Introduction:
Man is in the
world and thus being immersed as so it is inevitable for him to interact with
anything around him. He is surrounded with beings that he cannot help but to
put some consciousness into it. As how intentionality goes that “consciousness
is always conscious of something” and man having such consciousness never runs
out of any object to be conscious at. Even at the point that he can think of
himself as an object to his own thoughts. Man is always in a situation wherein
he must respond to or even the mere act of not responding is a response itself
in the form of the indifferent negative than the blunt negative of acting upon
it the way how “negatively” is. At the height of existentialism, man’s role and
pride has been rechecked and restored after the great historical loss that he
encountered and to make it less historical and to absolutize the thought, in no
matter what danger he crosses he can overcome it as long as he can conjure the
power of the negatives in life to make something positive out of it. Such is
the nature of man, he tends to stand up from every disaster and tries to be
loyal to his reason to always look for the reasons of such events to the point
of being optimistic and not just blind optimism but an optimism that is thought
upon rather than a mere surrender of thinking towards the concept of Fate. But
such a Fate is not just as destiny that is set upon already to man to be
condemned to such ends, but such a concept of Fate that man does not know of
the end but he labours himself towards the fulfilment of it as something an
unknown and he tries to unravel the destiny set upon him. But amidst all of
that, he is again situated in dilemmas because he has consciousness to make
such things happen to be at his care no matter what. He cannot help but to notice any event that
occurs because inevitably, he is part of the event, and it has a dialectical
relationship that either of which parties are mutually contributing to each
other’s causes. Leibniz offered a philosophy of Optimism in his Monadology that
by the course of development in his arguments the monads are those things that
are self-sufficient endowed with sufficient reason having the power give always
something good out of anything whatsoever due to its self-sufficiency that
leads to the monad’s perfection. Ultimately everything towards perfection and
that reason tends to find the perfect ability of keeping the attitude positive
especially when there is really such reason to suffice the understanding of any
events.
Most cases of
Optimism and especially the great and noted one’s are the products of the
cunning of reason to justify any occurrence towards a good end. And for that,
even if it is not really so the case, it has been instilled as a hope or a
dream that the good end must arrive and the projection of such thought makes
one cling or maybe not, do all he can to move everything towards that
pleasurable end. Leibniz is one case of the vulgar display of reason’s
capability to find the goodness in everything especially to his concept of
pre-established harmony that depicts the orderliness and the perfection of
everything is already at place and such occurrence that is happening is just a
prelude or a necessary step towards actualization. Even with Spinoza’s thought
of everything as God even at no exclusion of the occurrence of anything
contradictory of God is part of God himself since God is everything; that
further reasoning tells us that even the existence of evil is part of God and
that everything moves towards the actualization of God himself. Ultimately to
Hegel as treating everything as striving towards the Absolute and that his
dialectics is an expounded version of immense and rigorous description of the
event that is happening in the world via the triadic movement of everything as
the collision of thesis and anti-thesis creating a positive outgrowth of a
synthesis. As for such, the dialectics itself is a way to explain the movement
of reason to unite the utterly different or contradictory or even to the point
that in everything there is already an inherent contradiction. Even at the
exposition of the negative, the mind or reason has this tendency to find
reasons to supplement the positive existence and to make something good out of
it. In any case everything is tending towards the ultimate, that totality of
everything. But as the “the True is the Whole”, there is no denial that
everything is crucial or better yet must be relevant or important. As the part
of the dialectics is also said in other terms of Hegel as containing the parts
the aim, process and the end, which wherein the true has to be everything of
the three and never shall any instance occur that a completion is possible with
the lack of any of which. There is this respect to every part and to which I
shall lay stress on is the process wherein the clash of the positives and the
negatives takes place in the process of actualizing the Absolute. Jumping from
this metaphysical prerogative of an Optimistic philosophy such metaphysics can
be brought down to the level of concrete experience especially the experience
of man. Man in himself is an enigma, a mystery; full of contradictions and that
he himself is a quest of his own. Finding his meaning all throughout his life
but he cannot escape the fact that he undergoes experience especially that of
obstacles in his existence. Such are the negatives in life that man bumps into,
such negatives are such because they may pose as a threat to the being of one, but again, if one has the
cunning of reason, he can overcome every negative by making it as his
springboard for development. Such is a philosophy that I am interested, a
philosophy of Optimism but what keeps one optimistic is one’s attitude towards
any encountering. It is already a given that there are situations to interact,
but how to overcome and master the hard facts is a challenge to every man who
has no vision in life. The one who has no vision at all in life tends to
surrender at the moment when everything seems to fall down unto him and that he
cannot longer transcend his predicament. He ceases to grow, to develop better
to be dead than to be a corpse numb to self-actualization. Man is part of the
picture and man has his role also in creating the picture and better yet to
paint his own picture from his own efforts no matter whatever comes that may
interrupt the growth, he has the attitude to look forward and have the will to
do so. If one has nurtured in him the secret of the “organistic” movement of
everything then he has nurtured in himself the attitude so of which wherein
every obstacle he conquers and makes something beautiful out from it. The actor
has to act and there must be within that actor that inclines him to pursue
further, the character within to elevate every point in his life into something
beyond more than he is at the moment. That he believes that “contentment breeds
familiarity”, and that he never wishes so to be contented until he has
extinguished the use of his desire in the unravelling of more things that he
might ever accomplish.
