Self Reliance Relying on The Self

Becoming the Archetype of Self Reliance :
Alice and Ralph

"The other terror that scares us from self-trust is our consistency; a reverence for our past act of word, because the eyes of others have no other date for computing our orbit than our past acts, and we are loath to disappoint them"

Ralph Waldo Emerson: ON Self Reliance:
Set all things aside, things of the world, self indulgence including charity and conformity in order to come to self awareness. In order to be yourself, to become whole and complete one must be centered on self reliance.

"Virtues are in the popular estimate rather the exception than the rule. There is the man and his virtues. Men do what is called a good action, as some piece of courage or charity, much as they would pat a fine in expiation of daily non-appearance on parade."

This is to say that virtues have no value but popular opinion?

A man must acquire the ability to judge another man's look of disapproval as a means of survival. "The bystanders look askance on him in the public street or in the friend's parlor."


How do we rely on the self without self discovery? Without self awareness? How do we come to terms with ourselves when we cannot even carry a meaningful conversation with our self?

The self is a complex character, one that is mischievous misleading and deceiving even to the mind which it inhabits. The actual self, reflects the nature of others (close friends, relatives) and loathes the qualities which are opposite of those the desired self desires (for lack of a better word). We often see this competitive nature within our own psyche; the epic battle that rages between the actual self, the projected self and the desired self, these are who we are, who we think we are and who we wish we were. These are the me's the I's and the if only I were... that we look for everyday in our day to day struggle with the world. Pressures, media, influence, desires,wants, passions...these interfere with our understanding of our true self, our actual self. Emerson is trying to get to this literal idea of the self and the formation of that self in his essay Self-Reliance. I find that his ideas are both compelling and inhibiting in many ways.


Emerson's quotes are littered throughout the world found on postcards and in inspirational cards, "lift me up's" if you will. But honestly, this essay is depressing. If you look at it literally he says, cast off happiness, cast off pleasure and reward, cast off charity and religion because a man must rely entirely and completely on himself before he can advance in the world.

But one could also read this as positive in the truth that a man cannot fully love another until he loves himself and he cannot trust another until he trusts himself.

To bring it back to the quote I started with a man cannot trust himself completely until he believes in his own consistency. One cannot have truth without consistency. When a man is so encumbered by his past acts he cannot move forward he is not trusting of himself; Emerson describes this feeling as a fear of self trust.