"Nature"

I'm not gonna lie, I waited to do my nature experiment until today. But whatever, it worked. My nature experiment was really eye opening, because of all the mixed emotions I felt about it afterwards. But I'll get to that later.

Basically, I came home from a long night after winter formal expecting to arrive at home obligated to sit down and tell my dad how the limo was, how everyone looked, etc. But I pulled up to the house and his car wasnt there. Nobody was home, and I was really confused and tired and so I thought about all of the homework that I put off and that I felt like I had to do right then and there. I then thought that this was the perfect time to do my nature experiment, especially because I wouldn't have to explain to anyone what I was doing or where I was going because I was home alone!

So I drove to the beach, and there was some surfing photoshoot thing, so I drove farther north to a viewpoint where nobody was. It was perfect for the nature thing. It was cold and cloudy and I was really tired, so I stayed in my car... sorry Emerson. But I ignored the fact that I was in my car and just took in everything around me. Pleased with the fact that I was doing homework while relaxing I really got into it.

Even though I was in a plain space, my mind still managed to try and think about a million things at once. Over time just observing the peace these miscellaneous things roaming in my brain seemed to go away. But it bothers me that it takes effort in today's world to simply clear your mind - something that should be done with ease in a personal way. But because of society this is a difficult task, and it takes somehting as calming as nature or silence to aid one in doing this. So even though I reached a calm state during this experiment, I was still puzzled by the fact that I had to be alone at the beach in order to be tranquil. However I managed to push that fact aside and just keep my mind as empty as possible.

I didn't let myself fall asleep even though I was really really exhausted from the night before, because I really wanted to embrace the experiment. I mean it's not every day that you can just relax for 30 minutes and be completing part of an english project at the same time. So I didn't take that for granted and in result I notcied many things about where I was which reminded me of a lot of stuff. The ocean was dark dark blue with choppy waves giving off a mist with every movement. At the time this seemed boring, but once I thought abuot it more it was really beautiful. People usually admire the ocean when its crystal clear and great weather, but because the weather wasn't like that today I learned to embrace what I could admire. The image of the imperfect ocean was compelling because it applied to life in a larger sense in that not everyone is perfect, and you have to take them in your life for who you are. This kind of turned into a weird extended metaphor, but observing the ocean on this cloudy day this morning made me come to that conclusion.

Also, when I was sitting in my car two different ladies walked past me. One of them was jogging with her puppy. Her face looked really content as if she was accomplishing something (which she was). The other walked past me slowly, smoking a cigarrette. Her face was more troubling to me, she looked like she was really disturbed by something and stressed out. Even though this isn't really a part of nature, these two women made me think about the fact that nature can be an outlet for everyone. It is really important in our lives, but only if we use it properly. It can be used to your advantage whether you are happy about jogging with a puppy, sad and smoking a cigarrette, or just tired after a long night with friends. There are lots of different people in the world, but there is only one Mother Nature and we should embrace her when we can to help us healthily escape from everything.

"Friendship"

Being an Emersonian friend was weird. Some aspects of his take on friendship were easy to comply with, but there was also some stuff that I didn't want to take part in. For example, it was easy to be thankful for my friends (esp. on Thanksgiving) because I can easily say that they do indeed, "enlarge the meaning of all my thoughts," (203). But I wasn't really comfortable with "guarding him as thy counterpart," (211). Although it's important to maintain friendships, breathing room is important too. If I were to smother my friends because I didn't want them to leave me, that would be just weird and would probably freak them out. In result, that person wouldn't be my friend. So to guard someone as if they are a part of you seems a little extreme. Rather than the quantity of time spent together, it should be the quality of time spend together that's more important.

Emerson's paradox of friendship is basically that you need to know yourself first before you are someone's good friend (208). Knowing this, you will know your own personal limits with people, your goals for potential friendships, how far you are willing to go in a friendship, etc. Taking it a step even further, all of this knowledge will allow you to maintain your friendships with ease. Right now I'm pretty stable in terms of friends, and that's because I've learned a lot about myself along the way. I didn't wake up one morning just knowing everything about myself, but through past experiences (bad and good) I've been able to get a good grasp of my friendship attributes, I guess (sorry I don't really know how to put that part into words well).

