🪷Emerson on Authenticity
Gongs of truth from long ago that still resound today
Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay “Self-reliance” is one of my all-time favorite pieces of literature. It reads like a gong clanging over and over with truth I always need to hear—its core argument being the importance of heeding one’s own inner voice, rather than conforming to what other people are doing.
I want to share just one among many great passages from this essay as my latest “Serenity Splash” post—because my mind is too busy working on some deep inner stuff to write about something else, and these words of Emerson’s feel close to the content on my heart right now. 💜
And seriously—I don’t understand why everyone on the internet is not quoting these words all the time! They seem to me extremely relevant to our current times, despite being written almost two hundred years ago.
Just listen to these clanging gongs of truth! ⬇️
Live no longer to the expectation of these…people with whom we converse. Say to them…I appeal from your customs. I must be myself. I cannot break myself any longer for you, or you.
If you can love me for what I am, we shall be the happier. If you cannot, I will still seek to deserve that you should.
I will not hide my tastes or aversions. I will so trust that what is deep is holy, that I will do strongly before the sun and moon whatever inly rejoices me, and the heart appoints.
If you are noble, I will love you; if you are not, I will not hurt you and myself by hypocritical attentions. If you are true, but not in the same truth with me, cleave to your companions; I will seek my own.
I do this not selfishly, but humbly and truly. It is alike your interest, and mine, and all [people’s], however long we have dwelt in lies, to live in truth.
Does this sound harsh today? You will soon love what is dictated by your nature as well as mine, and if we follow the truth, it will bring us out safe at last.
But so [by saying these things] may you give these friends pain. Yes, but I cannot sell my liberty and my power, to save their sensibility.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Self-reliance” (bolding, brackets, and spacing mine)
You can read the essay’s full text for free here.
☀️ May we each doggedly follow the authentic truth of our own hearts, speaking out honestly and thoughtfully, rather than hiding in the pseudo-safety of following the crowd around us. It is following our actual, honest, hard-to-swallow truth that, according to Emerson, will “bring us out safe at last.”
Sounds intriguing! I'm not familiar with this, so I'll have to give it a read soon.