Respond to the following Ralph Waldo Emerson quotes.
"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."
"Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string."
"To believe your own thought," it seems as though since childhood, children are told to believe in themselves and to not be afraid, to express everything they feel. However, it is as though one only takes that thought in for the early stages of life. The approaching of adulthood seems to send everything in to chaos, it poses a threat to all understanding formed in earlier years. No longer is one “[believing] [his] own thought, [believing] that which is true for [him] in [his] private thought is true for all men.” This period makes one question his morals and what his heart is telling him. One starts to just ‘go with the flow’ and live by cliché ideas. It is as if he is having struggle of power within him, struggling with what will end up consuming his life: conforming to what the world and his peers want, or doing what his heart feels is most comfortable. Emerson’s words are very wise and true. He sees life very clearly, whereas others see life through a film, it is as if he has figured out a way to penetrate the film and inform the world of what is beyond it. He knows that the heart is the truest of all places, in it lay secrets, regrets and the inner workings of our identities. Believing in one’s heart is the best advice he can give to those of younger generations, the message is to believe that everyone is feeling just the same way. Everyone lives within a shell that protects them from confrontations and from being different. What Emerson is promoting is free thought, to not be teared down by what others say, rather he believes that one should be much more interested in what he is feeling inside his heart and to have confidence that everyone is going through the same type of issues and are feeling the same way.
“Trust thyself,” those two words seem so easy to follow, however, modern day culture has aided in hardening into us that ‘going with the flow’ and gaining confidence through numbers seems to be smarter. Contrary to that thought, one’s natural instinct is to believe in himself. One’s heart tells him what to think, say and do, it is the center of the body, the thing that keeps the whole body functioning healthy, so why is it that one abandons his nature, the thing that wants to help him and tries to find a loop hole to escape from his own thoughts and feelings?
These quotes stand for unique thought and standing firm one’s belief and his goals, more importantly, for people who read this quote to see how it reflects in their own lives and for readers to create for themselves their own personal identity, that is as solid as a safe room for when the tornadoes and hurricanes of life strike, this identity is safely hidden and cannot be assaulted. To conform to this world is like willingly giving up one’s favourite dessert and instead having it replaced by the vegetable one hates the most, simply because everyone around him is doing so. Surrendering to the world will ultimately shred one’s identity to pieces, leaving no hope for it to be repaired. The only cure is to be confidant in what one feels and to make oneself feel worthy to have his own thoughts that are different from everyone else’s. To be able to create such an identity that is based on personal thought and morals and self empowerment, now “that is genius.”
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