Review — Emerson
Should be translated and read more, by curious and courageous younger generation. I will try to actualize some of its memorable (by my perception) quotes from Self-reliance and Nature.
SELF-RELIANCE
“There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better for worse as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried.” — Try to read this quote through the eyes of the constant bombardment via the current mediums (technological: screens mainly or music and content wise: video, short sound bites or text bites). Current mediums condemn people to ignorance through envy (mainly material but also experinces — FOMOs) and the only path seems imitation as all seem done before and repeating. Is there a way out? Emerson sure believes so and it requires self-acceptance, knowing one-self and action (“To know and not do is not to know” — this simple quote resonates from Bhagavad Gita to recent books)to know your potential.
“Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events. Great men have always done so, and confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age, betraying their perception that the absolutely trustworthy was seated at their heart, working through their hands, predominating in all their being. And we are now men, and must accept in the highest mind the same transcendent destiny; and not minors and invalids in a protected corner, not cowards fleeing before a revolution, but guides, redeemers and benefactors, obeying the Almighty effort and advancing on Chaos and the Dark.” — Trust yourself is the only way as life is Chaos and Dark. It takes courage or leaf of faith, but it must be done as there is no third path, but how many are brave enough to open their eyes, observe and act? it is not a one-off effort, it is a life journey, it is a state of mind. It echoes some of J. Peterson’s call of waking up, of standing straight. This is why you probably hear the following advice from great sports persons: Believe in yourself!
“What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.” — or Ray Dalio’s: Don’t worry about looking good, worry about achieving your goal. Feynman even wrote an entire book about it: “What do you care what other people think?”. Definitely a principle to abide by proportional and not in absolute, otherwise you will look crazy.
“The other terror that scares us from self-trust is our consistency; a reverence for our past act or word because the eyes of others have no other data for computing our orbit than our past acts, and we are loath to disappoint them.” …”A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — ‘Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.” — This is related to previous quote, on preoccupation on what others think. Which is a weight on the capacity and normal process of changing of mind. And if this process is altered it can lead to self-doubt which is low self-trust. And what can you accomplish when you have lost the calmness and energy of self-trust?
“… it symbolizes so well the state of man, who is in the world a sort of sot, but now and then wakes up, exercises his reason and finds himself a true prince.” — how many people take a break and look attentively at themselves and the current state of affairs and access their true reason (not brain power)? How many people stop the repetition of 24h newsroom, social media, city conditioning? Is it really a strange thing that billionaires go on digital detox?(Jack Dorsey Myanmar retreat and Benioff’s vacation).
“ Every man discriminates between the voluntary acts of his mind and his involuntary perceptions, and knows that to his involuntary perceptions a perfect faith is due. He may err in the expression of them, but he knows that these things are so, like day and night, not to be disputed. My willful actions and acquisitions are but roving; — the idlest reverie, the faintest native emotion, command my curiosity and respect. Thoughtless people contradict as readily the statement of perceptions as of opinions, or rather much more readily; for they do not distinguish between perception and notion. They fancy that I choose to see this or that thing. But perception is not whimsical, but fatal. If I see a trait, my children will see it after me, and in course of time all mankind, — although it may chance that no one has seen it before me. For my perception of it is as much a fact as the sun.” …. “Whenever a mind is simple and receives a divine wisdom, old things pass away, — means, teachers, texts, temples fall; it lives now, and absorbs past and future into the present hour.” — Whoever has tried to meditate will recognize this words and be enlighten by them. It speaks about consciousness and subconsciousness, it talks again acceptance of subconsciousness “perceptions” as part of oneself. It talks about the courage to confront these perceptions as they are important and their ignorance will impact your reality, so why not better to train yourself in recognizing them and deal with them.
