Rule no.0027 – Follow the Inner Trail
From the unpublished manuscript 4,040 Rules of Art Conduct
Rule no.0027 – Follow the Inner Trail
When we look around us there seems like there are many possible trails in life to follow. Frankly there are infinite numbers of trails you could follow in life. Many trails are put in front of us from an early age, other people’s ideas about what trail they think we should follow. But should we just follow whatever trail someone else points us toward? Each of us has only one trail that we can reliably follow and that is our own inner trail. It might not be well marked, its destination may not be clear, we may not know how we shall follow it, but it is there for the discovering. As you develop your intuition and grow inwardly, your trail becomes clearer and more obvious and, at a certain point, inevitable. All of life will point you toward it.
I know no 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 to himself and find everything in himself. Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet from Letter One - Paris, February 17th, 1903
‘At the center of your being you have the answer; you know who you are, and you know what you want.’ Lao Tzu
From the unpublished manuscript 4,040 Rules of Art Conduct