In man is
self-reliance, his utter respect to his self and the inability of him to
underestimate himself but the inner drive of him to make him pursue even when
things are difficult. He has not asked help from others but as someone who can
stand on his own and has a strong sense of self-reliance, that he believes in
himself that he can overcome and conquer every odds he will encounter. Having
the power to motivate the self always because he relies nothing else only but
himself and that he labours in order to arrive at the goal of
self-actualization. Part of the power is from within one’s self and that is to
be creative in transforming any negative to positive. Such self-reliance is a
key to the optimistic tendency of man because within him, within the self is
reason and with reason to explain and unfold causes that will suffice the
goodness of the purpose of anything and to believe in one’s own capacity is one
thing that makes one move. Even belief and reason is contradicting each other,
but there is such as an intelligent belief that one relies on reason and the
powers within man himself in the recourse of understanding everything. Not
blind believing but believing at the might of reason especially in its given
and proven quality to be efficient, that reason will lead one towards his ends
and pushes him to pursue anything further, since to rely on one self is that
key, nothing great is within the self and that is reason. This paper tends to
explicate the ideas of self-reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson, a philosophy of
man, not only such as a philosophy of man, but something that a philosophy of
Optimism, of Self-reliance that will help in the understanding of man’s
capacity to have a high regard for the self and of which makes him move towards
desired ends.
It has always
been the inefficiency of philosophy to only interpret man into different
concepts wherein it has become too abstract to be used and in the end is only
serving the purpose for understanding and never in the field of practicality.
Such a metaphysics guided by reason and of Optimism is a key to interpret man
as also a being that is striving to arrive at his own ends and that not only to
classify man as body and soul like the classics do, but instigate another way
of thinking by describing the inner motion of man to actualize things that are
still but potential in grasp. Emerson’s say on self-reliance is a key to understanding
the inner motion of man to continue to strive as an organism that tends towards
to the ultimate or to the good. But as how Emerson delivers the idea of
self-reliance is a task to undertake because he writes in a fashion of poetry,
not the usual explanatory type of literature that makes the topic abstract to
the reader, but it is more of like a directive or a manual or an emancipator
manifesto of teaching one how to uplift oneself.
I consider
self-reliance so important because the absence of which decadent to the being
of man and that leads him no greater than an animal. That the ideas presented
by Emerson makes us to reflect the capacities within to elevate the status of
the trivialities of man as just being an organized matter and bounded by laws
of contingency.
Self Reliance:
“Trust thyself: every heart vibrates
to that iron string”.[1]
As for Emerson
he even borrows a line of poetry that “man is his own star”[2]
for which man is in himself that potential being to which he can shine like the
stars. Amidst the night sky canvassed in darkness wherein there is always that
speck of light which shines above the rest and that is the star. A simple
symbol of a standout in a huge dark space and every star is self-sufficient
that it in-itself generates its own light wherein it shines and within itself
it is enduring and can last for a long
time in time shedding its light. But man is in himself is his own star, that
man is a star and that he can shine. How can he shine? Like the star that is
self-sufficient man too must suffice unto himself that very light wherein it
could possibly shine. What enkindles man to continue shining like the star is
its own fuel, to man, it is his own self, his utter reliance to himself, his
trust to himself. “Ne te quaeseveris extra.”[3]
Man must not search himself outside himself, but his self is in himself, that
wherein there is no use of externalities but man in himself has its own
self-sufficiency to govern himself.
“To believe your
own thought , to believe what is true for you in your private heart , is true
for all men – that is genius. Speak your latent conviction and it shall be in
the universal sense; for the inmost in due becomes the outmost. . .”[4]
Although Emerson
may sound a subjectivist by emphasizing on the value of the self and especially
to private convictions but amidst their being privative to one’s own leaning to
his or her own thoughts that feeling wherein man must express himself and thus
to believe in his own self is universal
to all. Because it is this heartfelt conviction to share one’s own conviction
is what is making man really a man because a man by virtue is not only reduced
to his animal leanings or biological leanings but also to something which is
transcendental and that is his thirst for being recognized, a struggle for
recognition to be a man that is superior and firm in his own beliefs. Man does
not find no other source of his beliefs and of his convictions rather than in
himself and that is why he has no one else but to trust himself in his
convictions wherein it in the innermost of his being that he will cultivate to
make a manifestation to his outmost self. In man he has already in himself the
capability to make an image for himself that will be of external recognition.
Since there is no other objectivity than one’s
own subjective assertion it leads to the point that there will always be a
clash of beliefs wherein every subject inevitably can topple over another subject.