“Man is timid and apologetic; he is no longer upright; he dares not say ‘I think,’ ‘I am,’ but quotes some saint or sage. He is ashamed before the blade of grass or the blowing rose. These roses under my window make no reference to former roses or to better ones; they are for what they are; they exist with God to-day. There is no time to them. There is simply the rose; it is perfect in every moment of its existence. Before a leaf-bud has burst, its whole life acts; in the full-blown flower there is no more; in the leafless root there is no less. Its nature is satisfied and it satisfies nature in all moments alike. But man postpones or remembers; he does not live in the present, but with reverted eye laments the past, or, heedless of the riches that surround him, stands on tiptoe to foresee the future. He cannot be happy and strong until he too lives with nature in the present, above time.” ….”We are like children who repeat by rote the sentences of grandames and tutors, and, as they grow older, of the men of talents and character they chance to see, — painfully recollecting the exact words they spoke; afterwards, when they come into the point of view which those had who uttered these sayings, they understand them and are willing to let the words go; for at any time they can use words as good when occasion comes.” — One first call to embrace nature as a way to live in the present, to move your attention from the heavy past that stays on ones mind and the futile attempts to foresee the future. It is no wonder that Japan has forest therapy. Another way to not live in the present (which I tend to understand it equates with meaningful action) is to turn your attention to gurus, philosophers — He dares not to say I think! Do we as a species have to much history? Are we condemn to turn our attention to the past and philosophers as like in geography … everything had been discovered? Can we still dream of being different and make a mark in our worlds at the best of our abilities?
“Another sort of false prayers are our regrets. Discontent is the want of self-reliance: it is infirmity of will. Regret calamities if you can thereby help the sufferer; if not, attend your own work and already the evil begins to be repaired. Our sympathy is just as base. We come to them who weep foolishly and sit down and cry for company, instead of imparting to them truth and health in rough electric shocks, putting them once more in communication with their own reason.” — Sometimes one needs an electric shock and hard truth is always a good way to do this.
About travelling: “It is for the want of self-culture that the superstition of Travelling, whose idols are Italy, England, Egypt, retains its fascination for all educated Americans. They who made England, Italy or Greece venerable in the imagination did so by sticking fast where they were, like an axis of the earth. In manly hours we feel that duty is our place. The soul is no traveler; the wise man stays at home, and when his necessities, his duties, on any occasion calls him from his house, or into foreign lands, he is at home still and shall make men sensible by the expression of his countenance that he goes, the missionary of wisdom and virtue, and visits cities and men like a sovereign and not like and interloper or a valet” ..… “He who travels to be amused, or to get somewhat which he does not carry, travels away from himself, and grow old even in youth among old things. In Thebes, Palmyra, his will and mind have become old and dilapidated as they. He carries ruins to ruins.” ….. “the rage of travelling is a symptom of a deeper unsoundness affecting the whole intellectual action. The intellect is vagabond, and our system of education fosters restlessness. Our minds travel when our bodies are forced to stay at home. We imitate; and what is imitation but travelling of the mind?” — I believe this critique of mindless and imitating travelling we see nowadays is very actual. I mean when you see pictures and stories like Everest crowds and Bieber’s Iceland canyon story, then you should wonder right? What drives a person to decide on a location? Why prioritize places and old building over interacting with people, communities, old friends?
“A political victory, a rise of rents, the recovery of your sick or the return of your absent friend, or some other favorable event raises your spirits, and you think good days are preparing for you. Do not believe it. Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.” — A lot of people mistake identity politics with a triumph of principles, but is it? Other wins are short-lived as well, so you jump on the wheel again searching for another win? Is this to blame current society? Is there another way? Principles are not virtues and are very personal as we are different configured. The principles might repeat themselves, but the optimal mix to you can be quite unique. Is the current influencing from media creating same profiles, same mix of principles?
NATURE
“In the woods too, a man casts off his years, as the snake his slough, and at what period soever of life, is always a child. In the woods, is perpetual youth. Within these plantations of God, a decorum and sanctity reign, a perennial festival is dressed, and the guest sees not how he should tire of them in a thousand years. In the woods, we return to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befall me in life, — no disgrace, no calamity, (leaving me my eyes,) which nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground, — my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, — all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God. The name of the nearest friend sounds then foreign and accidental: to be brothers, to be acquaintances, — master or servant, is then a trifle and a disturbance. I am the lover of uncontained and immortal beauty. In the wilderness, I find something more dear and connate than in streets or villages. In the tranquil landscape, and especially in the distant line of the horizon, man beholds somewhat as beautiful as his own nature.” — Hope more people will discover and rediscover nature, especially in their own country and to get out of it their own beautiful stories, experience and cary them in their daily lives. I believe nature is a great alternative to current contemporary offering of city life and people has started to realize this.
