Tag: self-reliance

Podcast notes – Ralph Waldo Emerson on self-reliance: “Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds”

Topic: Ralph Waldo Emerson
Philosophize This podcast

Way to gain access to truth is to turn inwards
Deepest connection is through our own human experience

Emerson published Self Reliance in 1841 – between Revolutionary War and Civil War
America was a baby country then
Call to action to American citizens

Was enemy of dogma, “imitation is suicide”
You sacrifice your life and your unique contribution when you just copy or imitate others
Educate broadly, but trust thyself

Offers alternative morality around the thinking individual
Why do external sources of wisdom are not sources of enlightenment?

3 TRAPS where we lose self reliance

ONE – trap of Conformity – conform to demands of society
Become a “virtuous person” which is defined by society
Society’s primary goal is to get you to stop thinking for yourself, that’s what “maturity” means
Eventually your conformity becomes cowardice
People around you don’t get to see the real you, you don’t offer your unique talents and views to the world
Think of the time you waste sharing or agreeing with views that aren’t yours
True non-conformity must come from turning inwards

TWO – trap of Consistency – society expects us to stay consistent
Society has expectations around our consistency of beliefs (eg, dislike politicians who change their views)
If something is true, it should be just as true tomorrow as today
But individuals are volatile and change all the time
“Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds”
Inconsistency / changing views is often sign that person thinks for themselves, a sign that they may be more connected to truth
Like a boat changing course in the wind – moving closer to its destination, but to observers, may seem haphazard and wasteful
“Dare to be inconsistent” – no great thinker in the world was considered great for adhering to status quo – they seemed constantly misunderstood, like Jesus, Socrates, Newton – to be great is to be misunderstood
However, it’s easy to be non-conformist while sitting in basement and talking to no one

Our own individual intuition is where we should all start – power of intuitive knowledge
Emerson was a Deist, didn’t believe in a God who involves itself in human affairs
Transcendentalism – every part of universe is connected to every other part
“Oversoul” (similar to concept of God)
People who pay attention, observe closely, will get closer to the truth, connect closer to the Universe, to the Oversoul

Thought of himself as a poet, not a philosopher

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Finis! Published here because it’s a departure from my usual crypto / NFT notes which are shared on twitter

Excerpts from Self-Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson

emerson-and-grandsonA brief and wonderful 88-pager.

Emerson counsels (admonishes?) us to never conform, to always speak our minds, and to create original work.

Here were my favorite excerpts, quotes:

In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.

Infancy conforms to nobody; all conform to it; so that one babe commonly makes four or five out of the adults who prattle and play to it.

I am ashamed to think how easily we capitulate to badges and names, to large societies and dead institutions. Every decent and well-spoken individual affects and sways me more than is right.

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.

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.

A man Caesar is born, and for ages after we have a Roman Empire. Christ is born, and millions of minds so grow and cleave to his genius that he is confounded with virtue and the possible of man. An institution is the lengthened shadow of one man;

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.

Discontent is the want of self-reliance: it is infirmity of will.

Society never advances. It recedes as fast on one side as it gains on the other. It undergoes continual changes; it is barbarous, it is civilized, it is christianized, it is rich, it is scientific […] For every thing that is given something is taken. Society acquires new arts and loses old instincts.

Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.

Great works of art teach us to abide by our spontaneous impression, else tomorrow a stranger will say with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time, and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from another.

Do your work, and I shall know you.

He who has more obedience than I masters me, though he should not raise his finger. Round him I must revolve by the gravitation of spirits.

The power men possess to annoy me I give them by a weak curiosity. No man can come near me but through my act.

The genius of Ralph Waldo Emerson

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. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

I tend to cycle through highly social and then highly solitary periods. From personal experience, the above quote couldn’t be more true.

I’m thoroughly enjoying Emerson’s Self-Reliance. I usually highlight 1 or 2 sentences per page of a typical Kindle book, but here it’s closer to 6 or 8. It’s a fast read, too (Kindle clocks it in at 88 pages).