Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska (July 2, 1923 – February 1, 2012) did not like the spotlight and rarely spoke for herself, but in her speech she highlighted the Nobel Prize in the substance of her writing. She said that poets are skeptical. and “Inspiration comes from what you don’t know.” Stay curious about what you don’t know, because that’s where you’ll find inspiration.
wisdom I don’t know
Whatever the inspiration, it always comes from “I don’t know”. Perhaps the most telling sentence from the Nobel Prize speech by Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska. Poets are skeptical. “Every poem is an attempt to respond to this ignorance,” she explained. But at the last point, the poet began to hesitate again, realizing that this answer is also insufficient. So poets keep trying, and sooner or later someone will wrap a paperclip around the result of all this inadequacy and call it your “work.”
But this ignorance is not bad at all, is her message. In fact, being curious about what you don’t know is the beginning of all discoveries and innovations. It does not matter whether you are a poet, a doctor or a teacher: if you are interested in what you want Not You know, everything becomes an adventure.
Nothing happens twice
Szymborska was a huge fan of the poet from Ecclesiastes of the Bible, writing, “There is nothing new under the sun.” But they differ with him in substance: why is there nothing new? Everything is new. Ecclesiastes was new in itself, as no one had written it before. One of her most famous poems is “Nothing Happens Twice” and you can think of it as an answer to the university community. “Nothing happens twice, nothing happens twice,’ she writes.
not a single day,
Two nights never alike,
No kiss like another,
Each look is unique.
Life off the cuff
The fact that each new moment is exactly what makes us ignorant and unprepared for life. In the beautiful poem “Life to Fist Away”“ It describes a feeling we all have at one time or another: that life feels like you suddenly have to go up on stage without preparation, with a text you haven’t read yet, in a role you don’t yet know (but you can’t swap) and with a character just like the coat you visit while running , stumbled upon your incompetence.
If only I could practice on Wednesdays in time.
At least one Thursday allowed to repeat!
But no, Friday comes again with a scenario unknown to me.
And you can’t think, “Oh, I’m just doing something,” because as you stand there, in all your awkwardness, you realize this isn’t a rehearsal. Real decoration pieces. You are in the spotlight of distant galaxies. There is only this moment.
No, without a doubt this is the first show.
And whatever you do
It changes forever in what you did.
evaluation
Life from moment to moment, we bravely get through it anyway. And you can almost imagine Szymborska watching from the wings as we stumble upon the stage of life.
In the words and poems of Szymborska you can catch your breath in between. For she says with her: How beautiful, isn’t it, that experience? Don’t you find it amazing, the whole existence? Nothing is clear. Not a stone, nor a cloud, nor day, nor night. And above all there is no, Nobody exist in this world.
So your presence isn’t self-evident either. If you think about it, you might be causing the inconvenience of not knowing the deal. You may even learn to see it as an advantage. Because here again: what you don’t know, and what you don’t understand, this is where you find inspiration. and beauty. and wonder. When you’re curious about what you don’t know, life becomes an adventure.
It’s all about the moment
What’s amazing is that the woman who saw writing as a “battle with your ignorance” (even if it’s very touching!), puts wisdom and the realization that sometimes you just need to deal with life, and specifically in describing the small moments you can. And that her poems, in which she says that she does not want to talk about current events, are very objective.
Szymborska wrote about the moment a suicide bomber planted a bomb that would explode in a few minutes. About how someone cleaned up after the war. About what it’s like to lie awake at four in the morning.
“Is there nothing new under the sun after all?” , you almost think. But nevertheless: it has never been written like this before. With much wisdom, compassion and tender heart. That those poems are there be, and that someone just put a paperclip on it so we can hold on to it while we stumble through life, we’re actually incredibly lucky.
Mir over Wislawa Zimborska
“Nothing Twice” and “Living Off the Edge” are included in Wisława Szymborska, “End and Beginning”. collection of poems. The 1996 Nobel Prize speech by Szymborska can be read here. In the documentary End and Begin she speaks for herself, among other things, about the role of the poet.
Want to read more life lessons?
Read here about the wise lessons of the American poet Maya Angelou.