Self-Reliance and Other Essays

Self-Reliance

Recently, I read some poems by a well-known painter. These verses were fresh and original, not just copies of what others usually write. Whenever you encounter something truly original like that, your soul pays attention, no matter the subject. The feeling these original lines give you is more important than any specific idea they might contain.

The Spark of Genius

True genius is to believe your own thoughts. It’s trusting that what feels true to you in your heart is also true for everyone. You should speak your deepest beliefs, and you’ll find they connect with a universal understanding. What starts as an inner thought can eventually become an outward reality. In a way, our first, deepest thoughts are confirmed for us by life’s final truths.

We all know that inner voice, our intuition. The greatest respect we have for figures like Moses, Plato, and Milton comes from this: they ignored old books and traditions. They didn’t just repeat what others said; they spoke what they truly thought.

A person should learn to notice and value the flashes of insight that come from within their own mind. These are more important than the brilliance of even the most famous poets and thinkers. Yet, often, a person dismisses their own unique thought simply because it’s theirs.

When we see a work of genius, we often recognize our own ideas that we once dismissed. These thoughts come back to us with a kind of powerful, yet distant, dignity. Great art teaches us an important lesson: stick to your own first impressions with a confident, good-natured firmness. This is especially important when everyone else disagrees with you. If you don’t, someone else will eventually express the very same things you thought and felt. Then, you’ll feel ashamed that you had to hear your own opinion from another person.

Understanding Your Unique Path

There comes a point in everyone’s learning when they realize a few key things:

• Being envious of others is a sign of not knowing yourself.
• Trying to copy others is like destroying your own potential.
• You must accept yourself, good and bad, as your unique starting point.
• The world is full of good things, but you can only get your share by working on the specific tasks and opportunities you’ve been given.

The power inside you is something new and unique to this world. Only you know what you are capable of, and even you won’t know until you try.

There’s a reason why certain people, experiences, or facts make a big impression on you, while others don’t. These preferences, etched in your memory, aren’t random. It’s as if your senses were designed to notice specific things, so you could understand and share those specific insights.

Often, we only express a small part of who we are. We feel ashamed of the unique, almost divine, idea that each of us represents. But you can trust this inner idea. If you express it faithfully, it will lead to good things. However, a higher power (or truth) won’t reveal its greatest works through people who are too afraid to be themselves.

A person feels relieved and happy when they’ve put their whole heart into their work and done their best. But if they’ve said or done things that aren’t true to themselves, they won’t find peace. It’s like being rescued in a way that doesn’t actually set you free. When you try to be someone you’re not, your unique talent disappears. You find no inspiration, no new ideas, and no hope.

Trust Your Inner Voice

Trust yourself. Every heart responds to that strong, inner call. Accept the situation that life has given you. This includes the people around you and the series of events in your life. Great people have always done this. They trusted the unique spirit of their time with a childlike confidence. They understood that the most reliable truth was within their own hearts, guiding their actions and influencing their whole being.

We are individuals now, and we must also accept this profound destiny in our own minds. We shouldn’t be like children or sick people hiding in a safe corner. We shouldn’t be cowards running from challenges. Instead, we should be:

• Guides
• Redeemers (those who save or improve things)
• Benefactors (those who help others)

We do this by following that powerful inner drive, pushing forward against confusion and ignorance.

Lessons from Nature and Youth

Nature gives us clear examples of this self-trust, especially in children and even animals. They don’t have that divided, doubting mind that we adults often have. We adults often distrust a feeling because we’ve calculated all the reasons why our goal might be hard to achieve. Children and animals don’t do this. Their minds are whole. Their way of seeing is still pure and confident. When we look at their faces, we sometimes feel uneasy because of their simple clarity.

Babies don’t try to fit in with anyone; everyone else adapts to the baby. One baby often makes four or five adults around it act silly and playful to entertain it. In the same way, a higher power has given youth, adolescence, and adulthood their own special qualities and charm. These stages of life are admirable and have valid claims, as long as the person stands true to themselves.

Don’t think young people have no power just because they can’t express themselves like you or me. Listen! In the next room, you might hear a young person’s voice speaking clearly and strongly to their friends. It seems they know how to communicate with people their own age. Whether shy or bold, young people will eventually find ways to make us older people feel less essential.

The Boldness of Youth vs. Adult Constraints

The casual confidence of boys who are sure they’ll get dinner, and who wouldn’t bother trying to flatter anyone (just like a wealthy lord), is the healthy, natural way for humans to be. A boy in a living room is like the independent audience member in the cheapest seats at a play. He is independent and doesn’t feel responsible for pleasing others. He watches people and events from his own perspective. He judges them quickly and simply as good, bad, interesting, silly, impressive, or annoying.

He never worries about the consequences or what others think. He gives an honest, independent opinion. You have to try to win his approval; he doesn’t try to win yours.

But an adult often feels trapped by their own self-awareness. As soon as an adult has done something or said something that gets attention, they become a “committed” person. They are watched by hundreds of people who either like or dislike them. They now have to consider these people’s opinions. There’s no escaping this. Oh, if only an adult could return to that state of neutrality and fresh observation!

Anyone who can avoid making promises and commitments, and who can observe the world with the same unaffected, unbiased, uncorrupted, and fearless innocence, will always be a powerful force. Such a person would share opinions on current events. These opinions, seen as objective and necessary rather than just personal, would hit people’s ears like darts and make them take notice, perhaps even with a bit of fear.

Society’s Pressure to Conform

These are the kinds of honest thoughts and voices we hear when we’re alone. But they become weak and hard to hear when we enter the world of society. Everywhere you look, society seems to be working against the true individuality of every one of its members.

Society is like a business partnership. To make sure everyone gets their basic needs met (like their daily bread), the members agree to give up some of their personal freedom and unique perspectives. The quality that society wants most is conformity—fitting in. Self-reliance is the opposite of what society wants. Society doesn’t love real, creative individuals; it loves familiar names and established customs.

Be a Nonconformist

If you want to be a true individual, you must be a nonconformist. You must not just follow what everyone else does. If you want to achieve something truly great and lasting, you can’t be held back by what society calls “goodness.” You have to examine it for yourself and decide if it truly is good.

Ultimately, the only thing that is truly sacred is the honesty of your own mind. Be true to yourself, and eventually, the world will recognize your worth.

I remember something that happened when I was young. A respected advisor kept trying to convince me of the old, established church doctrines. I asked him, “Why should I care about the sacredness of traditions if I live entirely from my own inner understanding?” My friend suggested, “But these inner feelings might come from a bad place (from below), not a good one (from above).” I replied, “They don’t feel that way to me. But if I am a child of the Devil, then I will live according to the Devil’s nature.” No law can be sacred to me except the law of my own nature.

Your Own Standard of Right and Wrong

“Good” and “bad” are just labels that can be easily applied to this or that. The only thing that is truly right is what aligns with your own inner constitution—your true nature. The only thing that is truly wrong is what goes against it.

A person should act with confidence in the face of all opposition, as if everything else is temporary and unimportant compared to their own being. I feel ashamed when I think about how easily we give in to titles, reputations, large organizations, and outdated institutions. Every decent-sounding and well-spoken person influences me more than they should.

I need to stand tall, be energetic, and speak the plain, sometimes harsh, truth in all situations.

• If someone is being mean or vain but pretends to be doing good (philanthropy), should we let that pass?
• If an angry, narrow-minded person takes up a noble cause, like ending slavery, and comes to me with the latest news from far away (like Barbadoes), why shouldn’t I tell him:
  • “Go show love to your own child; show love to the person who chops your wood.”
  • “Be good-natured and humble; have that kind of grace.”
  • “Don’t cover up your harsh, unkind ambition with this unbelievable show of concern for people suffering a thousand miles away. Your love for those far away is just a cover for your bitterness towards those at home.”

