The Self-Reliant Entrepreneur

November 26Thinking for Yourself

I admire great persons of all classes, those who stand for facts and for thoughts; I like rough and smooth, “scourges of God” and “darlings of the human race.”… But I find a person greater when they can abolish themselves, and all heroes, by letting in this element of reason, irrespective of persons; this subtilizer, and irresistible upward force, into our thought, destroying individualism; the power so great that the potentate is nothing.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson—“Uses of Great Men,” The Oxford Book of American Essays, ed. Brander Matthews (1914)

There was a lot going on in America at the time of Emerson's writing: the legal practice of human slavery, significant religious upheaval, a cultural and moral divide so vast that it led to a civil war, and the beginning of the fight for women's rights.

There's a lot going on in the world still today, and there probably always will be. The call for individualism issued by Emerson, particularly as he suggested across all classes, may never be completely answered, but it's surely less polarizing than the opposite. You could rephrase this as merely thinking for yourself.

To practice self-reliance, one must “stand for facts and for thoughts”—agree and disagree and agree to disagree, but above all know what is good and right in your heart alone. Okay, and take responsibility for your acts, stop comparing yourself to others, make your own decisions, and maybe change your own oil. (But that last one is optional.) ...