On Self Reliance

Perhaps the most important of the 19th Century American essayists, Ralph Waldo Emerson, wrote a particularly stirring essay with the same title as this small piece. This was no surprise to me that he would do so, having lost his young, first wife and his small son, Waldo, by the time he was 40 years old. No doubt making his way through the soul-shattering American Civil War did not help matters either. I have valued and been led by his words that resound like a great bell in the mind. “To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men…that is genius.”

A child of the 60's...
A child of the 60’s…the 1860’s, that is…the great man is not far off today. I think it is easier, way easier these days, to get pulled away from our thinking centers by the array of gaudy entertainments and multi-media attractions that call to us every hour we’re awake. Cell phones, smart phones are wonderful information dispensers, but they can also crowd our mental spaces with so much “stuff” that we can lose sight of where we begin and end.

Others cannot think for us...

Being self reliant does not mean that we have to stay alone, but it does mean that others cannot think for us what only we can think for ourselves. We can get many impressions that were given to us by others. Whose values are we taking in when we join clubs, fraternities or gangs? Our own…or those that were given to us as mandated behaviors? Is it a rude thing to questions what’s before us, or just the free exercise of a mind at work? 

Be clear and curious...

I think to be free citizens, to be real individuals, we need to be as clear and curious as possible. This is not always easy; it is very compelling to go with the loudest talker or the sharpest song-and-dance man around. I believe the best gift of all is the gift of ourselves…presented lovingly, clearly and with no attachments to outcomes. Perhaps Emerson should be given the last word when he writes, “Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.”