Me and Emerson

What is it about human nature that makes us want to fit in? You join this group or that one… you hope each time the fit will be right. I’ve spent most of my life like this.

Searching for Like so I didn’t feel alone.

Some of us, no, most of us, really don’t fit into any box perfectly. We have such individual bumps and edges. Experience has molded, each new cast different than the last. We are alone in our skin and for some, comfort comes in conformity. Like with like.

So, what of the perpetual nonconformist? That one person who just doesn’t fit in anywhere and well, really doesn’t want to? The older I get, the more comfortable I get in my own skin. In fact, I believe that once we become comfortable with who we are, being alone is no longer lonely.

One of my favorite nonconformists was Ralph Waldo Emerson. I don’t profess to understand everything he wrote– not yet (g)– but I do know that in highschool, his quote, “Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist,” really hit me. (Yeah, a teenager who actually enjoyed reading the required Emerson is strange, but hey, I never claimed to be anything approaching normal. But then who is? Is there really such a thing as normal? Wait, do we want me to take off on another tangent? NO!)

So, my class had to read Self-Reliance. I loved it. Yes, I know. Freak. But here was someone unafraid to be himself! Talk about a foreign concept in highschool. Some think Emerson was a selfish man and in a sense he was. With his time. He had great things to ponder and even greater things to write. Unfortunately, writers do have to be selfish about their time when they can. Things like family, children and jobs come first, but show me a writer who isn’t writing and I’ll show you someone balancing on the edge. The edge of what– I’ll leave to your imagination.

Being selfish with my time is something I’m still learning. Kind of goes in with that whole procrastination from perfectionism subject I touched on here before. If I wasn’t trying to be so damned perfect at okay, EVERYTHING, maybe solitude wouldn’t be such a luxury. Emerson taught that solitude is a person’s best friend. (He used way more words, tho.)

Too many people read halfway into Self-Reliance and make snap judgments or get bogged down in his, dare I say it, wordiness. They don’t go far enough to get the beauty of his words, the utter simplicity of what he was really trying to say.

“If we live truly, we shall see truly.”

Those are his words, btw. So what else did I learn from this essay?

Go with that first gut instinct when it comes to your genius. (Yes, you have it.) There’s nothing worse than seeing some other artist or writer come up with a genius idea you already had and let go. Trust yourself.Don’t waste time wallowing in regret.

Moving or traveling won’t really solve your problem. You bring your “giant” with you wherever you go.

Even though it’s easier to fall in line with those around you who think they know what’s best for you, don’t. Be true to yourself.

Oh, there’s more but I’m striving myself to be less “wordy” in this blog. heh heh

The real genius here is that these are simple ideas that make sense yet for some reason they’re the ones that seem to float just out of our normal thought range.

I wonder how long it took Emerson to be comfortable in his nonconformity?

I want to be more comfortable in mine.