"Vulgarity, ignorance, misapprehension are old acquaintances. Now, when he comes, he may get the order, the dress and the dinner - but the throbbing of the heart and the communications of the soul, no more." This quote really hit me because it was easy to relate to (202). Emerson is talking about when someone blows a first impression, but this applies to a situation in my life almost exactly. Someone can be a really good friend for the most part or for a really long time, but once they bring constant ignorance and vulgarity into your interactions there's a point where it's kind of unbearable. People change, and one day it will just hit you that you are not friends with the person you thought you were before. There's no more of being with that person without wanting to cut your head off. There's no more good talks or recognition of each other's emotions. There's no more fun in the friendship, just the obligation that you feel like you "have" to be friends. With this realization comes effort to try and fix things, but the fact that that person is ignorant causes you to fail sending any honest message to that person whatsoever. There's really no point in trying to tell them something again that they won't even try to open their ears to. Because they just won't listen and they will just shut you down. Because of this you lose "the throbbing of the heart and the communications of the soul," and it sucks, but after a certain point there is nothing you can do anymore. So Emerson's analysis of what vulgarity and ignorance can do to someone goes beyond just their first impression, but in true friendships as well.

"Gifts"

According to Emerson, gifts shuold be given with no personal gratification in mind for the giver. He thinks that it's okay if you give a simple gift of necessity since it's still a gift nevertheless. When receiving a gift you shouldn't be overly glad or disappointed in it. If one is overly glad, it shows that that person wasn't capable of going and getting this object they needed for their own selves. Also, if one receives a gift that is exactly what they want, it means that that person is exposing too much of themselves to others in terms of their material needs. He thinks that gifts should represent a part of the giver. If it doesn't, it serves as an artificial social tie since the gift could be taken gladly or sorrowfully. One can tell when a gift is given thoughtlessly if it doesn't help bring the giver's character to the surface. If one can't tell who gave them that gift, that means its a bad gift and there is no emotion or sentiment behind it. This is a lose-lose situation in Emerson's eyes, because either emotion in receiving the gift has faults. He is critiquing the norm of people who take pride in gift giving and receiving because to him there are so many subconscious wrongs that go behind each one...

"Self Reliance"

In Self Reliance, Ralph Waldo Emerson analyzes man in terms of their actions, intentions, and everything shown in interaction with others. In one part of his essay he says, “We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents.” There are a few different things that this quote from Emerson can mean. When he says, “We but half express ourselves,” it is clear that he is referring to the fact that people hold back from showing their true selves. In result of this, only fragments of one’s true character is shown to others. This can happen for a variety of reasons. Emerson takes this self conscious occurrence to be happening from a few different angles. He says, “[we] are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents.” Literally, that means we are ashamed of what we represent as a whole, which would be Emerson’s literal meaning as to why we only expose parts of ourself. These are the literal meanings behind this quote given by Emerson, however when someone from today’s day in age analyzes what he says – we can extract different meanings.

“We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents.” Now that we’ve analyzed the literal meaning of this quote, one can explore beyond Emerson’s word choice to make this point. The first part of the quote is somewhat indisputable because it’s pretty much agreeable that not everyone shows their true self. However, the second part of the quote is debatable beyond Emerson’s literal meaning. “[We] are ashamed of that divine idea which each os us represents.” There are a couple of words in this part of the quote that can be interchanged with something more accurate, or beyond Emerson’s train of that. The fact that he used the word “ashamed” means we would literally be sad about what each of our character’s convey to the world. This would assume that each of us deeply knows ourselves already, because to be ashamed means to be fully aware of what you don’t want to show anyone. But hardly anyone fully know themselves at any time of their life. So to be ashamed of one’s self would be assuming that one DOES know themselves wholly, which is sort of impossible. Emerson could mean that one could be ashamed to show what they DO know about themselves, but it must be understood that being ashamed of what you do know about yourself is different than being ashamed of your entire self. It’s more practical to assume that people are ashamed of the fractions of themselves that they happen to be aware of. Also, Emerson uses the word “divine” to describe the ideas that people can give to the world through representation. By using this word, it can mean that each of us is sort of transcendent/important in terms of character, which is a stretch because not everyone really has a character. In fact there are a lot of people that don’t show character, and they will never intend to.