Self-Reliance and the Art of Not Giving a F*ck
It’s harder than it sounds
This morning I returned to an essay that in the past served as a major stepping-stone for my growth. Contained in an anthology of accumulated works, I opened to the essay over my morning jasmine green tea. Dust spun out of the binding in the slanted morning sunlight.
Now, an hour later, here I write, having cleared my own “inner” dust that’s accumulated in personal stagnation, for the essay was none other than Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Self-Reliance”.
I first read the essay at 18. It sent me on a whirlwind of change. From visiting southeast Asia to eventually traversing all of Mexico in a van for 3 months, Emerson’s poetic prose taught me to transcend the bore of convention.
Now, six years after my first read, I’m 24 and using “Self-Reliance” as a catalyst for refreshing my sense of healthy rebellion. I hope that by sharing some famous quotes from Emerson’s work, I can inspire within you lust for self-reliance.
“Whoso would be a man [or woman] must be a nonconformist.”
I was the premier example of a conformist throughout high school. I went to the parties, drank the alcohol, formed shallow friendships, acted how they wanted me to act… When my soul actually craved the enticing lure of the school’s poetry club and a chance at winning a spot on the debate team.
Becoming a nonconformist amounts to maintaining a deep sense of inner integrity. Not concerning oneself with the opinions of others is paramount in this endeavor. Preserving inner integrity often means going against what others are doing, and often, what others wish for you.
Everyone seems to know exactly how others should be living their lives while having not a clue about how to live their own. It’s a poisonous symptom rooted in the disease of judgment. We must resist.
When I set out to travel the length of Mexico by van, I was told “No, don’t do that. That’s dangerous.” In my 3 months spent driving from Los Angeles to Oaxaca and back, I did indeed face great dangers. But you know what? These dangers challenged me in essential ways. Not all initiations in life come as neat, bubble-wrapped gifts. As James Russell Lowell said, “One thorn of experience is worth a whole wilderness of warning.”
“The objection to conforming to usages that have become dead to you, is that it scatters your force.”
Stop doing things that don’t feed your soul. Stop doing things that don’t feed your direction. Doing such things weakens you. Doing such things “scatters your force.” Move into rapid, spontaneous action within your interests.
I scattered my personal power when I remained in situations that were abrasive to my personal power. These came in the form of toxic friendships, emotional living situations, and following the “easy” road for the sake of comfort.
When I was 20 years old, a girl unexpectedly took interest in me. She was 24, tall, and insanely beautiful. I was enamored by her wit, sophistication, experience, height, body, hair, eyes, accent, etc.
But I soon discovered how she was as shallow as a birdbath. She was quick to critique the unknown, quick to flaunt her imaginary superiority. . . She dragged me along in the wake of her beauty for many months.
One day, we had brunch together. There were pancakes, overnight oats, and plenty of small talk about this person and that. Then, back at my apartment, I cried alone. It was an empty dry-eyed crying that matched my empty, dry emotional state. The cute, older, foreign girl with the poor emotional health had scattered my force.
She must’ve felt something as well; when I decided to stop contacting her, she stopped, too.
Sometimes it takes an epiphany to awaken us from the dull sleep of toxic paths and patterns, to stop conforming to usages that are dead to us.
“I am ashamed to think how easily we capitulate to badges and names, to large societies and dead institutions.”
The ability to think for oneself is an art difficult to master in a society upheld by egotistical standards. Herein we face toxic professionalism, parents who think they know best, judgmental siblings, judgmental friends, stuck-up leaders, controlling husbands, and whole hosts of distasteful social standards.
How are we to find our way through all of this?
There’s a story often recited by scholars of Zen that goes something like this:
“A Japanese master received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen.
The master served tea. He poured the professor’s cup entiery full, but kept on pouring. The professor watched the overflowig cup until he no longer could restrain himself. “The cup is too full. No more will go in!”
“As with the cup,” the master said, “you are full of your own judgments and opinions. How can I teach you Zen unless you first empty your cup?”
Sometimes titles (such as “professor” or “Ph.D.”) act as encumbering weights unconscious to us. We drag them along through life to feel good enough, to feel accepted in a society that commends labels and cookie-cutter professionalism.
The Zen master wishes to give the professor a fresh beginning. First, he must resist “badges and names” and “dead institutions.”
Emptying oneself of shallow, preconceived notions, as well as choosing our paths from a place of personal empowerment and self-reliance, is how we begin living through the art of not giving a f*ck.
“Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.”
For having made it this far, I leave you, reader, with this Emerson quote, a quote I’d get tattooed on my body.
It takes courage to trust yourself. It takes discipline to learn your rightful place in the world, that is, the place where your inherent gifts are valued and able to blossom forth as a medicine for the world.
Keep going! And when things get tough: Remember to keep fighting the good fight, the fight of becoming a true nonconformist, the fight of living out your deepest desires.