True Goodness Has an Edge

Speaking this way might seem rough and impolite, but truth is more beautiful than pretending to be loving. Your goodness must have some strength and sharpness to it; otherwise, it isn’t real goodness at all. Sometimes, you even need to advocate for what seems like “hatred” (strong opposition) to counteract a so-called “love” that is just weak, complaining, and ineffective.

When my inner calling—my genius—summons me, I must prioritize it, even if it means temporarily setting aside my duties to my father, mother, wife, or brother. I might as well write “Whim” or “Impulse” on my doorpost as my guiding principle. I hope my actions are based on something more solid than just a whim in the end, but we can’t spend all day explaining ourselves.

So, don’t expect me to give you reasons why I choose to spend time with certain people or why I choose to be alone. And don’t tell me, as a well-meaning person did today, that I have an obligation to help all poor people and put them in good situations. Are they my poor, in that general, impersonal sense?

I tell you, you foolish philanthropist, that I resent every dollar, dime, and cent I give to people I don’t truly feel connected to and who don’t feel connected to me. There is a certain group of people to whom I feel a deep spiritual connection. For these people, I would go to prison if necessary. But as for your various popular charities:

• Paying for the college education of foolish people who won’t benefit.
• Building meeting-houses for vain purposes, like many that already exist.
• Giving money to drunkards (sots).
• And the thousands of so-called “Relief Societies.” Though I confess with shame that I sometimes give in and donate that dollar, I feel it’s a “wicked” dollar—money given without true conviction. Someday, I hope I’ll have the strength to withhold it.

Live Your Life, Don’t Perform It

Most people think of virtues as exceptions rather than the rule. They see “a person” and then, separately, “their virtues.” People do a “good action,” like an act of courage or charity, much like they would pay a fine to make up for not showing up for a daily duty (like a soldier missing parade). Their good deeds are like an apology or an excuse for simply existing in the world. It’s similar to how people who are unwell or mentally ill pay a high price for their board and care. Their virtues are like penances—things they do to make up for something.

I don’t want to live a life of making up for things; I want to truly live. My life is for itself, not to be a show for others. I much prefer my life to be simpler, as long as it’s genuine and consistent, rather than being flashy and unstable. I want my life to be sound and sweet, not something that constantly needs strict diets or harsh medical treatments (like “bleeding,” an old medical practice).

I ask for basic proof that you are a genuine person. I refuse to judge a person solely by their actions, as if appealing from the person themselves to what they do. I know that for myself, it makes no real difference whether I do or don’t do those actions that people generally consider “excellent.” I cannot agree to pay (by performing certain deeds) for a privilege that I already have by right—the right to be myself.

My gifts and talents may be few and seem small, but I truly am. I exist. And I don’t need any secondary proof, like performing certain actions, for my own self-assurance or for the approval of others.

The Core of Greatness: Inner Independence

What I must do is all that matters to me, not what other people think I should do. This rule is hard to follow in both everyday life and in intellectual pursuits. But it is the key difference between greatness and insignificance.

It’s harder because you will always find people who think they know your duty better than you do.

• It’s easy to live according to the world’s opinion when you are surrounded by society.
• It’s easy to live according to your own opinion when you are alone. But the truly great person is the one who, even in the middle of a crowd, maintains the sweet independence of their own solitary spirit.

The Problem with Dead Customs

Following customs and traditions that no longer have meaning for you is a bad idea. It scatters your energy. It wastes your time. It also makes it hard for others to see your true character.

Think about these examples:

• If you support a church that feels lifeless.
• If you give money to a charity that no longer does good work.
• If you vote for a political party, for or against the government, without really thinking.
• If you host social gatherings just to keep up appearances, like a shallow host.

When you hide behind all these screens, it’s hard for me to see the real you. And, of course, all that energy is taken away from living your own genuine life.

But if you do your own work, then I will know who you are. If you do your own work, you will strengthen yourself.

A person needs to realize that this game of conformity is like playing blind man’s bluff – you’re just guessing in the dark. If I know which group you belong to, I can usually predict your arguments. For example, I might hear a preacher talk about why one of his church’s institutions is supposedly necessary.

• Don’t I already know he can’t possibly say anything new or original?
• Don’t I know that even if he pretends to examine the institution’s foundations, he won’t really do it?
• Don’t I know he’s already decided to only look at the approved side, not as an independent thinker, but as a minister of his parish? He’s like a lawyer who has been hired to argue a case. His grand pronouncements are just an empty show.

Most people have tied a blindfold around their eyes in one way or another. They have attached themselves to one of these groups that all think alike. This conformity doesn’t just make them tell a few lies. It makes them untrue in everything they do.

• Their version of truth isn’t quite real.
• Their “two plus two” doesn’t equal the real “four.” Every word they say bothers us. We don’t even know where to begin to help them see clearly.

Meanwhile, nature seems to slowly dress us in the prison uniform of the group we’ve joined. We start to look and act the same. Gradually, we even get a kind of gentle, foolish expression on our faces.

The Discomfort of Faking It and Facing Disapproval

There’s a particularly embarrassing experience that happens to us all. I mean the “foolish face of praise.” This is the forced smile we wear in social situations where we don’t feel comfortable or interested in the conversation. Our facial muscles aren’t moving naturally. They are forced by a weak, insincere effort. This makes our face feel tight and very unpleasant.

If you choose not to conform, the world will show its displeasure, like a whip. So, a person who chooses to be themselves must learn how to deal with disapproving looks. People on the street or at a friend’s house might look at them strangely.

If this disapproval came from a place of deep conviction and thoughtful resistance, like their own, then maybe it would be worth feeling sad about. But the disapproving faces of the crowd, much like their friendly faces, usually have no deep reason. They change easily, like the wind or whatever the newspaper says.

Even so, the unhappiness of the masses is a more powerful force than the disapproval of the Senate or a university. It’s easy enough for a strong person who understands the world to handle the anger of the educated and wealthy classes. Their anger is usually polite and careful because they themselves are quite sensitive and vulnerable.

But when the anger of ordinary, less educated people is added to this, things get serious. When the ignorant and the poor are stirred up, the raw, unintelligent force at the bottom of society begins to growl and threaten. To handle this calmly, as if it were a small matter of no real concern, requires great generosity of spirit and deep inner strength, like that found in true magnanimity or religious faith.

The Fear of Inconsistency

Another fear that keeps us from trusting ourselves is our desire for consistency. We feel we must honor our past actions or words. This is because other people judge us based on our past behavior, as it’s the only information they have. We are reluctant to disappoint their expectations.

But why should you always be looking over your shoulder? Why drag around the dead weight of your memory, just so you don’t contradict something you said in public? Suppose you do contradict yourself. So what?

A wise approach seems to be this:

• Never rely solely on your memory, not even for things that are purely about remembering.
• Instead, bring your past experiences to be judged by the clear light of the present moment.
• Live each day as a new day.

For example, perhaps your philosophical ideas have led you to deny that God is a person. Yet, if you feel a deep spiritual stirring in your soul, you should embrace it with your whole heart and life. Do this even if these feelings make you imagine God with a specific shape and color. Leave your old theory behind, just as Joseph in the Bible left his coat in the hand of Potiphar’s wife and fled temptation.

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. It is adored by small-time politicians, philosophers, and religious leaders. A truly great soul simply doesn’t bother with that kind of consistency. They might as well worry about their shadow on the wall.

Speak what you think now in strong, clear words. And tomorrow, speak what tomorrow makes you think in strong, clear words again, even if it contradicts everything you said today. Someone might say, “Ah, but if you do that, you will surely be misunderstood!”

