A Wave of Self-Reliance

       Emerson portrays the differences between man, the mind, and society in "Self-Reliance". He says that genius is when man believes his own thoughts about himself and the application of this truth to the rest of man. Man learns things about himself in solitude, but they become inaudible as he enters the world. "Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of everyone of its members" (Emerson 2). He doesn't want man to conform to the world, but live by his own thoughts. When he comes to this understanding, he shouldn't pay bits of charity because he is sorry that he lives in the world. The purpose of man is to live in the world, so that he can become one with it by his own accord. When all men do this, society will be like a wave. The wave represents unity and oneness but the energy of the wave continues, leaving the pasts of men behind and acquiring the lives of men to come.

       In "Self-Reliance", Emerson continues his fancy and depiction of the unity of mankind through the soul and with the Supreme Cause, the One. He writes in the first paragraph, "To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men, -- that is genius" (Emerson 1). This is similar to the arguments found in Walt Whitman's poems, "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" and "Song of Myself". In "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry", Whitman finds a connection between him and others through their thoughts and experiences on the ferry. Similarly, but more physical, Whitman connects men with each other through the atoms that make men up in "Song of Myself". He starts the poem saying, "I celebrate myself, and sing myself,/ And what I assume you shall assume,/ For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you" (Whitman 8). He used the knowledge that men are all made up of the same matter to connect them and find truth within each other.

Emerson writes, "What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is harder, because you will find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it" (Emerson 3). Doesn't this destroy his argument because he is telling us what he thinks our duty is (to be self-reliant)?