Thursday, March 26, 2015
I'm Relying on You to Think for Yourself
Iron strings, lustrous firmaments, corn growing in my brain: was Emerson paid by the metaphor? With or without figurative language, I'd like you to draw a connection between an idea in Self-Reliance and your own sphere. Think, too, about how RWE's ideas connect to the distinction we drew between personal and shared knowledges. Here, then, is your task: choose one sentence from our Self-Reliance excerpt. Explicate the line you choose, carefully parsing its language and content (are they the same? Way of Knowing alert!) Relate to it a moment of knowledge from your own life (class, conversation, "gleam of light which flashes across [your] mind from within," etc.). Extract a knowledge question, and use it to explicitly connect "your own thought" to Emerson's. In rendering your thoughts back to us, remember to explicitly identify and examine the relevant ways of knowing and areas of knowledge. Please complete your advance "on Chaos and the Dark" by 5pm Sunday.
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The idea from Self Reliance that resonated (to an iron string) with me was this sentence: "The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried." I interpret this sentence as saying that "Every person can do something which no one else can do, no one knows what that power is, and he doesn't even know what that power is until he tests it out". "The power which resides in him is new in nature" seems to mean that no one has ever had this exact power before (and, simultaneously, everyone has because every heart resonates to that iron string). "None but he knows what that is which he can do" states that no one else knows what power another person has. "Nor does he know until he has tried" states that a person can only know his own power if he tries to use it.
ReplyDeleteThe relevant ways of knowing are faith and emotion. Emotion is involved here because if a person feels that they cannot do something, they might never try. Faith is involved because in order to try something new, one has to have faith that one will not fail horribly.
A moment of knowledge from my own life which is relevant was a dance class during fall trimester. A small group of us were attempting to learn a dance taught by one of the students from the advanced dance class. Part of the dance required that we learn how to do cartwheels. I was the first person in the class to try. I realized that I would have to learn to do a cartwheel eventually, and it would be better to get it done sooner than later.I was terrified a) that I would make a fool of myself, b) that I would fall down, and c) that she would make me try again. All three of these things happened-- and I was fine.
This moment of knowledge showed me that my own power and determination was enough to carry me through the ordeal of learning something new in front of a group of people.
My knowledge question is this: "To what extent can faith override fear when learning a new skill?"
A belated and reworked knowledge question: to what extent is faith dominant over fear in terms of cultural knowledge?
Delete-“A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages.”
ReplyDeleteI interpret this sentence as the importance of self-reliance, that one should discover and follow their essences derived from their own minds without outside influences. “That gleam of light”, referred to people’s own soul should not be overwhelmed by others, even gorgeous ones like “lustre of the firmament”. The expert is trying to convince that what comes from people’s inner sentiment is more precious than any other outside fortune, including “bards” and “sages”. One way of knowing relevant to this sentence is faith. As what the expert indicates, people are affected by outside influences possibly because they believe that those are powerful and influential.
A moment of knowledge from my life is my English class about ethics. When we were reading about existentialism, we came up with a statement, that humans are all alone. Everyone totally agreed with that statement, and I was engaged as well. I was writing down what the teacher and my classmates said that convinced me, such as the example that humans all have their own body and brain. However, after I dropped down those notes, I realized that I might have different inner feelings primarily. When I first heard that statement, I subconsciously felt that I, as a human being, am not alone. To some extent, I have friends, and I have communication with a lot others which make me connected to others. Those feelings are the sentiments inside me, which I almost lost when I was convinced by others.
My KQ is: To what extent can people’s inner thoughts be overwhelmed by outside influences without anyone’s awareness? I think people’s sentiments can be easily covered, as a reason why Emerson is emphasizing the importance of keeping the primary feelings. However, I believe that people can be aware of what they have been lost to a large extent, as why Emerson is giving the advice to people to be aware of their self-reliance.
From Self-Reliance excerpt: “Else, to-morrow a stranger will say with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time, and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from another.”
ReplyDeleteTo me this sentence highlights the consequence of having a lack of self-reliance. If we are partly defining self-reliance as the factor that pushes us as individuals to recognize our ‘works of genius’ and put enough trust in ourselves to be the first one to say something about them, then this quote above can be interpreted as what we as individuals face when we keep our ‘genius’ inside. What I mean by this is that if we don’t use self-reliance to speak what’s on our mind, others will speak what’s on our mind. This is what the first part of the sentence means, “else, to-morrow a stranger will say with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time.” The next part “we shall be forced,” indicates that there is no way out of feeling the shame we will after someone said our thought before us because it is in the past. We cannot change the past, we cannot go back in time just to say what we were thinking because of the sole fact that we thought it before the person who said it. This highlights the purpose of Emerson’s entire work, to warn us about this possibility of someone speaking our ‘genius’ before us, and to tell us that we need to speak up to avoid the potential shame.