The Honor in Being Misunderstood

Is it really so bad to be misunderstood? Many great individuals were misunderstood:

• Pythagoras
• Socrates
• Jesus
• Luther
• Copernicus
• Galileo
• Newton Indeed, every pure and wise spirit who has ever lived was likely misunderstood. To be great is to be misunderstood.

Your True Nature is Unchanging

I believe that no person can truly act against their own fundamental nature. All the impulses of their will are ultimately guided by the laws of their being. This is like how the biggest mountains, like the Andes or Himalayas, are just small bumps on the overall curve of the Earth. It doesn’t matter how you try to measure or test a person.

A person’s true character is like an acrostic poem or a complex poetic stanza. Whether you read it forwards, backward, or across, it still spells the same thing.

In this pleasant, sometimes reflective, life in nature that I am fortunate to live, let me write down my honest thoughts each day. I will do this without worrying about the future or dwelling on the past. I have no doubt that these thoughts will form a balanced and coherent whole, even if I don’t intend for them to, or even if I don’t see the pattern myself.

My writing should reflect my natural surroundings. It should smell of pine trees and echo with the hum of insects. The swallow flying past my window, carrying a twig or straw in its beak, should feel like it’s weaving that thread into the fabric of my work too.

We are perceived for who we truly are. Our character teaches things about us that go beyond our conscious intentions. People often imagine that they only communicate their good or bad qualities through their obvious actions. They don’t realize that their virtue or vice constantly emanates from them, like a subtle breath or scent.

The Harmony of Genuine Actions

Your various actions will have an underlying agreement, as long as each one is honest and natural for that particular moment. Actions that come from a single, unified will are harmonious, no matter how different they may seem on the surface.

If you look at these actions from a little distance, or with a slightly higher level of thought, the apparent differences fade away. One underlying tendency unites them all. Think of the journey of the best ship: it’s a zigzag line made of many course corrections (tacks). But if you see that line from far enough away, it straightens out into the ship’s average direction.

Your genuine actions will explain themselves. They will also explain your other genuine actions. Conforming to others explains nothing about you. Act as an individual, true to yourself. What you have already done authentically in the past will support and justify what you do now.

Greatness looks toward the future. If I can be strong enough today to do what is right and ignore the judging eyes of others, it means I must have done enough right things before to give me that strength now. Whatever the situation, do what is right now. Always ignore superficial appearances, and you will always be able to.

The force of character builds up over time. All your past days lived with virtue contribute their healthy influence to this present moment.

What creates the inspiring majesty of heroes, whether in politics or on the battlefield, that so captures our imagination? It is their awareness of a long series of great days and victories behind them. These past achievements shed a combined light on the hero as they move forward. It is as if they are accompanied by a visible escort of angels. This inner strength is what gave:

• Thunder to the voice of the statesman Chatham.
• Dignity to the bearing of Washington.
• The spirit of America to the eyes of Adams.

Honor is deeply respected by us because it is not a fleeting thing; it doesn’t last for just a day. It is always an ancient, timeless virtue. We admire it today precisely because its roots are not just in today. We love it and pay homage to it because it’s not a trap designed to win our affection. Instead, honor is self-dependent and self-derived. It therefore has an old, flawless pedigree, even when we see it shining in a young person.

Beyond Conformity and Consistency

I truly hope that in our current times, we have heard the last of conformity and consistency. From now on, let those words be officially dismissed and seen as ridiculous.

Instead of the polite gong calling us to dinner, let us hear a sharp, challenging whistle, like a Spartan fife. Let us stop bowing and apologizing so much.

A great person is coming to eat at my house. My goal is not to please him. My wish is that he should wish to please me – that he should recognize the value I represent by being true to myself. I will stand here for humanity. And though I would want humanity to be kind, my priority is that it should be true.

Let us boldly confront and criticize the smooth, uninspired mediocrity and the miserable, shallow contentment of our times. Let us throw this truth in the face of custom, commerce, and official institutions—the truth that is the ultimate lesson of all history:

• There is a great, responsible Thinker and Actor (a divine intelligence or universal principle) working wherever a human being works.
• A true individual does not belong to any other time or place but is the center of things. Where that person is, there is nature in its truest form.
• Such an individual becomes the standard by which you, all other people, and all events are measured.

Ordinarily, almost everyone in society reminds us of something else, or of some other person. But true character, true reality, reminds you of nothing else. It takes the place of the entire creation. A true individual must be so significant in themselves that all external circumstances become unimportant.

Every true person is a cause, a country, and an age. They require endless space, resources, and time to fully achieve their grand design. Future generations (posterity) often seem to follow in their footsteps like a group of devoted clients.

• A person like Caesar is born, and for ages afterward, we have a Roman Empire.
• Christ is born, and millions of minds are so drawn to his genius and grow so close to it, that his name becomes synonymous with virtue itself and the highest potential of humanity.

An institution is the lengthened shadow of one person. Consider these examples:

• Monasticism is the shadow of the Hermit Antony.
• The Reformation is the shadow of Luther.
• Quakerism is the shadow of Fox.
• Methodism is the shadow of Wesley.
• The Abolition movement is the shadow of Clarkson.

Milton called the Roman general Scipio “the height of Rome.” All of history can quite easily be understood as the biography of a few strong and earnest individuals.

Know Your Worth

So, let a person understand their own worth and keep external things in their proper place—under their feet. They should not peek around, steal, or sneak about shamefacedly. They should not act like a charity case, an illegitimate child, or an unwelcome intruder in the world that truly exists for them.

But often, the average person on the street doesn’t find a sense of worth within themselves that matches the creative force that built a great tower or sculpted a marble god. So, when they look at these magnificent things, they feel poor and inadequate. To such a person, a palace, a statue, or a valuable book seems foreign and intimidating. They feel much like they would if a fancy carriage passed by, as if these things are saying, “And who are you, Sir?”

Yet, all these grand things actually belong to this person, in a sense. They are like suitors seeking his attention. They are petitioners, asking for his unique abilities to come forward, engage with them, and take possession of their meaning. A painting waits for my judgment. It is not there to command me. Instead, I am the one to decide its claims to praise.

There’s a popular old story about a drunkard. He was picked up from the street completely drunk, carried to a duke’s grand house, washed, dressed in fine clothes, and laid in the duke’s own bed. When he woke up, everyone treated him with extreme politeness and ceremony, as if he were the duke. They told him he had simply been insane for a while. This story is so popular because it perfectly symbolizes the state of humanity. In the world, we often act like that drunkard, unaware of our true nature. But now and then, we “wake up.” We use our reason, and we discover that we are, in fact, true princes, possessing inherent dignity and worth.

True Value is Universal

Our way of reading is often like that of a beggar or a flatterer. We look up to historical texts with too much reverence instead of engaging with them as equals. In history, our imagination often deceives us.

Terms like “kingdom” and “lordship,” “power” and “estate,” are a more glamorous vocabulary than “private John and Edward in a small house doing a common day’s work.” But the essential things of life are the same for both the powerful and the ordinary person. The total sum of their life experiences is the same.

Why do we show so much deference to historical figures like King Alfred, the warrior Scanderbeg, or King Gustavus? Suppose they were indeed virtuous. Did they use up all the virtue in the world? No. An equally great significance depends on your private actions today as it did on their famous public deeds.

When ordinary individuals begin to act with original, independent views, the glory and admiration will shift. It will move from the actions of kings to the actions of true gentlemen—people of noble character, regardless of their social rank.

The Source of Self-Trust: Intuition

The world has been heavily influenced by its kings. These rulers have captivated the attention of nations for centuries. Through this grand symbol of kingship, humanity has been taught something about the mutual respect that is due from one person to another.

