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Wrap-Up for
"Self-Reliance"
by Glen Draeger

Hello Self-Reliant Readers,

What does Emerson mean by "Self-Reliance"? There are lots of things here and part of the difficulty is to see the essay as a whole and not only in its parts. If you only see parts of it then you may get a distorted view of Emerson's meaning. Ironically, Emerson admits that defining Self-Reliance is a difficult endeavor. On page 29 he writes,

Why, then, do we prate of self-reliance? . . . . To talk of reliance is a poor external way of speaking. Speak rather of that which relies, because it works and is.

Emerson is saying that what matters is what works regardless of what you call it.

What are some of the aspects of what Emerson calls "Self-Reliance"?

The self-reliant person is a nonconformist. One must be careful here. Emerson is not talking about nonconformity for the sake of nonconformity, that is, the person who tries hard to be different just so they can be different, so they can shock people or so they can attract attention. No. The nonconformity comes from deep within the individual. It is that part of the individual that makes him or her uniquely himself or herself. Emerson writes, "imitation is suicide," "I must be myself," and "Insist on yourself; never imitate." To do this one must "know thyself," and this work is not only difficult but a lifelong endeavor.

The self-reliant person uses "that plot of ground which is given to him to till." Emerson says that we must know our abilities; we must not overestimate them or underestimate them. Fortune or fate or the circumstances that surround us should not cause us to be troubled because the self-reliant person has "chained the wheel of chance." This is because we are not traveling in the physical world we are traveling in a spiritual one and the self-reliant are at home no matter where they are or what times they find themselves in because those times and places are what contribute to making them uniquely themselves.

The self-reliant are not foolishly consistent; they are willing to change if necessary. Emerson is not against consistency only "foolish consistency." The problem, he says, is that we get used to the ways in which people view us and we do not want to disappoint those who approve of the way we are. What if Michael Jordan had truly wanted to leave basketball to make quilts? If that was what he truly wanted to do it would have been difficult because of how many people saw him as only a basketball player. Because of that, that is how he begins to see himself and he feels the need not to disappoint those who approve of him. Emerson would tell him to make the quilts and not worry about what everyone else would think about him. Be willing to change! Be willing to admit mistakes! This is the mark of a truly self-reliant individual.

The falsely self-reliant will use self-reliance as an excuse. Emerson writes that "the bold sensualist will use the name of philosophy to gild his crimes," that is, he will commit evil and say it is because he is a nonconformist. But the truly self-reliant individual is both a nonconformist and a virtuous person. He or she brings the two together.

Emerson argues that self-reliance may appear as only the "rejection of popular standards," or conventions or the accepted ways of doing things, but almost like Christ, Emerson says that the law he follows is a more stringent one. "If any one imagines that this law is lax, let him keep its commandment for one day." Why? Because the self-reliant have to be self-disciplined, they have to be a law for themselves and regulate their lives according to this inner law. It is important to note that Emerson does not see his dedication to this philosophy as precluding him from his obligations. He writes, "I shall endeavor to nourish my parent, to support my family, to be the chaste husband of one wife," but he will not do this at the expense of losing himself—he will be truly himself and fulfill these obligations "after a new and unprecedented way."

It is also important to remember that Emerson's self-reliance is not the type that makes no acknowledgement of something beyond and outside himself. Emerson writes often of God. He talks also of the "divine spirit," the "Supreme Cause," "eternal causation," "divine providence" and the "Maker." To see the self-reliant as completely solitary, as people who are alone in universe, will miss the point. Emerson writes about "when God speaketh," a mind that "receives divine wisdom," being in the "lap of immense intelligence," and the God who is "here within." The true individual taps this source—and Emerson would say that they tap it directly. My own opinion is that Emerson would not say you throw out theology and philosophy and religion. The fact that he refers to a "dead church" insinuates that he believes there are live ones.

Thomas Aquinas, the great theologian, wrote the Summa Theologica, a gigantic work of doctrine still used by the Catholic Church and Christians around the world. At the end of his life, just before he died, he said, when urged to complete his mammoth work,

I can do no more; such things have been revealed to me that all I have written seems as straw, and I now await the end of my life.

Because of this there are those who would say that theology and philosophy are useless. Thomas Merton, however, once wrote, in reference to this incident, "beware of the contemplative who says that theology is all straw before he has read any." Theology or philosophy, ultimately, according to Emerson, help us live our lives contentedly, to be who we are meant to be, but they are a means to an end not the end itself.

We also talked about the cumulative effects of actions. No action, Emerson says, is trivial. Whatever you do will accumulate so that the good action you perform today will enable you to perform another one tomorrow and the same goes for evil actions. Life, all of it, is important and all our actions have consequences. There is the old Eastern Religious idea that a butterfly on the other side of the world may be the cause of a tornado on this side.

There is much more that could be said here. What I'd like you to keep in mind is to see the essay as whole. Try, when you think of it, to bring in all the parts that are contained in it.

Remember, Emerson was a preacher for a number of years before he decided to leave the church and so there are echoes of the Bible throughout this essay. Regardless of your religious beliefs or lack of religious beliefs, the Bible is an important book to get to know. It is not only a religious book but also a great work of literature. One cannot adequately understand Western Literature without a knowledge of the Bible. Many authors make reference to stories and ideas in the Bible and they will be easier to understand with some knowledge of this book that has affected our entire culture.

Anyway, some of what Emerson says has similar aspects in the Bible. For instance, Emerson's ideas on prayer remind one of I Thess. 5:17: "pray without ceasing." Emerson's ideas about following the truth above all else sound something similar to Christ saying, "If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple." When Emerson writes of the law he follows one is reminded of Christ remarking that one half of the greatest commandment is "to love your neighbor as yourself." Try following that law!! No easy task.

There are lots and lots of works that relate to this idea of Self-Reliance. Here are some of my favorites:

The Baron in the Trees by Italo Calvino is the story of a boy who takes to the trees to live—and lives there the rest of his life. He never comes down—not once. Living there is for him a paradise. It is a story about being yourself, about not conforming and yet, like Emerson's self-reliant individual, he does not forsake his society or his family by so doing. It is said of the Baron, "Only by being so frankly himself as he was till his death could he give something to all men.”

H.G. Well's story "The Door in the Wall" is about man who chooses not be himself, who chooses not to pursue the things that really make him happy. As a young boy he sees a door in a wall and goes through that door into a kind of paradise. Later in life he sees the same door, but instead of going through it he is pulled away by obligations of college and career—something he regrets for the rest of his life. The man says, "Thrice I have had my chance . . . If ever that door offers itself to me again, I swore, I will go in . . . I will go and never return. . . . I swore it, and when the time came—I didn't go."

The Glass Bead Game by Hermann Hesse is about man who at the top of his profession in a futuristic world after World War III chooses to leave it—something never done by any of his predecessors. In the novel the narrator says, "He was determined to free himself from the fetters of his present situation leaving himself unencumbered for tasks which he felt were awaiting him."

Epictetus, the stoic philosopher from the first century A.D., in Enchiridion writes:

For this is your duty, to act well the part that is given you . . .

I think Emerson would agree.

Regards,

Mr. Draeger

Wrap-Up for "Self-Reliance" by Glen Draeger

Wrap-Up for
"Self-Reliance"
by Glen Draeger