“Every natural fact is a symbol of some spiritual fact. Every appearance in nature corresponds to some state of the mind, and that state of the mind can only be described by presenting that natural appearance as its picture. An enraged man is a lion, a cunning man is a fox, a firm man is a rock, a learned man is a torch. A lamb is innocence; a snake is subtle spite; flowers express to us the delicate affections. Light and dar kness are our familiar expression for knowledge and ignorance; and heat for love. Visible distance behind and before us, is respectively our image of memory and hope.” …. “Man is conscious of a universal soul within or behind his individual life, wherein, as in a firmament, the natures of Justice, Truth, Love, Freedom, arise and shine. This universal soul, he calls Reason: it is not mine, or thine, or his, but we are its; we are its property and men. And the blue sky in which the private earth is buried, the sky with its eternal calm, and full of everlasting orbs, is the type of Reason. That which, intellectually considered, we call Reason, considered in relation to nature, we call Spirit. Spirit is the Creator. Spirit hath life in itself. And man in all ages and countries, embodies it in his language, as the FATHER.” —
“The corruption of man is followed by the corruption of language. When simplicity of character and the sovereignty of ideas is broken up by the prevalence of secondary desires, the desire of riches, of pleasure, of power, and of praise, — and duplicity and falsehood take place of simplicity and truth, the power over nature as an interpreter of the will, is in a degree lost; new imagery ceases to be created, and old words are perverted to stand for things which are not; a paper currency is employed, when there is no bullion in the vaults. In due time, the fraud is manifest, and words lose all power to stimulate the understanding or the affections.” — For a fiat driven society, the paper currency metaphor is quite funny. Still the message is clear: the path away from virtue and hardship and towards “secondary desires” leads to phoniness and persistence on the path corrupts the language and condemns to a world of not being understood, not being believed. Terrible world.
“What tedious training, day after day, year after year, never ending, to form the common sense; what continual reproduction of annoyances, inconveniences, dilemmas; what rejoicing over us of little men; what disputing of prices, what reckonings of interest, — and all to form the Hand of the mind; — to instruct us that “good thoughts are no better than good dreams, unless they be executed!” — Brilliant call to action, what is so much training if not followed by action? I believe a lot of people miss this call to action as a one-off expression of willpower when the call is to have an action mind set, a plan, a follow-up, a constant struggle to grow, perform and improve virtues. I think this mind set is liberating.
“Nothing in nature is exhausted in its first use. When a thing has served an end to the uttermost, it is wholly new for an ulterior service. In God, every end is converted into a new means. Thus the use of commodity, regarded by itself, is mean and squalid.” — This reminds me of the roundabout principle expressed by Spitznagel in “The Dao of capital” where he also repeatedly professed that the short-term must be sacrificed naturally if long-term benefits are expected.
“Xenophanes complained in his old age, that, look where he would, all things hastened back to Unity. He was weary of seeing the same entity in the tedious variety of forms. The fable of Proteus has a cordial truth. A leaf, a drop, a crystal, a moment of time is related to the whole, and partakes of the perfection of the whole. Each particle is a microcosm, and faithfully renders the likeness of the world.” — Echoes fractal theory constructed 100 years later by Mandelbrot.
“He will perceive that there are far more excellent qualities in the student than preciseness and infallibility; that a guess is often more fruitful than an indisputable affirmation, and that a dream may let us deeper into the secret of nature than a hundred concerted experiments.” — Clearly reminds me of Poppers’ course on the scientific method, where he also advocated for clarity over preciseness and the value of an idea as a starting point in the pursuit of truth. Countless random experiments might not lead to the best truth, although recently machine learning is trying to do just that.