Consider the joyful loyalty with which people everywhere have allowed their king, noble, or great landowner to:

• Walk among them, seemingly living by a personal law.
• Create his own standards for judging people and things, often reversing theirs.
• Be paid for his benefits not with money, but with honor.
• Represent the law through his very person. This willing deference was a kind of symbolic language (a hieroglyphic). Through it, people were indirectly expressing their awareness of their own inherent rightness and dignity—the right that belongs to every human being.

The magnetic power that all original, authentic action possesses can be explained when we ask about the ultimate reason for self-trust.

• Who is this Trustee, this reliable inner guide?
• What is this fundamental, aboriginal Self on which a universal sense of reliance can be based?
• What is the nature and power of that inner light—that “science-baffling star” that has no parallax (cannot be measured by conventional means) and no calculable elements—which shoots a ray of beauty even into trivial or impure actions, if only the slightest mark of independence appears?

This inquiry leads us to the very source of things. This source is at once the essence of genius, of virtue, and of life itself. We call this source Spontaneity or Instinct. We refer to this primary, fundamental wisdom as Intuition, while all later teachings learned from outside are merely “tuitions” (instructions).

In that deep, fundamental force—the ultimate reality behind which our analysis cannot go—all things find their common origin. The sense of simply being, which arises in our souls during calm hours (we don’t know exactly how), is not separate from things, from space, from light, from time, or from other people. Instead, it is one with them. It clearly comes from the same source from which their life and being also come.

First, we share the universal life by which all things exist. Afterwards, we see them as separate appearances in nature, and we forget that we have shared in their underlying cause.

• This inner connection is the fountain of action and of thought.
• Here are the lungs of that inspiration which gives a person wisdom. To deny this source is an act of irreverence, like atheism.

We exist within an immense intelligence. This intelligence makes us receivers of its truth and organs (instruments) of its activity. When we discern justice, when we discern truth, we are not doing anything by ourselves. We are simply allowing a passage for its beams of light to shine through us.

If we ask where this comes from, if we try to pry into the soul that is its cause, all philosophy is stumped. We can only affirm its presence or its absence within us.

Every person can distinguish between the voluntary acts of their mind (like choosing what to think about) and their involuntary perceptions (like sudden insights or gut feelings). And everyone knows that these involuntary perceptions are due perfect faith. A person might make mistakes in expressing these perceptions, but they know that the perceptions themselves are real and undeniable, like day and night.

My willful actions and the things I try to acquire are often just wandering and superficial. But the idlest daydream, the faintest natural emotion—these command my curiosity and respect. People who don’t think deeply will contradict a statement of perception just as readily as they contradict an opinion—or even more readily. This is because they do not distinguish between a direct perception (seeing what is) and a mere notion or idea. They imagine that I choose to see this or that thing.

But perception is not whimsical; it is not a matter of choice. It is fundamental and unavoidable (fatal). If I see a particular trait or truth, my children will see it after me. And, in the course of time, all mankind will see it, even if it happens that no one has seen it before me. For my perception of it is as much a fact as the sun itself.

The Soul’s Direct Line to the Divine

The relationship between the individual soul and the divine spirit is so pure and direct that it is profane—disrespectful—to try to insert any “helps” or intermediaries.

It must be that when God (or the divine) speaks, it communicates not just one thing, but all things. It should fill the entire world with its voice. From the center of a present thought, it should scatter forth light, nature, time, and souls. It should re-date and re-create the whole of existence.

Whenever a mind is simple and receptive, and receives this divine wisdom:

• Old things pass away.
• Established means, teachers, texts, and temples lose their importance and fall away.
• The mind lives fully in the now. It absorbs both past and future into the present hour.

All things are made sacred by their relationship to this divine wisdom—one thing just as much as another. All things are, in a sense, dissolved back to their central cause. In this universal miracle, any petty or particular miracles become insignificant.

Therefore, if a person claims to know and speak of God, but they try to take you backward to the outdated language and thinking of some old, decaying nation in another country, in another world—do not believe them.

Is the acorn better than the oak tree, which is the acorn’s fullness and completion? (The implication is that direct, present experience of the divine is the mature “oak,” while old doctrines are merely the “acorn” stage.)

The Present Moment is Key

Is a parent inherently better than the child into whom they have poured their mature being? If not, then why do we worship the past so much? The past centuries often seem to conspire against the clarity and authority of your own soul.

Time and space are just like colors that our eyes create. They are part of our physical experience. But the soul is like pure light.

• Where the soul is, there is day (clarity, life).
• Where the soul was (in the past), there is night (obscurity).

History itself is an interruption and an injury if we treat it as anything more than a cheerful story or a simple metaphor for our own life and growth.

Living Authentically, Like Nature

People are often timid and apologetic. They no longer stand upright in their own convictions. They hesitate to say, “I think,” or “I am.” Instead, they quote some saint or wise person from the past. A person can even feel ashamed when faced with the simple existence of a blade of grass or a blooming rose.

Look at the roses under my window.

• They don’t make any reference to roses that came before them or to supposedly better roses.
• They exist for what they are. They are present with God (or the natural order) today.
• For them, there is no time. There is simply the rose, perfect in every moment of its existence.
• Before a leaf-bud even opens, its whole life force is active.
• The fully bloomed flower doesn’t have “more” life.
• The leafless root in winter doesn’t have “less.” The rose’s nature is satisfied, and it satisfies nature, equally in all moments.

But humans are different. We tend to postpone living, or we dwell on memories. We don’t live in the present moment.

• We look backward and mourn the past.
• Or, ignoring the richness that surrounds us now, we stand on tiptoe, anxiously trying to see into the future. A person cannot be truly happy and strong until they, too, learn to live with nature in the present, above the pressures of time.

Trust Your Own Understanding

This idea should be plain enough. Yet, notice how even highly intelligent people are often afraid to hear God (or the divine voice) for themselves. They seem to need it to speak in the familiar language of someone like David, Jeremiah, or Paul from ancient scriptures.

We should not always place such a high value on a few old texts or a few historical lives. We are like children who repeat sentences by rote, first from their grandmothers and tutors. As they get older, they do the same with the words of talented and notable people they meet, carefully trying to remember the exact phrasing.

Later, when these individuals mature and gain the same perspective as the people who originally spoke those wise sayings, they finally understand the true meaning. At that point, they are willing to let the specific words go. They realize that they can use their own words just as effectively when the occasion arises.

If we live truly, we will see truly. It is as natural for a strong person to be strong as it is for a weak person to be weak. When we gain a new, direct perception, we will gladly clear out our memory of its hoarded “treasures,” seeing them as old rubbish. When a person lives in harmony with the divine, their voice will be as sweet and natural as the murmur of a brook or the rustle of corn in a field.

The Unspoken Truth of Inner Knowing

Now, at last, the highest truth on this subject of self-reliance remains unsaid. It probably cannot be fully said in words, because all that we say is like a distant memory of a direct intuition.

My closest attempt to express this ultimate thought is this: When true goodness is near you, when you have authentic life within yourself, it does not come through any known or accustomed path.

• You will not be able to discern the footprints of anyone else who has gone before.
• You will not see the face of another person guiding you.
• You will not hear any specific name or external authority. The way, the thought, the good itself will be wholly strange and new. It will exclude all prior examples and experiences.

You take this path from your inner self, not by following other people to it. All people who have ever existed are, in this sense, forgotten servants or ministers of this inner truth. Both fear and hope are beneath this state of direct knowing. There is something almost limiting even in hope when compared to this certainty.

In the hour of true vision or deep insight:

• There is nothing that can be called gratitude in the usual sense, nor even what we typically call joy.
• The soul, raised above ordinary passions, beholds fundamental identity and eternal causes.
• It perceives the independent self-existence of Truth and Right.
• It calms itself with the deep knowing that all things are unfolding well.

