“Insist on yourself; never imitate”
I find it disconcerting to realize that it has been more than half a century since I first read Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay “Self-Reliance.” At least I know I’ve had plenty of time to think it over. I’ve read it a number of times since then, of course, but that first encounter has stayed in my mind with extraordinary vividness. It took place in February 1957. I was 15, a sophomore in high school. But I had stayed home from school that day because of a bad cold — for some reason colds affected me worse when I was young than later on.
The day was very clear and very cold. The bedroom where I sat reading was filled with dazzling winter sunlight. I don’t remember why I decided to read “Self-Reliance.” It was in an anthology of classic American literature that we had lying around the house. I knew that Emerson was supposed to be an important writer, so maybe I just decided to see if he lived up to his reputation.
He sure did for me. “Self-Reliance” hit me like a personal declaration of independence. “Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.” “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds….” “To be great is to be misunderstood.” What bookish adolescent wouldn’t thrill to such words?
Conformism was much talked about at the time. Sloan Wilson’s novel The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit — which had to do with conformity as exemplified by corporate yes men — had come out two years earlier and its screen adaptation hit theaters the year before. Maybe that’s what made Emerson’s essay seem so up-to-date.
At any rate, it was not those famous quotes from “Self-Reliance” that grabbed me so much as this one: “Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life’s cultivation; but of the adopted talent of another you have only an extemporaneous half possession. That which each can do best, none but his Maker can teach him.”
What I liked about this — what I still like about it — is the idea that there is something each of us can do that no one else is qualified to, and that authenticity consists in finding out what that is and doing it as best one can. I do not mean to suggest that I was able to put this to myself in this way at that time. But I do remember thinking that day that I would discover whatever it was I was best suited for only by looking within, not by looking around.
I also remember realizing that this might not be anything especially great. I already knew I was no potential Michelangelo or Beethoven or Tolstoy. What Emerson helped me to understand was that it didn’t matter. For what it was worth, Michelangelo, Beethoven, and Tolstoy were no Frank Wilsons, either. What Emerson got across to me is that aspiring to be anything other than whoever it is you happen to be is an excercise in futility that is bound to make you miserable.
Something else in “Self-Reliance” grabbed me as well: “If I know your sect I anticipate your argument.” Ever been around people who all read the same papers and magazines, watch the same TV news shows, and — surprise, surprise — think the same thoughts? Their smug and smiling countenances are the spitting image of the conformism Emerson so deplored, and you can wipe the smiles off their faces very easily by mildly suggesting a contrary viewpoint. Try it sometime. You might be surprised — even enlightened — at the result.
The two most important years of my life, I have come to think, were when I was 4 and when I was 15. When I was 4 I learned to tell time and also, it seems to me, found my bearings in the world. Things fell into perspective. I developed a sense of direction.
When I was 15, thanks in no small part to Emerson, I pretty much decided how I was going to act in the world. Emerson sowed the seeds of individualism in my soul, so that when, not that many years later, I encountered the writings of Albert Jay Nock, I immediately recognized a kindred spirit.
“The only thing that the psychically human being can do to improve society,” Nock wrote, “is to present society with one improved unit. In a word, ages of experience testify that the only way society can be improved is by the individualistic method … the method of each one doing his very best to improve one.”
There is one downside to this: If you don’t manage to make any improvement, you have no one to blame but yourself.
That’s What He Said is published on Tuesdays.
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Frank , I just read Self Reliance for the first time and every page, every paragraph was a love slap of the most challenging variety. I’m still reeling, inpsired, intrigued, black and blue. What a love of humanity the minister had, what deep respect for the unique treasure of each human mind, and what a call he made in asking for each of us to properly cultivate our particular connection to the divine. Had he lived a few centuries earlier, he might have died a heretics death.
But self reliance doesn’t exclude inspiration, as Emerson himself demonstrated in his admiration of Hafiz : ‘He fears nothing. He sees too far; he sees throughout; such is the only man I wish to see and be.’ I’m now reading Marcus Aurelius, an interesting lens to study Emerson through, especially in terms of what he means when he talks about Nature. Anyway, thanks beating the self reliance drum, it’s a strong medicine for what ails us.
Also, thanks for mentioning Albert Jay Nock, I’ve never heard of him, but will look him up.
Great piece, Frank. It goes a long way towards explaining why I do so like Emerson very much. Also, as you probably know, you’ve managed to include a reference to Lucy Maud Montgomery here? So, it’s truly cross-culturally gorgeous. She coined “kindred spirits,” after all, IIRC, Dear KS :).
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