Self-Reliance

I'd only read quotes by Emerson and wondered what surrounded those quotes. It turns out they were surrounded by still more quotes. Like Elmore Leonard who has said he leaves out of his books the parts people skim over, Emerson leaves out the parts that can't stand alone as quotes. I can't imagine what it must be like to write like this. What did his first draft look like?

Reading it, however, was like eating an entire chocolate cake. It's delicious but there's something sickening about it. You think you want more but in the background you're nauseated. You've had too much and it starts to taste peculiar in an undefinable way. You understand the meaning of the phrase "too much of a good thing." But it doesn't stop there. Not even for a show more brief rest.

And then sometimes you're completely lost. What does it mean? It seems to mean something but maybe you just don't get it. There are contradictions but the opposite of a profound truth is another profound truth (I just googled and that's a misquote of Niels Bohr) and besides, didn't he say not to worry about consistency? Or only worry if it's foolish. And then you feel foolish. But then you don't because of what you just read and what you feel is that you were foolish before you read it. But also you weren't because he was just saying what you and everyone else already knew in their (shared) soul only they might not have known they knew it which is why he had to say it.

And that's why you have to say it to. Not what he said but what you know to be true and thus everyone else does too but you need to remind them. But what was it again? And is it really true? If you are doubting it, then like Descartes, you exist. What's it like to exist? And why do I need to ask you? show less

Emerson's Self-Reliance is considered by many to be integral to the beginning of the transcendentalist movement, and while I am not especially a fan of transcendentalism as a whole, I do believe that this work is one of the more coherent proponents of the individual over society. Some of Emerson's arguments against the individual obtaining anything useful from societal, familial, religious, or governmental organizations may lend themselves towards an increasing slide towards solipsism - nothing exists in a vacuum - and his apparent distaste for travel seems xenophobic in nature (if not intention), his overall treatise that exceptional individuals (he tends to focus on 'artistic geniuses' more often than not) become so by rejecting show more cultural norms and accepted knowledge and distancing themselves from the common man and his organizational trappings. There are definitely holes in some of his arguments that could be exploited in an open debate, but the bulk of this essay speaks honestly of the need for the individual to seek its own path. show less

Read “Self-Reliance” and “The Divinity School Address,” that’s about it. Not knocked out but I have a hard time grasping older writing so I assume the shortcoming is mine and not the text. Also things like this I’ve probably absorbed so much of it secondhand in my life that the stuff seems obvious or banal or whatever - I’m sure it wasn’t in his day, and he must have seemed original and shocking , but it just doesn’t set me on fire.

LOVED this admonishment to be one's self, and speak one's mind! Here's a brief excerpt--
"To believe your own thought, to believe what is true for you in your private heart, is true for all men, --that is genius. Speak your latent conviction, and it shall be the universal sense; for always the inmost in due time becomes the outmost, --and our first thought is rendered back to us by the trumpets of the Last Judgment. Familiar as the voice of the mind is to each, the highest merit we ascribe to Moses, Plato, and Milton, is that they set at naught books and traditions, and spoke not what men, but what they thought. A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of show more the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty. Great works of art have no more affecting lesson for us than this. They teach us to abide by our spontaneous impression with good-humored inflexibility then most when the cry of voices is on the other side. Else, to-morrow a stranger will say with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time, and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from another." show less

This classic is a tough read because it's written in the English of more than a hundred and fifty years ago. Yet, some of the passages seem very fresh. It's worth the time.

This short read/listen is a collection of thoughts published by the author. It it urges readers to trust your gut feeling, rather than follow the herd. It was a difficult listen because of it's English construction dates from it's birth in 1841;also, it seemed like a stream of consciousness.

This book is Emerson’s compilation of many years’ works and the archetype for his transcendental philosophies. Throughout the essay he gives a defense for his famous catch-phrase “trust thyself.” This argument follows three major points: the self-contained genius, the disapproval of the world, and the value of self-worth. Tough read and must be read with guidance.