Week Six - Entry. The Modern Brilliance of Ralph Waldo Emerson
I was reading the Interchapter for next week last night and I was really struck by not only the brilliance of Emerson's journal excerpts but also how modern his thinking actually was.
His entry for the 21st of May, 1834, reads:
"I will trust my instincts. For always a reason halts after an instinct, and when I have deviated from the instinct, comes somebody with a profound theory teaching that I ought to have followed it.... "Our first and third thought coincide."
I found this so relevant and reminded me of many "Murphy's Law" moments in high school - the ultimate ironies of life often lead to us not having self trust, which we often perceive as ill-luck or misfortune when really we had the resources to avoid the outcome in the beginning.
Emerson was also deeply religious and his integrity shows in many of his writings. I particularly spent time pondering his entry dated exactly a year before the first, the 21st of May, 1833:
"I like the sayers of No better than the sayers of Yes."
I think the religious integrity present here is in Praise of those abstaining from sin and religious misconduct, in a world where even then many people were the center of gossip because of their affairs, lies and general disinclination to obey the laws of God. There were many preachers but few true practioners. I think this is a very true statement of the modern world too, with even priests often being the subject of bad paedophilic jests due to the actions of a few. This however, is the nature of humanity and will likely continue to be so until the strains of religion die out in favour of "easy living".
These are just a few thoughts that I've had, however wrong or incorrect they may be perceived to be.
His entry for the 21st of May, 1834, reads:
"I will trust my instincts. For always a reason halts after an instinct, and when I have deviated from the instinct, comes somebody with a profound theory teaching that I ought to have followed it.... "Our first and third thought coincide."
I found this so relevant and reminded me of many "Murphy's Law" moments in high school - the ultimate ironies of life often lead to us not having self trust, which we often perceive as ill-luck or misfortune when really we had the resources to avoid the outcome in the beginning.
Emerson was also deeply religious and his integrity shows in many of his writings. I particularly spent time pondering his entry dated exactly a year before the first, the 21st of May, 1833:
"I like the sayers of No better than the sayers of Yes."
I think the religious integrity present here is in Praise of those abstaining from sin and religious misconduct, in a world where even then many people were the center of gossip because of their affairs, lies and general disinclination to obey the laws of God. There were many preachers but few true practioners. I think this is a very true statement of the modern world too, with even priests often being the subject of bad paedophilic jests due to the actions of a few. This however, is the nature of humanity and will likely continue to be so until the strains of religion die out in favour of "easy living".
These are just a few thoughts that I've had, however wrong or incorrect they may be perceived to be.