Vast spaces of nature, like the Atlantic Ocean or the South Sea, and long intervals of time, like years or centuries, become insignificant. This deep sense of knowing that I now think and feel has been the foundation beneath every previous state of my life and all my circumstances. It also underlies my present existence, and what we call life, and what we call death.

The Power of Becoming

Active living in the present is what truly matters, not merely the fact of having lived in the past. Power vanishes in moments of stillness or repose. It resides in the dynamic moment of transition:

• From a past state to a new one.
• In the act of leaping across a divide (“shooting of the gulf”).
• In the focused movement toward a goal (“darting to an aim”).

There is one fact the world particularly dislikes: that the soul is always becoming, always evolving. This continuous process of becoming forever lessens the importance of the past. It can turn all past riches into a kind of poverty and all past reputation into a form of shame. It blurs distinctions, confounding the saint with the rogue, and in a sense, shoves figures like Jesus and Judas equally aside as parts of a history that has been moved beyond.

Why, then, do we talk so much about “self-reliance”? When the soul is truly present and active, there is power. This power is not just a state of being confident; it is an agent, an active force. To speak of “reliance” is a somewhat poor, external way of describing it. It’s better to speak of that which relies—the active soul itself—because it works and it is.

Anyone who shows more obedience to this inner, divine principle than I do has a kind of mastery over me, even if they don’t raise a finger. I am compelled to revolve around such a person, drawn by a spiritual gravitation.

We often dismiss talk of eminent virtue as mere rhetoric or fancy words. We do not yet fully see that virtue is a state of Height, an elevated way of being. A person, or a group of people, who are “plastic and permeable” (flexible and open) to these deep principles will, by the very law of nature, inevitably overpower and lead all cities, nations, kings, rich individuals, and poets who are not so aligned.

The Self-Existing Source

This is the ultimate fact we quickly arrive at on this topic, as on every topic: the resolution of everything into the one, ever-blessed Source. Self-existence—existing inherently, not dependent on anything else—is the defining attribute of the Supreme Cause (God, or ultimate reality). The degree to which this self-existence enters into all lesser forms constitutes the measure of their good.

All things that are real are real because of the amount of this inherent virtue they contain. Activities like:

• Commerce
• Farming (husbandry)
• Hunting
• Whaling
• War
• Eloquence (powerful speaking)
• Personal influence (weight) These things have some value. I respect them as examples of this divine power’s presence and action in the world, even if those actions are impure or imperfect.

I see this same law of self-sufficiency working in nature for conservation and growth. In nature, power is the essential measure of rightness or fitness. Nature does not allow anything to remain in its kingdoms that cannot help itself and sustain its own existence.

The following are all demonstrations of this self-sufficing, and therefore self-relying, soul or principle at work:

• The creation (genesis) and maturation of a planet, its balance (poise), and its orbit.
• A tree bent by a strong wind recovering and straightening itself.
• The vital resources and life force within every animal and plant.

Center Yourself in the Cause

So, all these ideas concentrate on one point: let us stop wandering aimlessly. Let us sit at home, metaphorically speaking, with the fundamental Cause—the inner source of truth and power.

Let us stun and astonish the intruding rabble—the noisy crowd of interfering people, books, and institutions—by a simple, clear declaration of the divine fact that resides within us. Bid these “invaders,” these external influences, to take the shoes from off their feet, as if they are on holy ground, for God (the divine) is here, within.

Let our genuine simplicity be the standard by which they are judged. Let our quiet obedience to our own inner law demonstrate how poor external nature and worldly fortune are when compared to the native riches we possess within ourselves.

The Need for Spiritual Isolation and Strength

But as things are now, we often act like a mob, a confused crowd. People do not stand in awe of one another as unique individuals. A person’s inner genius is not encouraged to stay at home—to remain centered and connect with the “internal ocean” of their own deep spirit. Instead, it goes abroad, outside of itself, to beg for a mere cup of water from the urns (sources) of other people.

We must learn to go alone, to find our own way. I prefer the silent church before the service begins to any preaching. In that quiet space, people often look distant, cool, and pure, each surrounded by their own personal precinct or sanctuary. Let us always try to maintain such an inner sanctuary.

Why should we automatically assume the faults of our friend, or spouse, or parent, or child, just because they sit around our fireplace or are said to share our blood? In a deeper sense, all people share my blood, and I share the blood of all people—we are all part of a common humanity. But that shared humanity doesn’t mean I will adopt their negativity (petulance) or foolishness, not even to the extent of feeling ashamed because of it.

However, your isolation must not be merely mechanical or physical. It must be spiritual; that is, it must be an elevation, a rising above the mundane.

At times, the whole world seems to conspire to bother you with emphatic, yet ultimately trivial, matters. Friends, clients, children, sickness, fear, your own wants, calls for charity—they all seem to knock at your private door at once, saying, “Come out and deal with us.”

But you must “keep thy state”—maintain your inner composure and integrity. Do not get drawn into their confusion. The power that other people possess to annoy me is a power I grant them through my own weak curiosity or by engaging with their negativity. No person can truly come near me, in a way that disturbs my core being, except through my own act or permission. There’s a saying: “What we truly love, we already possess within us; but by excessive outward desire, we deprive ourselves of that love.”

Live Your Truth Boldly

If we cannot immediately rise to the highest spiritual states of obedience (to our inner truth) and faith, let us at least resist our temptations to conform and be less than ourselves. Let us enter into a kind of inner “state of war.” Let us awaken Thor and Woden—symbols of courage and constancy—within our “Saxon breasts” (referring to an ancestral spirit of strength and independence).

In our current, often overly polite and “smooth” times, this is done by speaking the truth.

• Check (stop) this false hospitality and insincere affection.
• Live no longer to meet the expectations of the deceived and deceiving people with whom we interact.
• Say to them: “Oh father, oh mother, oh wife, oh brother, oh friend, I have lived with you based on appearances up to this point. From now on, I belong to the truth.”
• “Let it be known to you that from this day forward, I will obey no law less than the eternal law of my own being.”
• “I will have no commitments (covenants) except those based on genuine closeness (proximities).”
• “I will endeavor to nourish my parents, to support my family, to be a chaste and faithful husband to one wife. But I must fulfill these relationships in a new and unprecedented way, true to my own understanding.”
• “I appeal from your customs; I must follow a higher standard.”
• “I must be myself. I cannot break myself any longer for you, or for anyone else.”
• “If you can love me for what I truly am, we shall both be happier.”
• “If you cannot, I will still try to be worthy of your love by remaining true to myself.”

Unhide Your True Self

I will not hide my tastes or my dislikes. I will trust so deeply that what is truly deep within me is holy, that I will act strongly and openly, before the sun and moon, on whatever inwardly rejoices me and whatever my heart appoints.

• If you are a noble person (in character), I will love you.
• If you are not, I will not hurt you and myself by offering hypocritical, false attentions.
• If you are true to yourself, but your truth is different from mine, then stay with your companions who share your truth. I will seek my own.

I do this not out of selfishness, but with humility and sincerity. It is in your best interest, my best interest, and the best interest of all people—no matter how long we have all lived in lies—to live in truth.

Does this approach sound harsh to you today? You will soon come to love what is dictated by your own nature, just as I love what is dictated by mine. And if we both follow the truth, it will bring us out safely in the end.

“But,” you might object, “acting this way may cause pain to these friends.” Yes, that is possible. But I cannot sell my liberty and my personal power merely to save their sensitivities or spare their feelings. Besides, all people have their moments of reason when they look out into the region of absolute truth. In those moments, they will understand and justify my actions, and they will likely do the same thing themselves.

