Nature & Other Writings - Ralph Waldo Emerson - Part 3

Nature & Other Writings
Ralph Waldo Emerson

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 30

 January 30, 2017 

Book 7 - Nature and Other Writings
by Ralph Waldo Emerson (2003)
 Part 3 - Pages 63-90

Reading Time - 30 Minutes

Today's essay is entitled Self-Reliance. I had come across a reference to this essay elsewhere, hence my desire to read it in full. Here's the overall gist of it:

"To believe your own thoughts, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all [people] - that is genius"

Hmmm... that could use a lot of unpacking. Here's the thing... your thoughts are just as great as another person's thoughts. The Great Ones (whoever they are) spoke what they thought... not what others thought. But we deny the validity of our own thoughts... we "capitulate to large societies and dead institutions". We continually reference that past and live in the past and the future... but not the present.

We have a great thought... an inspiring idea... and most of them die stillborn. Years later, we hear the same thought from some great speaker and realize... shoot... I had that same thought years ago. The difference... we didn't speak our thought... and they did.

There's a line in this essay that I love - "My book should smell of pines and resound with the hum of insects". What a beautiful turn of phrase. Love it.

Here are some quotes that stuck with me:

"I must be myself"

"I cannot break myself any longer for you, or you"

"Insist on yourself; never imitate"

"Do that which is assigned you, and you cannot hope too much or dare too much"

There's a Shakespeare quote that echos this

To thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.

Trust your gut. Trust your instincts. Trust, above all, your experience of yourself and the world.