Self Reliance

“There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till.”

Emerson pushes back against the notion that to be educated means to master the inventions and philosophies of previous practitioners of any given trade. Instead, he asserts that a properly enlightened man will recognize his need to embrace individuality and act upon personal principles and objectives. Envy and imitation are wasted energy, as they focus on others rather than on one’s self. The true value of a man’s life comes in his embrace of his own identity and his own individual value (his “plot of land”), rather than in what he might do for another man or with another man’s ideas.

“It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.”

A man’s relationship to his peers is a central concern in “Self-Reliance.” Emerson suggests that a person who agrees with and follows the norms and conventions around him will be welcomed into society. When, alternatively, one exists merely by himself, he instead acts as an individual freed from outside influences and follows a personal creed and principles. Emerson says that only “great” men can maintain staunch individualism when immersed in a crowd, instead of conforming.

“A man must consider what a blindman’s-buff is this game of conformity.”

Emerson continually denounces all forms of conformity and imitation, insisting that a man needs to trust the genius of his own independence, invention, and originality.