind at large has chosen to sanctify.

--D. H. Lawrence

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