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- Dec 25, 2007
Not the normal topic on NT nowadays, but I was wondering how many of you are familiar with this piece. I read it about 3 years ago and fell in love with it.Its something I still relate to and find myself recalling a great deal.
Link to it for those who arent familiar (its a long read)
http://www.youmeworks.com/selfreliance.html
EDIT: some things in particular that I liked:
"Man is timid and apologetic; he is no longer upright; he dares not say 'I think,' 'I am,' but quotes somesaint 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."
"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, forworse, 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 plotof 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 knowuntil he has tried. Not for nothing one face, one character, one fact, makes much impression on him, and anothernone."
"Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the societyof your contemporaries, the connection of events."
"These are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow faint and inaudible as we enterinto the world. Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. Society is a joint-stock company, in which themembers agree, for the better securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater."
"What I must do is all that concerns me, not whatthe people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. Itis the harder, because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy inthe 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 withperfect sweetness the independence of solitude."
"For nonconformity the world whips you with its displeasure. And therefore a man must know howto estimate a sour face. The by-standers look askance on him in the public street or in the friend's parlour. If this aversation had its origin incontempt and resistance like his own, he might well go home with a sad countenance; but the sour faces of the multitude, liketheir sweet faces, have no deep cause, but are put on and off as the wind blows and a newspaper directs."
So much more in there. Literary crack.
Link to it for those who arent familiar (its a long read)
http://www.youmeworks.com/selfreliance.html
EDIT: some things in particular that I liked:
"Man is timid and apologetic; he is no longer upright; he dares not say 'I think,' 'I am,' but quotes somesaint 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."
"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, forworse, 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 plotof 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 knowuntil he has tried. Not for nothing one face, one character, one fact, makes much impression on him, and anothernone."
"Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the societyof your contemporaries, the connection of events."
"These are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow faint and inaudible as we enterinto the world. Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. Society is a joint-stock company, in which themembers agree, for the better securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater."
"What I must do is all that concerns me, not whatthe people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. Itis the harder, because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy inthe 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 withperfect sweetness the independence of solitude."
"For nonconformity the world whips you with its displeasure. And therefore a man must know howto estimate a sour face. The by-standers look askance on him in the public street or in the friend's parlour. If this aversation had its origin incontempt and resistance like his own, he might well go home with a sad countenance; but the sour faces of the multitude, liketheir sweet faces, have no deep cause, but are put on and off as the wind blows and a newspaper directs."
So much more in there. Literary crack.