The Inner Law of Consciousness

The general public (the populace) often thinks that if you reject popular, common standards, you are rejecting all standards whatsoever. They might label you an “antinomian”—someone who believes moral laws are not binding. And a bold person who only seeks their own pleasure (a sensualist) might misuse the name of philosophy to try to make their crimes seem acceptable (“gild his crimes”).

But the law of consciousness—your own inner moral compass—abides. It remains. There are two “confessionals,” two ways in which we must clear our conscience:

1. You can fulfill your duties by satisfying the direct standard – your own inner voice and integrity.
2. Or you can use the reflex standard – by considering your outward relations to others.

Using the reflex standard, you might ask yourself:

• Have I satisfied my relations to my father, mother, cousin, neighbor, town, even my cat and dog?
• Can any of these rightly criticize (upbraid) me?

But I may also choose to neglect this reflex, external standard and instead absolve myself to myself—clear my conscience according to my own inner judgment. I have my own stern claims and my own perfect, internal circle of values. This inner law often denies the name of “duty” to many tasks and offices that are commonly called duties by the world.

But if I can successfully discharge the “debts” and obligations of this inner law, it enables me to dispense with the popular, external code of conduct. If anyone imagines that this inner law is lax or easy, let them try to keep its commandments for just one day.

The Godlike Task of Self-Trust

And truly, it demands something godlike in a person who has cast off the common motives of humanity and has ventured to trust themselves as their own taskmaster—their own ultimate guide and judge.

• May their heart be high and noble.
• May their will be faithful to their inner truth.
• May their sight be clear. This is so they may, in all seriousness and good earnest, be their own doctrine (set of beliefs), their own society, and their own law. May a simple, internally chosen purpose be as strong for them as iron-clad necessity is for others!

The Sickness of Modern Society

If any person considers the current state of what is called, with some distinction, “society,” they will see the profound need for these ethics of self-reliance. The very sinew and heart—the strength and courage—of humankind seem to have been drawn out of us. We have become timorous, desponding whimperers: fearful, discouraged, and prone to complaining.

We are:

• Afraid of truth.
• Afraid of fortune (both good and bad, and the changes it brings).
• Afraid of death.
• Afraid of each other.

Our current age does not seem to produce great and perfect individuals. We desperately want men and women who can renovate life and improve our social state. But we observe that most natures are “insolvent”—they lack the inner resources to satisfy their own true wants. They often have an ambition that is far out of proportion to their practical strength and abilities. Consequently, they lean on others and beg for support, day and night, continually.

Our way of managing our lives (housekeeping) is like that of a beggar. Our arts, our occupations, our marriages, our religion—these are things we often have not chosen for ourselves. Instead, society has chosen them for us. We are “parlor soldiers”—we talk a good game but avoid the real fight. We shun the rugged battle of fate, where true strength is actually born.

The Need for Resilience and True Living

If our young people fail in their first ventures, they often lose all heart. If a young merchant’s business fails, people say he is ruined. If the most brilliant student attends one of our colleges but is not quickly “installed” in an office job in a major city like Boston or New York within a year, it seems to his friends, and even to himself, that he is justified in being disheartened and in complaining for the rest of his life.

Consider, in contrast, a sturdy young person from a rural area like New Hampshire or Vermont. This individual might try many different professions in succession over the years: driving a team of animals, farming, peddling goods, keeping a school, preaching, editing a newspaper, going to Congress, buying a township, and so on. And, like a cat, this person always lands on their feet. Such a person is worth a hundred of these fragile “city dolls” who collapse at the first setback.

This resilient individual walks in step with their times. They feel no shame in not “studying a profession” in the narrow, conventional sense, because they do not postpone their life. They are already living it. They don’t see just one chance for success; they see a hundred chances.

Let a teacher with a Stoic spirit come forward and reveal the true resources available within human beings. Let this teacher tell people:

• That they are not weak, leaning willows, but that they can and must detach themselves and stand strong on their own.
• That with the exercise of self-trust, new powers will awaken within them.
• That a true human being is like the “word made flesh”—a living embodiment of divine principle—born to bring healing and renewal to the nations.
• That such a self-reliant person should make us ashamed of our superficial compassion (because they don’t need pity).
• That the moment a person acts from their true self—tossing out restrictive laws, outdated books, false idols, and meaningless customs—we should no longer pity them. Instead, we should thank and revere them.

And that kind of teacher will restore the life of humanity to its full splendor and make their name honored throughout all history.

It is easy to see that a greater self-reliance would inevitably bring about a revolution in all the roles and relationships of human beings:

• In their religion.
• In their education.
• In their pursuits and goals.
• In their modes of living.
• In their associations and communities.
• In their understanding of property.
• In their speculative and philosophical views.

On True Prayer and Action

1. Rethinking Prayer

   Consider the kinds of prayers people commonly offer! What they call a holy office or sacred duty is often not even brave or strong. Conventional prayer tends to look outward. It asks for some foreign addition, some external benefit, to come through some foreign virtue or external power. It loses itself in endless, confusing mazes of natural and supernatural claims, and talks of mediators and miracles.

   Prayer that craves a particular commodity—anything less than the highest, all-encompassing good—is flawed and corrupt (vicious).

   True prayer is the contemplation of the facts of life from the very highest point of view. It is the private speech (soliloquy) of a soul that is observing the world and is filled with joy. It is the spirit of God (the divine) looking upon its works and pronouncing them good.

   But prayer used as a means to achieve a private, selfish end is a form of meanness and even theft. It wrongly assumes a separation (dualism) between oneself and the divine, rather than recognizing the underlying unity in nature and consciousness.

   As soon as a person is at one with God (the divine principle), they will not beg. They will then see prayer in all action.

   • The prayer of the farmer kneeling in his field to weed it.
   • The prayer of the rower kneeling with the powerful stroke of his oar. These are true prayers, expressed through action, and they are heard throughout all of nature, even if their immediate aims are simple or “cheap.”

   Caratach, a character in Fletcher’s play Bonduca, when advised to seek the will of the god Audate, replies wisely: “His hidden meaning lies in our endeavors; Our valors are our best gods.” In other words, the divine will is found in our own efforts, and our courage is our most reliable divine support.

   Another kind of false prayer is found in our regrets. Discontent is simply a lack of self-reliance; it is an infirmity, a weakness, of the will. You may regret calamities if, by doing so, you can genuinely help the sufferer. If not, then attend to your own work. By focusing on your responsibilities and acting constructively, the evil or harm already begins to be repaired. Our conventional sympathy is often just as base and ineffective as these false prayers and regrets.

When we see people weeping foolishly, we often just sit down and cry with them for company. We do this instead of giving them the truth and health they need, perhaps in the form of “rough electric shocks” that jolt them back into communication with their own reason.

The secret to good fortune lies in the joy we find in our own hands—our own abilities and actions. The self-helping person is always welcome, both to gods and to other people. For this person:

• All doors are thrown wide open.
• All tongues greet them.
• All honors crown them.
• All eyes follow them with desire and admiration.

Our love goes out to such a person and embraces them, precisely because they did not need it. We eagerly, almost apologetically, admire and celebrate them because they held true to their own path and scorned our disapproval when we offered it. The gods love them, perhaps because other people, in their conformity, might have hated them. Zoroaster, an ancient prophet, said, “To the persevering mortal, the blessed Immortals (the gods) are swift to help.”

On Creeds, Systems, and True Light

Just as many common prayers show a weakness of will, many established creeds and belief systems show a weakness of intellect. People who cling to them are like those foolish Israelites in the Bible who said, “Don’t let God speak to us directly, or we might die. You, Moses, or any other person, speak to us, and we will obey.” They prefer an intermediary to direct experience.

Everywhere I go, I find it difficult to connect with the divine spark in my brother or sister. This is because they have often shut the doors of their own inner temple. Instead, they just recite fables about their brother’s God, or their brother’s brother’s God—second-hand or third-hand accounts of divinity.

