Self Reliance, By Ralph Waldo Emerson

Self Reliance, an essay by the famous transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson, is pretty deep. Way deep. Read-it-multiple-times kind of deep. Emerson’s essay discusses self-trusting, and urges readers to follow their own instincts and ideas. However, despite the author’s intelligent language and thoughtful insight into self-reliance, it ultimately became repetitive, hard to follow, and just lacking clarity.

In Self Reliance, Emerson explores themes of non-conformity and individualism– the essay is chock full of personal development and is one of the key pieces that helped distinguish American transcendentalism. I think– I’ll say it again– Emerson is a great writer; his way with words is undeniably fantastic albeit repetitive. His philosophy,
While I do not completely agree with his almost extreme individualistic beliefs and perspective on non-conformity, I acknowledge his ideas, and that’s enough. Some advice from the piece are thoughtful and helps in establishing one’s thought, however a few passages borders on extreme individualism. “I hope in these days we have heard the last of conformity and consistency…. Let us never bow and apologize more. A great man is coming to eat at my house. I do not wish to please him; I wish that he should wish to please me.” Mr. Emerson is right about trusting oneself and following gut instinct, however the previous quote is just plain overconfidence– besides intense individualism, Emerson harshly criticized society– “I hope in these days we have heard the last of conformity and consistency… 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…” This viewpoint of severe individualism and non-conformity almost seems to urge the reader to just throw out any knowledge, thoughts from the past, and history out the window and to embrace solely ones gut instinct– and to ignore any sort of established organized