Anarchy is a sort of outcome coming from this idea but an anarchy that is not
totally destructive, although it will always come to a point wherein one is no
longer understood because of his allegiance and of his charisma in presiding
over his convictions, that then is his point, that is because a man must stand
out, he must elevate himself from the mob or from the dictums especially to
that great inherent reality of the society. “Whoso would be a man must be a
non-conformist”.[5]
This idea is parallel that of Nietzche’s Ubermensch wherein the over man is
over and above the society transcending the mob or transcending the decadent
majority, the same with Kierkegaard’s concept of the individual, that
individual who can raise himself above the crowd. He should be a non-conformist
wherein he should stand above the current trend, he must not conform. Just like
the call for anarchy wherein one is no longer with the current system, but is
against the system already, standing above the system and toppling over the
system within in him a conviction that is heartfelt wherewith it is present to
all humans but the convictions vary but the ever presence of such conviction is
the measure of the being of his humanity.
There is no
greater homage than the home found within the self, wherein the self is
comfortable being itself and not finding itself on the other. Because in the
long run there is only the self within a society and in due time even when you
find your comfort in the masks of the mob, that will eventually fall and later
on will reveal the true face, but being masked for so long makes one’s face so
alien to the fresh air of freedom and the result that the skin will be so
reluctant to the air and even to the light that one cannot find comfort in the
openness there is in being free, being yourself, showing yourself because the
mask of the mob has protected it making it so dependent on the shield and
cannot naturally build its own shield from its own skin. Liken to Plato’s
allegory of the cave that one has made the darkness and of the obscurity of the
shadows and of the echoes an abode, a shelter, a protective coat wherein man is
at home with his ignorance and is helpless and is reluctant once he sees the
light wherein he longs to go back to the cave because of such glimmer wherewith
his eyes couldn’t take.
The light of
being an individual, the light of standing with your own convictions puts us in
a pedestal wherein our heads are fairly shown enough for someone to thrust
their spears unto. But that is the point, to be man is to live life outside the
boundaries of the comfort zone. Because to be just suitable wherein you are
comfortable at is slowly destroying the life, the creativity of it. To make it
stagnant by being too comfortable is the same as a stone whose motion is
non-existent.
“And we are now
men, and must accept in the highest mind the same transcendental destiny; and
not minors and invalids in a protected corner, not cowards fleeting before a
revolution, but guides, redeemers, and benefactors, obeying the Almighty
effort, and advancing on Chaos and the dark.”[6]
Wherein being
men is to be dumb as they say especially to a committed spearhead charge
towards the darkness, but it is by their faith in themselves that they can
conquer the odds is what is making them superior above everybody else. Like the
warriors we can mention in history, who despite their hopeless situation is
rising above the traumatizing effects of hopelessness but out of creativity and
will created a hope they can cling on even if it unto their own end of dying.
As in the movie Braveheart, this is what they call the “warrior-poets” wherein
they have nothing else but to sing even when arrows are flying towards their
heads and who can just see the beauty of meadows even before the drastic meet of
swords. That there will never be a
cessation to the quest of finding themselves and to find out about themselves
is to believe in themselves that it can happen and such thing can make them
really build the individuals that they are. A sort of self-reliance or really
the self-reliance that they have that fuels their drive towards the fulfilment
of ends even when everything seems like hopeless. It is the power of a spirited
man, who can overcome the darkness and who knows in himself that he can make
things happen. The ability wherein man can turn darkness into day, by being
hopeful and not only blindly hopeful but a hopeful person who works his way in
accomplishing things. The world has duly respected people who could elevate
themselves up from a present and apparent danger. The power of making danger a
string of hope, like as what the poet Holderlin said that, “from where the
dangers grows also the saving power”. Wherein the poet sees every disaster as
an opportunity to better himself, a trial wherein it challenges one to develop
more than what he can especially in front of a great loss. “If you believe in
Fate to your harm, believe it, at least, for your good.”[7] The
tendency is to be optimistic, always using each and every negative force that
comes through in ones experience as that motivating factor, wherein the danger
is but half of the story but is not a total destruction if looked carefully
that it can lead towards a creative and good outcome. “Now we learn, that
negative power, or circumstance, is half. “[8]
There is always the more and other story of the good beneath in every obstacle,
that the negative is not the totality of one’s encounter but a half only
wherewith the other half is the good.
For Ralph Waldo
Emerson, it is just a matter of how man sees things in the world as something
as challenges that will further propel his well being, but finding that well
being also is in need of a power of that self who relies in itself and finds no
other power to where it can apply other than itself. The self has everything in
it, but the problem lies in finding that energy from within to change every
disastrous moment an opportunity to rise. Self-reliance is that entity within
us that we can use to find ourselves and to continue in the finding of
ourselves and there is no other means to find ourselves rather than finding
ourselves within ourselves. No man should find himself outside himself, because
only within himself does he find himself.
Mostly we always
have the problems in rising above things and even continuing life all
throughout and it is always in the deepest root of having within one’s self a
problem of conquering one’s dilemma. The people who can overcome are those who
have found in themselves already the power to manipulate any events by bringing
out the best in almost anything that comes in one’s way whether it is positive
or negative but especially the greatest craftsmanship occurs in one’s own
capability to do something good with errors. In the long run, we can never
always have the crowd to comfort us, help us in the vastness of time allotted
to us in life, but mostly, we have to face reality alone and only with nothing
else to trust but only the self.
be optimistic ;)
ReplyDelete