Every new, original mind brings a new way of classifying and understanding the world. If this mind possesses uncommon activity and power—like that of thinkers such as Locke, Lavoisier, Hutton, Bentham, or Fourier—it often imposes its classification system on other people. And then, a new system or “-ism” is born. The deeper the thought and the more objects it can explain for the student, the more complacent and satisfied the student often becomes with that system.

This is especially apparent in religious creeds and churches. These are also classification systems created by some powerful mind, based on fundamental ideas about duty and humanity’s relationship to the Highest. Calvinism, Quakerism, and Swedenborgism are examples. The new follower (the pupil) takes great delight in fitting everything into the new terminology. It’s like a girl who has just learned botany and suddenly sees a whole new earth and new seasons through her newfound knowledge.

For a time, it will often happen that the pupil will feel their intellectual power has grown by studying their master’s system. But in all unbalanced minds, the classification system itself becomes idolized. It is mistaken for the ultimate end, rather than being seen as a useful but quickly exhaustible means or tool. For such people, the walls of their chosen system seem to blend in the distant horizon with the very walls of the universe. The stars of heaven seem to them to be hung on the architectural arch their master built. They cannot imagine how you, an outsider (“alien”), could possibly have any right to see truth, or how you could see it at all. They might even think, “It must be that you somehow stole the light from us!”

They do not yet perceive that true light—which is unsystematic, indomitable, and free—will break into any cabin, even into theirs. Let them chirp for a while and call their limited understanding their own. If they are honest and strive to do well, soon their neat new little enclosure (“pinfold”) will become too narrow and too low for their growing spirit. It will crack, it will lean, it will eventually rot and vanish. And then the immortal light—all young and joyful, million-orbed and million-colored—will beam over the entire universe, as fresh and brilliant as it was on the first morning of creation.

2. On the Superstition of Travel

It is often due to a lack of self-culture—a lack of inner development—that the “superstition of Travelling” retains its fascination for many educated Americans. The idols of this superstition are places like Italy, England, and Egypt.

But think about this: the very people who made England, Italy, or Greece venerable and respected in our imagination did so by sticking firmly where they were. They were like an axis of the earth, stable and productive in their own place. In our moments of strength and clarity (“manly hours”), we intuitively feel that our true place is where our duty lies.

The soul itself is no traveler. A wise person essentially “stays at home” within their own mind and spirit. When their necessities or duties call them away from their house, or even into foreign lands, they remain internally “at home.” Their calm and confident expression will make others understand that they travel as a missionary of wisdom and virtue. They visit cities and people like a sovereign—a respected leader with inherent authority—and not like an interloper (an unwanted intruder) or a valet (a servant).

I have no churlish or rude objection to circumnavigating the globe for genuine purposes of art, study, or benevolence (goodwill and charity). This is acceptable, provided that the person is first “domesticated”—meaning, well-grounded in themselves and their own culture before they venture out. Or, they should not go abroad with the false hope of finding something greater than what they already know or could discover within themselves.

He who travels merely to be amused, or to get something external that he does not already carry within him, is actually traveling away from himself. Such a person grows old even in their youth, surrounded by the old things of the past. In ancient places like Thebes or Palmyra, his will and mind become as old and dilapidated as the ruins he visits. He carries his own inner ruins to external ruins.

Traveling is a fool’s paradise. Our first journeys often reveal to us the indifference of places—they don’t magically change who we are. At home, I might dream that in Naples or Rome, I can be intoxicated with beauty and lose my sadness. So, I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea voyage, and at last, I wake up in Naples. And there, right beside me, is the stern fact, the sad self—unrelenting, identical—that I had tried to flee. I visit the Vatican and the grand palaces. I try to affect an air of being intoxicated with the sights and suggestions, but I am not truly intoxicated. My “giant”—my own inner burdens, my unresolved self—goes with me wherever I go.

3. Travel as a Symptom of Intellectual Restlessness

This common urge to travel is often a symptom of a deeper unsoundness that affects our whole way of thinking. Our intellect has become a vagabond, a wanderer, and our system of education often fosters this restlessness. Our minds travel even when our bodies are forced to stay at home. We do this through imitation. And what is imitation but the mind traveling to other times and places for its ideas?

Consider these points:

• Our houses are often built according to foreign tastes.
• Our shelves are frequently garnished with foreign ornaments.
• Our opinions, our tastes, our very faculties tend to lean on and follow the Past and the Distant, rather than arising from our own present reality and insight.

True Creation Comes from Within

The soul itself is what created the arts wherever they have truly flourished. It was in his own mind that the true artist sought his model. Art was an application of the artist’s own thought to the specific thing to be done and the conditions to be observed.

So why do we feel the need to copy the Doric (ancient Greek) or the Gothic (medieval European) architectural models? Beauty, convenience, grandeur of thought, and quaint, unique expression are as near to us as they were to anyone in any other time or place.

If the American artist, for example, will study with hope and love the precise thing that needs to be done by him—considering the local climate, the soil, the length of the day, the wants of the people, and the habit and form of the government—he will create a house (or any other work) in which all these elements will find themselves perfectly fitted. And in such a creation, taste and sentiment will also be genuinely satisfied.

Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own unique gift, you can present at any moment with the cumulative force of a whole life’s cultivation and development. But if you try to adopt the talent of another, you have only an extemporaneous, half-possession of it—a superficial and temporary grasp.

That which each person can do best, none but their Maker (their own deepest nature or divine source) can truly teach them. No other person yet knows what that unique gift is, nor can they know, until the individual has actually exhibited it.

• Where is the master who could have taught Shakespeare his unparalleled genius?
• Where is the master who could have instructed Franklin, or Washington, or Bacon, or Newton in their unique contributions? (These were all highly original and self-directed individuals.)

Every great person is unique. The “Scipionism” of Scipio—that essential quality that made him who he was—is precisely the part he could not have borrowed from anyone else. Shakespeare will never be made by the mere study of Shakespeare’s works.

Do that work which is uniquely assigned to you by your own nature and circumstances. If you do this, you cannot hope too much or dare too much, for your potential is vast. There is, at this very moment, an utterance, an expression, available to you that is as brave and grand as the colossal chisel of Phidias (the ancient Greek sculptor), or the mighty trowel of the Egyptian builders, or the powerful pen of Moses or Dante—but your expression will be different from all of these.

It is not possible that the soul—all rich, all eloquent, with a “thousand-cloven tongue” (meaning, capable of infinite expressions)—would ever deign to merely repeat itself. But if you can truly hear and understand what these great figures of the past (these “patriarchs”) are saying, then surely you can reply to them in the same pitch of voice, with the same level of authenticity and power. For the ear (the capacity to understand) and the tongue (the capacity to express) are two organs of one and the same nature.

Live in the simple and noble regions of your own life. Obey your heart. If you do this, you will reproduce the “Foreworld”—the original, primal power and freshness of being—once again in your own experience.

4. Society’s Illusions of Progress

Just as our Religion, our Education, and our Art often look abroad (outside ourselves) for their models and validation, so too does the spirit of our society. All people plume themselves (take pride) on the “improvement of society,” and yet, no single individual truly improves solely from these external societal changes.

Society Does Not Truly Advance

Society never truly advances in a straightforward, linear way. It often recedes (moves backward) on one side just as fast as it gains on another. It undergoes continual changes:

• It is barbarous.
• It is civilized.
• It is Christianized.
• It is rich.
• It is scientific. But this constant change is not necessarily true improvement (amelioration). For everything that is given, something is taken away. Society acquires new arts and skills, but it often loses old, valuable instincts.

