I’ve been reading Emerson lately as part of a Life Experiment on cultivating my writing voice and heeding my own perceptual authority while remaining curious and open.

I often begin writing projects by bristling and braying at the nuance I feel is missing. Through my commonplace book practice, I’m able to recall and connect related sentiments that create a thought loop, a conversation amongst authors. The choir of minds wakes my own voice and becomes my song. This is one such conversation.

As I read Emerson’s essay, Self-Reliance, I found resonance and support, but also felt that inspiring bristle:

“Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist. He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore if it be goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind….No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution, the only wrong what is against it. A man is to carry himself in the presence of all opposition, as if every thing were titular and ephemeral but he. I am ashamed to think how easily we capitulate to badges and names, to large societies and dead institutions.”

At first read, my veins throb in recognition as my blood quickens to respond – we must shape our own definitions of what we encounter in this life. We could swallow everything as it’s delivered by “experts,” as is often done, but this is consumption, not creation. To become a passive follower in a society demanding conformity is to abandon the map that leads to our treasure.

This insight prompts me to recall a quote from Carl R. Rogers in his speech, Becoming a Person:

“…to be herself means to find the pattern, the underlying order, which exists in the ceaselessly changing flow of her experience.”

Gently, with such reverence, he names the key to establishing self-reliance. Observing and reflecting on our own experience, noticing patterns and how we respond to life’s challenges and joys – this metacognitive process of taking in all we are without judgment draws the map of the self.

My own perspective diverges when Emerson suggests we face opposition “as if every thing were titular and ephemeral but he.”

I suggest we hold two things true at once: our own perceptions are valid, we need not acquiesce when challenged, and we are also part of a system, a larger family, and each “self” is an essential note. We would not be ourselves without one another. Positioning others’ dissent or difference as unimportant to our own story is to deny our inherent connection. It feels like a defensive posture when what is called for is more generous.

When imagining an ideal response to this subject, I hear Marsha Sinetar’s words from Ordinary People as Monks and Mystics:

Regardless of how it often seems, we don’t need to conform to belong. We inherently belong. We are a part of nature, sharing in its patterns, nourished by the same sun. As an orphan, I have found that this inner understanding of our oneness has kept me company in many dark and lonely places.

I’ve also come to see that our innate desire for acceptance and connection can be manipulated through shame, inequality, and fear for the benefit of self-serving entities. When tyrants speak of self-reliance, it is a wholly different animal – another tool for domination, conformity in disguise.

This is why the idea of othering our opposition by deeming their stance as lacking authority or as mere fleeting words doesn’t seem quite the relationship I wish to have with opposition. I find it necessary to stay rooted in my own values, which include allowing others to effect me by giving weight to both their feelings and their realities. We shape one another. I am not an immovable object; I am a river flowing into the sea.

I find Ed Yong’s words in An Immense World speak to why self-reliance is not enough. Our Umwelt, or the world as we experience it through our specific filters, leaves so much outside of our individual awareness.

“The Umwelt concept can feel constrictive because it implies that every creature is trapped within the house of its senses. But to me, the idea is wonderfully expansive. It tells us that all is not as it seems and that everything we experience is but a filtered version of everything that we could experience.”

We are permeable and transitory creatures who view life through our own set of filters, always shifting and adapting, taking on new forms as we integrate new experiences and knowledge. No single individual can hold all there is to know. While some individuals have a wider range of perceptual abilities and cognitive skills, this doesn’t make anyone omniscient. No one sees exactly what you see, and when we share our individual experiences, our world becomes bigger.

Receptivity and fidelity to one’s own experience are best when paired. To explore the experience of another, to see the through-lines and celebrate our shared freedom of mind, is unity without conformity. It is both self-reliance and an immersion in wonder.

This reminds me of Viktor Frankl’s quote from Man’s Search for Meaning that shaped my young life when I first read it 30 years ago:

This quote became a permanent current of my inner wind¹. I was 18, living alone in a studio apartment. I had no family, only transitory friendships. I outgrew groups of people as I began to know them and myself better. The dissonance of staying in places that required conformity at my expense or whose values were in opposition to my own became painful. I took wisdom from each experience, accepted others’ freedom to choose and create, but honored my own mind as the compass for my actions.

Frankl’s words validated my feeling of connectedness despite my deep loneliness and explained why I woke up each morning truly happy in my struggles, excited for what the day might bring. Even if I couldn’t pay a bill, didn’t have a car (or know how to drive), and would certainly be required to face my fears and do the often painful work of self-discovery, I knew that the sun would still cast shadows through the leaves, and I could walk barefoot through the grass. I felt fortified carrying his words – no one could force me to take on a perspective that didn’t suit my personal vision.

Even in the worst times, when our bodies fail us, when no voice is a comfort, we can choose the attitudes of acceptance – we can allow our rage, sit in a healing space until time dissolves, allow our grief to overcome us. We can also allow moments of happiness to break through any of these times. We can choose to allow it all and to believe that it will either pass or we will become a new version of ourselves through a fervent curiosity that only comes from fighting for survival. While misery can be all-consuming, the wind within is hungrier than any feeling – and eventually we will digest the suffering and transmute it into fuel.

This freedom of mind, the ability and imperative to choose one’s own attitudes ², isn’t given to us from an external source. It’s a call to trust our own inner authority, a sense of self-reliance. We have the power to shape and guide ourselves, but it’s done in relation to one another, not in isolation.