The Beauty of Knowing (5): Emerson’s Self-reliance; O Captain, my Captain
Those of you who have watched Robin Williams’ awesome ‘Dead Poet’s Society’ know what my title means and those of you who haven’t, it doesn’t matter.
I have read a fair amount of books and have this habbit of collecting the quotes that I like and on looking upon this small piece of text I think it is going to take me just an hour to finish with a few lines, if at all any, to take note of. What stupendous stupidity! I am writing all this as soon as I have read ‘Self-reliance’ (you can very well say I am in a hangover like Bradely Cooper), which took thrice as long as I had imagined and as you are going to see, is filled with nothing but quotes. And another thing: while discussing literary works or films I have tried to give the essence without letting out spoilers so that you can enjoy the beauty of knowing too, but here, you HAVE to read it to find the essence, for, the whole work is an essence!
Emerson starts off with quoting another guy’s lines and that will remain with me for eternity: “Our acts our angels are, or good or ill, Our fatal shadows that walk us still.” He begins off his own words stating the importance of originality, saying after a few lines, “To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true of all men”. Then he says that the great people whom we try to imitate have all been originals and so should we. He’s so averse to imitation of other’s ideas that he says, “There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance, that imitation is suicide.” Even if one does not seem to please others not imitating one has to go on with his work and not be a coward and adds, “A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best.” But of imitation he says, “It is deliverance which does not deliver.” If one trusts himself he will not need the ideas of others.
He Then stresses the beauty of childhood and youth, the uniqueness and non-conformity that they stand for. Afterall who can be as blissful as a child! Oh, my teachers must have read this essay before trying to ‘discipline’ me! He even goes to the extent to say “[youth] will know how to make us seniors very unnecessary.” How beautiful it is to me, as a youth, to here such words! He further praises us, the youth, saying that seniors should be as unbiased as non-conforming youngsters.
Then comes the real theme: “Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of it’s members,” saying that once a boy enters society he loses his originality. Conformity loves “names and customs”, not “realities and creators”. He beautifully answers those condescending critics of ethics by: “The only right is what is after my constitution (innerself), the only wrong what is against it.” Then he turns his attention to those so-called philanthropists who try to do good just to show that they are good people of society and also advises him to follow their lead saying, “I tell thee, thou foolish philanthropist, that I grudge the dollar, the dime, the cent. I give to such men as do not belong to me and to whom I do not belong,” also adding that he is willing to lay down his life for those who belong to him and he to them. About trying to be popular trying to project oneself as virtuous in front of society he says, “My life is for itself and not for a spectacle.”
Mocking all those supposedly great souls who try to ‘reform’ you he says, “you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it.” Real great men, even when in society, preserve “independence of solitude”. He attacks the tradition of going to the Holy place of worship, as the preacher or church minister has nothing new to say, but his divine spirit has so much to. You can be a nonconformist only when you stop following texts and your nonconformity should be a radiance of simplicity, not a mentality to correct others. He further ridicules the idea of consistency, for you do not try anything new. He is ready to contradict himself of the past, since it means he is knowing more and living the present. And agreeing with good old Falstaff (a comic character from Shakespeare’s history plays) he does not value honour, “because it is not of today,” but a slavery of old pedigree and tradition.
Like Leo Tolstoy he seems to have found that history revolves around a few biographies and trying to imitate them we lose our divine way. “In history, our imagination plays us false.” Each will have his own point of view, we have to follow our own. To those so called God men who try to save other’s souls (as if all souls are not equal) he answers, “The relations of the soul to the divine spirit are so pure that it is profane to seek to interpose helps.” To those people who shield under the word tradition to worship the past he answers, “Is the parent better than the child into whom he has cast his ripened being? Whence, then, this worship of the past?” How beautifully he has shown the equality of souls across time: a rose was a rose; today a different rose is a rose; tomorrow another rose will be another. It’s circumstances, environment, colour, size may differ, but it’s sole is the same! “He cannot be happy and strong until he too lives with nature in the present, above time.” He rejects all texts, except as a source of knowledge. “When a man lives with God, his voice shall be as sweet as the murmur of the brook and the rustle of the corn,” adding that when “soul becomes” it “shoves both Jesus and Judas equally aside.” Further, rhetoric to please others and to show off is never a virtue.
Even plants have souls because they are “self-sufficing, and therefore self-relying.” When one is simple “God is here within.” He seems outright against those who preach religion, for they seem to have forgotten that God is within and that all souls are equal and each one’s inner God will take care of them. All the trifles that we do to satisfy society bring us down from spiritual elevation.
This sentence I am sure Gandhi would be very proud of, “let us at least resist our temptations; let us enter into a state of war (within the soul)…. speaking the truth.” He urges not to fall for “lying hospitality and lying affection” even of our own kith and kin if it is for the sake of society, for “[Emerson] will not hide [his] tastes and aversions,” and says to his relations and so called benefactors, “If you are noble, I will love you; if you are not, I will not hurt you and myself hypocritical attentions,” because “I cannot sell my liberty and my power, to save their sensibility.” Man, what insight!
This part of the essay is what exites me most as I feel he is directly speaking to me (unemployed youth, having just now finished education, trying to do what he likes and earn a living out of it), for he says how students, as soon as they finish their education, if they do not find a socially respectable job, are heartbroken. Instead he says how better a multi-faceted guy is who does all things from farming to keeping schools to anything and everything different.
About prayer for one’s own betterment: “Prayer that craves a particular commodity, – anything less than all good,- is vicious…. As soon as man is at once with God, he will not beg, he will then see prayer in action.”
Regret is evil because we are not working in the present, but stuck in the past. “Our sympathy is just as base,” because we discount the truth to console others. “The Gods loved him because men hated him.” He finds fault with creeds behind individuals as he knows all individuals are equal. One can learn from his “master’s mind,” but not idolize him.
Now comes a part where I disagree with Emerson for he seems to be against traveling saying, “Travelling is a fool’s paradise,” but I firmly believe that traveling broadens the mind and I simply love exploring, but surely Emerson will not grudge me for having my own ideas. He is against imitation in art and wants architects to build stuff based on their environment not on fanciful foreign or past ideas.
He finds no difference between the savage and the civilized, for, the lack of knowledge is compensated active good health and natural talent. About the crux of Self-reliance he says, “The reliance on property, including the reliance on governments which protect it, is the want of Self-reliance.” One should not inherit or easily get what he has not worked hard for.
Paulo Coelho would find ‘The Alchemist’s idea resonated in: “He who knows that power is inborn, that he is weak because he has looked for good out of him and elsewhere”. One who works in the present will not care about the words “chance” and “fortune”. He ends with: “Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.”
In a word Emerson is the embodiment of Vivekananda’s saying: “Each soul is potentially divine.”
