Self-Reliance 4

We discovered that mean actually means average or mediocre, kind of like the definition of mean in mathematics. Emerson compares this mean to greatness.

“The great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.”

“What I must do is all that concerns me, not what people think.”

“it is harder, because you will always find those who think they know your duty better than you know it.”

These were some of the phrases that caught my attention. I found them interesting because they all, to me, portray the same thing: we should do what we want and not what other people want. It is not hard to be like the rest, what is hard is to actually try to be ourselves; remaining ourselves in the presence of whoever we may come in contact with. We should have only one version of ourselves, no matter whom we are with or where we are.

“If I know your sect, I know your argument.”

Of all of the phrases this one was my favorite. I relate so much to Twain. I actually relate it to everything. When I first read the quote it had such a great impact on me, and it is true that you can tell more or less how people act or what they think by the people they are surrounded most of the time.

We also understood from the discussion that if we keep doing things that don't mean anything to us, they will scatter us and blur the impression of your character.

We also compared our life to spreading the table. What are the components of our life? Have we put them there or have we been like a servant, letting someone else tell us how to arrange the components? Most of us are facing this problem, specially at our age, because we want to be emancipated from our parents but we cant really let go our parents because they are supporting us. We can’t truly be independent now, but we need to make plans to be truly independent in the future. But then wouldn't this go against what Benjamin Franklin said? “ They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

Being false affects everything around us. It is like putting a drop of sewage water in a cup of clean water, would one drink it? No, so the same way you either do or don't have integrity.

“The muscles, not spontaneously moved, but moved by a low usurping willfulness, grow tight around the outline of the face with the most disagreeable sensation.”