What a contrast there is between the well-clad, reading, writing, thinking American of Emerson’s time—with a watch, a pencil, and a bill of exchange in his pocket—and the “naked New Zealander” (a term used in Emerson’s era to refer to indigenous Maori people), whose property might consist of a club, a spear, a mat, and an undivided twentieth part of a shed to sleep under. But if you compare the physical health of these two individuals, you might find that the “white man” (the civilized American) has lost his aboriginal, natural strength. If travelers’ accounts from that time are true, should you strike the “savage” (indigenous person) with a broad axe, in a day or two the flesh might unite and heal as if you had struck a blow into soft pitch (a resilient, yielding substance). Yet, the same blow might send the “white man” to his grave.

The Trade-offs of Civilization

The “civilized” person has built a coach (a carriage), but has lost the effective use of his own feet. He is supported on crutches (both literally and metaphorically), but he lacks a corresponding degree of muscular strength. He has a fine Geneva watch, but he often lacks the skill to tell the hour by observing the sun. He has a Greenwich nautical almanac (a book of astronomical data for navigation), and because he is sure he can find the information when he wants it, the average person in the street does not know a single star in the sky.

• He does not observe the solstice.
• He knows just as little about the equinox.
• The whole bright calendar of the year is without a corresponding dial or understanding in his own mind.
• His notebooks often impair his memory, as he relies on them instead of internalizing information.
• His libraries may overload his wit, providing too much information without fostering true understanding.
• The insurance office, paradoxically, might be seen as increasing the number of accidents (or at least the awareness and recording of them, and perhaps a reliance on external safety nets rather than personal caution).

It may indeed be a question whether machinery does not actually encumber us more than it helps. We must ask whether we have not lost some essential energy through excessive refinement. We must question whether a Christianity that has become too entrenched in establishments and forms has not lost some of the vigor of a “wild,” natural virtue. For in ancient times, every Stoic was genuinely a Stoic. But in modern Christendom, where is the true Christian who embodies the original, unadulterated spirit of the faith?

Human Greatness is Timeless, Not Progressive

There is no more fundamental deviation or change in the moral standard over time than there is in the physical standard of human height or bulk. There are no “greater” people alive now than there ever were in the past. A singular equality may be observed between the great individuals of the earliest historical ages and those of the most recent ones. All the science, art, religion, and philosophy of the nineteenth century cannot avail to educate or produce greater individuals than Plutarch’s heroes, who lived three or four and twenty centuries ago.

The human race is not necessarily progressive in terms of time. Phocion, Socrates, Anaxagoras, Diogenes—these were great men, but they do not leave behind a “class” or category that can be simply replicated. He who is truly of their high class will not be called by their names, but will be his own unique person. And, in his turn, he may become the founder of a new sect or school of thought.

The arts and inventions of each historical period are only its “costume,” its outward dress. They do not, in themselves, invigorate or strengthen human beings. The harm done by “improved” machinery may, in some ways, compensate for or even outweigh its good. Explorers like Hudson and Behring accomplished so much in their simple fishing boats as to astonish later explorers like Parry and Franklin, whose expeditions were equipped with all the resources of contemporary science and art.

Genius Relies on Essentials, Not Just Tools

Galileo, using what was essentially an opera glass (an early, simple form of telescope), discovered a more splendid series of celestial phenomena than perhaps anyone since, even with far more advanced instruments. Columbus found the New World in an undecked boat—a small, open vessel.

It is curious to observe the periodical disuse and perishing of various means and machinery, which were often introduced with loud praise and celebration only a few years or centuries before. The great genius always returns to the essential human being and their innate capacities.

We often reckoned the improvements in the art of war among the greatest triumphs of science. And yet, Napoleon Bonaparte conquered Europe largely by relying on the “bivouac.” This strategy consisted of falling back on naked valor and raw human endurance, disencumbering the army of all unnecessary aids and baggage. The Emperor Napoleon, according to his memorialist Las Casas, held it impossible to create a perfect army “without abolishing our arms, magazines, commissaries, and carriages, until, in imitation of the Roman custom, the soldier should receive his supply of corn, grind it in his hand-mill, and bake his bread himself.”

Society as a Wave

Society is like a wave in the ocean. The wave form moves onward, but the individual water particles of which it is composed do not actually travel with the wave. The same particle of water does not rise from the valley of the wave to its ridge and stay there. The unity of the wave is only phenomenal—an observable pattern, not a fixed entity. The individual persons who make up a nation today will, in the course of a few years, die, and their unique experiences will die with them.

The Illusion of Security in Property and Numbers

And so, the reliance on Property, including the reliance on governments which exist to protect it, demonstrates a fundamental lack of self-reliance. People have looked away from themselves and toward external things for so long that they have come to esteem religious, learned, and civil institutions primarily as guards and protectors of property. They strongly deprecate (condemn) any assaults on these institutions because they feel such attacks to be assaults on property itself.

The best lightning rod for your own protection is your own spine—your inner strength, character, and integrity.

People tend to measure their esteem for each other by what each person has (their possessions), and not by what each person is (their character). But a truly cultivated individual eventually becomes ashamed of their property, out of a new and deeper respect for their own human nature. They especially dislike what they possess if they see that it is accidental—if it came to them by inheritance, or as a gift, or even through some crime. In such cases, they feel that it is not truly “having”; it does not genuinely belong to them, has no real root in them, and merely lies there because no revolution or robber has yet taken it away.

But that which a person is—their essential character and abilities—will always, by a kind of necessity, acquire what it needs. And what such a person acquires is “living property.” This living property does not wait for the beck and call of rulers, or mobs, or revolutions, or fire, or storm, or bankruptcies. Instead, it perpetually renews itself wherever the person breathes and lives authentically. The Caliph Ali wisely said, “Thy lot or portion of life is seeking after thee; therefore be at rest from seeking after it.”

Our dependence on these “foreign goods”—these external possessions and validations—leads us to a slavish respect for numbers and crowds. Political parties meet in numerous conventions. The greater the concourse of people, and with each new uproar of announcement—“The delegation from Essex! The Democrats from New Hampshire! The Whigs of Maine!”—the young, impressionable patriot feels himself stronger than before, imagining the support of a new thousand eyes and arms. In a similar manner, reformers summon conventions, and they vote and resolve issues in large multitudes.

Not so, O friends! God (the divine principle) will not deign to enter and inhabit you through such external means, but by a method that is precisely the reverse. It is only as a person puts off all foreign support and stands alone that I see them become truly strong and ultimately prevail. A person becomes weaker with every new recruit they add to their banner, because their reliance shifts from inner strength to external numbers. Is not one true individual better than a whole town of conformists?

Ask nothing of other people. In the midst of endless mutation and change, if you remain a firm column of integrity, you must presently appear as the upholder of all that surrounds you. The person who knows that power is inborn, who realizes that they have been weak precisely because they have looked for good outside of themselves and elsewhere, and who, upon perceiving this truth, throws themselves unhesitatingly onto their own thought—that person instantly rights themselves. They stand in the erect position, command their limbs, and work miracles. This is just as a person who stands on their own feet is naturally stronger than a person who stands on their head.

Master Fortune Through Principle

So, use all that is called “Fortune” or luck wisely. Most people gamble with Fortune. They might gain all, or they might lose all, as her unpredictable wheel of chance rolls on. But you should choose to leave aside these winnings from chance as if they were unlawful or illegitimate. Instead, deal with Cause and Effect, which are like the reliable ministers (“chancellors”) of God.

In your own Will, work and acquire. If you do this, you have effectively chained the wheel of Chance. You shall then sit hereafter out of fear from her unpredictable rotations.

A political victory, a rise in your income (rents), the recovery of a sick loved one, or the return of an absent friend, or some other favorable external event, often raises your spirits. You might then think that good days are preparing for you simply because of these external occurrences. Do not believe it. Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.