Self Reliance

The verse preceding the essay showed how Emerson had such a positive view on human nature and it set the stage, saying we are good individuals. Emerson meant to say that self-reliance is being able to express your thoughts freely even if it is going against the flow. At some moment in anyones education, people realize that hating people and being envious is stupid and childish. We should all be happy with the things we already have. The quote, "The eye was placed where one ray should fall, that it might testify of that particular ray," means that we are powerful based on our decisions and we should stick up for what we have to say. "The divine idea which each of us represent," means that we were all born sinners and have our own opinions to things. An iron string may not look appealing, but it is still very strong. You should know yourself, so you can trust yourself. Transcendentalism is rising above colonial literature and it is a way of rebeling and going a different way than expected. "Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the man-hood of every one of its members," explains that even though we are all as a whole, we all take different views on things. Society feels they would be powerless without us all being the same. "The virtue in most request is conformity, self-reliance is its aversion," means that we all conform to certain things in society and being self-reliant helps us to make our own decisions. "A foolish consistency is the hob-goblin of little minds adhored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines," shows that going with the flow isn't necessarily good and you should stick out and make your own decisions. "Words as hard as cannon ball," is a simile that means that words are very effective and have a huge impact on how you use them. I think this essay was all about how when we have an opinion, we need to state it. We shouldn't let someone else think of it first and feel guilty afterward. People might tear us down, but we need to get right back up. We need to be self-reliant and do things on our own when we need to do it. On the presidential debates tonight, president Obama said that we need to be self-reliant. Now I fully understand what that means.