Miranda: English II, Section F

Blogs 5 and 6: Emerson’s “Self-Reliance” and How I feel about Blogging

“Believe your own thought”.
I really think that it is hard to go against common belief, and it is very true that if you think something that does not go along with what everyone else believes, you dismiss it…only because it is yours and it cannot be valuable or right because it is not what everyone else believes. Sometimes it is really hard to speak out if you are unsure of yourself, but what we do not realize is that other people maybe be thinking the same thing, or something very similar, but they are too scared to speak out. You may not be the only one with a certain opinion, there could be many other people out there who would support your statement, if only you gave it words and expressed your opinion. This is very true today…from speaking out or making a comment in class that you think might be wrong…all the way to expressing your feelings about a current issue and maybe organizing a protest. Another thing to think about…sometimes you might not want to express yourself because you are afraid that people will not support your view or that you will not have any followers. The interesting thing about this is…maybe instead of you doubting if you would have any followers, all the followers need is a leader, which could be you.

I think the following passage really expresses this in a very simple sentence…but it is a very complex idea. Because it is stated so simply, the reader is able to understand and contemplate the idea, at least on a simple level. However, I think this statement is loaded and layered, and can refer to many different things in life.

“ A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the luster of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his.”

I underlined this line in the book and this is a perfect example of what I am talking about in the paragraph before I gave this quote. It is a very simple statement, man dismisses his own thought, simply because it is his. Man doubts himself and he doubts what he believes… because it is his belief. This simple statement gets across the point that Emerson is trying to express…and it also expresses layers of complication that the reader is left to contemplate. It really makes me respect Emerson’s intelligence and ideas, that I am able to learn new things, simply by reading and understanding what he has to say, and then thinking about what he has said, I am able to draw new conclusions and make new connections, and through reading one sentence, I am left to contemplate (literally) infinite ideas in my own head.

That is something that is so cool about the blogs. I did not realize the complexity of this sentence until I was able to write about it in this blog. By reading it, it seemed like a simple sentence, expressing a really true and philosophical idea, and I understood it on a simple level. However, when I began to write about it in this blog, I started making connections to my own life and things that I know, and through the process of contemplation, I am able to learn new things…through my own thoughts and ideas. And analyzing about three sentences in Emerson’s “Self-Reliance” has started all this. I literally could probably go on forever with the ideas that these three sentences spur, because one idea would lead to another…one connection to the next. It seems really healthy to me to be able to think about one idea and have it lead to other ideas, and be able to express my ideas and feelings freely in a blog. This morning I got really scared that I had forgotten to write my two blogs for the week and I am really glad that I sat down and wrote this blog, because every time I write a blog, I am able to learn new things. One sentence that someone writes can spur so many different ideas and connections in my head. I really like blogging, and I think it is really good for me to be able to express my ideas and think about them, because it leads me to new ideas and connections. I wish I could blog more often, but it seems like I don’t have time. Maybe I need to find time, because I am a teenager, and I feel like I am just forming my own ideas, and blogging allows me to express those ideas and think about them, and learn new things and make new connections. I feel really free when I blog because I am able to speak my mind, and think about what I am writing, which allows me to learn new things and make new connections. I think blogging is really good for me and I really like doing it. I feel like every time I sit down and blog, I learn so many new things and am able to organize my thoughts, I am able to express myself and how I feel about something, which allows me to make new connections and learn new things.

Back to Emerson, I want to say that I wish I could write a sentence like he did, that was stated so simply, and which led me to make all of these connections and learn all of these new things, and it made me think about blogging, and my life, and he only wrote one sentence, and it caused all of that. I feel that my essays and pieces of writing are often very repetitive, because I feel like I have a really good idea about something, but I don’t quite know how to express myself. I keep repeating myself and writing several different sentences about the same topic, just to try to express myself, but I am never quite satisfied, I never feel like I have fully expressed the idea that I had. I feel that if I could write a sentence like Emerson’s sentence, I would be satisfied, because his sentence really engages the reader. It is not just telling the reader something and expecting them to believe it, or telling them that they should believe it, or even stating it as a fact. Instead, he puts his idea out there and leaves it to the reader to make connections about it. Maybe he didn’t even mean to do that, but I feel like his idea was so well expressed, that he was able to get his point across, but also, leave room for the reader to make their own connections and learn several new things from what he had to say. I want to learn how to express my ideas in a more concise way, but I also want to be able to fully express my ideas, which I often feel like I am not able to do (mostly in essays or pieces of writing).

Another thing about this passage in Emerson’s writing, is that he keeps talking about “man” and what “man” has to do…but he doesn’t talk about women. I feel that I was able to understand and relate to what he had to say…but he wasn’t even addressing me, or the female gender. I don’t know why he did this (not talk about women), but maybe it was very controversial at this time to give women power, or the idea that they might be able to understand things as well as men could. Or maybe Emerson did not believe that women should be given power or the idea that they could be as intelligent as men. Because I really respect Emerson, I would like to believe that he did not talk about women in this piece of writing because it was very controversial at this time, and not because he did not believe that they deserved these rights. However, if Emerson thought that women should be given power and the idea that they could understand the things that men did, and he did not speak out about his opinion or include women in his writing because it was so controversial, then it could be said that he was hypocritical because he talks in his writing about how you should believe your own idea and not just dismiss it because it is yours, and it is not what the common opinion is. I do understand that he probably could have been persecuted for including women in his writing, or maybe men would just ignore or dismiss him or not listen to him because he included women in his writing. I understand that it was probably a hard decision and better for him if his ideas were widely accepted, rather than rejected and never published or written down…I am just interested in why he did not include women in his writing.

The last observation I would like to make about Emerson’s “Self-Reliance” (in this blog) is that I feel that the way he writes gives his readers power and self confidence in telling them that they should not just dismiss their ideas…because they are theirs. Rather, he tells them to cherish their own ideas and not go along with the common opinion if they disagree with it. I think Emerson is basically telling his readers that he believes in their ideas which really gives them power and I think that that is very appealing to the readers, because, if you stretch what he is saying, you can say that he is telling his readers that he believes in them and their ideas. I also think that, just in the way he writes, he is not just stating his opinions as fact, but rather, he is allowing the reader to make their own connections and learn new things from the ideas that they have. I think he is more or less taking the stance of: this is what I believe or this is what I think…either accept it or reject it…I am just putting it out there. I think this also gives the reader power because he or she gets to make their own decision about what they believe in terms of what Emerson is saying or writing.

I realize that when I say, his readers, I mean everyone who reads “Self-Reliance”, but he probably only thought that men would be reading his writing or listening to his sermons. Just to clarify, whenever I say “his readers” I am referring to anyone and everyone who reads or has read his writing, and not just to who he was addressing with his writing (mostly men).

1, 772 Words…FYI (honestly, just so you know…I am not trying to show off about how much I wrote…I just started writing and the ideas kept flowing, and, well I talked a lot about this in this blog but, I just kept making new connections and one idea led to this next, I felt like I really had a lot to write about.)

To think about…maybe I will look back at this blog, or my other blogs later on, I think they will be very valuable to me…they are really very valuable to me right know. I feel that I can really express myself and my ideas, and I am able to contemplate them and make new connections, by writing about them in the blog entries.