The other day I experienced a moment of knowledge while speaking with two of my friends. One of them started the conversation by saying, “Hey, did you guys realize that we all spend equal amount of time with each other…” At first I had no idea where she was going with this but she finished her thought, “You two play soccer in the fall together, we (speaking to me) play basketball in the winter, and we (speaking to our other friend whom I play soccer with) play lacrosse in the spring. Therefore, we all spend the same amount of time during sports with each other.” As soon as she finished speaking, both me and the other friend spoke out about how we had already thought about that same thing. This is true for me, a couple weeks ago I came to the same realization but figured it wasn’t that important to share. Seems to me as if I could have used some self-reliance at the time. To connect this back to Emerson’s idea, my friend who stated the realization we all had made before us is the “stranger..with masterly good sense,” and I was forced to take with shame my own opinion from another.”
I lacked faith in my thoughts, considering I didn’t think the realization I made was worthy enough to be said, but I discovered the opposite when my friend said the same thought. Emotion is the other way of knowing involved, especially because I felt some sort of shame, or disappointment because my friend had said something before I had said it. I clearly experienced the consequence of not using self-reliance in this situation. These are my underlying reasons for forming my KQ below.
KQ: “To what degree is it possible for lack of faith in our ‘works of genius’ be held accountable for the emotional consequences of our actions?”
"A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best; but what he was said or done otherwise shall give him no peace." (From Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance, 386)
ReplyDeleteMy interpretation to this sentence is that when one passionately devotes all his or her effort into things that he or she is supposed and determined to do, one would eventually get what he/her deserves. However, when a human is capable and has the ability to do something that once has crosse one's mind, he/she should not be intimidated to do so, instead, he/her should put all effort into reaching for a certain goal. Otherwise, it is kind of coward and guilty to not do the best. In another words, when people have ideas come into their minds, try to develop as much as they can based on their potential. If they do not do it well, there will be regrets and guilts for what they have done instead of what they should have done.
One way I have experienced this knowledge moment would be in my visual art class during winter term. I was not very encouraged by grade in art in the first term of IB art year one. Later in winter term, I always chose to do my art journal after all my other homework every week because I thought my grade would not change anyway based on how much time I put in. I waited for the night before to do about ten pages of journal writing even though I had free time to do it since days ago. Then, of course, my art grade was never favorable. I was disappointed, and my teacher was disappointed to me. So in the last project during winter term, I was drawing, taking progress pictures, printing, cutting, pasting and writing for the work. After the grade was posted, I realized that "wow, I did this." When was stopping me from more accomplishment is not how hard the process was, but what my attitude and effort was. We don't succeed just because we want and desire for something. The chance of success comes with the devotion of time and effort. Even though we all have potential to do something. However, if we don't unearth it, we would live painfully because we don't want to say "oh, I could have done that too only if..."
KQ: To what extent can the knowing of undeveloped potential affect on one's determination for success?
“It may be safely trusted as proportionate and of good issues, so it be faithfully imparted, but God will not have his work made manifest by cowards.”
ReplyDeleteWhile reading Emerson’s Self-Reliance along with the class, this line struck me for cowardice and bravery have always been interesting topics for me. Within this quote Emerson states that ‘It may be safely trusted as proportionate and of good issues, so it be faithfully imparted’ with the ‘it’ referring to God’s work which is stated at the end of this line. By substituting ‘it’ for ‘God’s work’ the beginning of this quote now reads ‘God’s work may be safely trusted as proportionate and of good issues, so it be faithfully imparted.’ This sentence then means that God’s work, the creation of man as an individual along with that individual’s independent ideas is entrusted within the individual to express them. The rest of this line means that independent thought, given to an individual by God, is therefore expressed in balance of currently exposed opinions and designed for ‘good issues’ or what is socially acceptable so it can be ‘faithfully imparted.’ Faithfully imparted then means that independent thoughts, designed to be accepted by society and placed in balance of current opinions, allows the thought to be ‘understood and believed by society’. This quote ends by Emerson stating that although this is true ‘God will not have his work made manifest by cowards’ meaning that independent thought should not be formed around what is socially acceptable or to balance different opinions already exposed to the world, but yet to express ideas in their raw form even if this means rejection or judgment by society. Within this quote Emerson recognizes that expressing our raw thoughts is an act of bravery and therefore cowardice will only prevent an individual from expressing raw thoughts and therefore prevent them from representing God’s work of individuals and their ideas.
Before the start of Spring Break I experienced a moment of knowledge in Chinese class that directly related to Emerson’s quote. For Chinese homework, my classmates and I often have to create paragraphs of 150 characters or more in relation to the topics we are currently learning about. Mrs. Jing told us in class that we had to be more daring in the variety of characters and sentence structures we used within these paragraphs. My classmates and I responded to her statement by altering her to the fact that we were being cautious in our variety for fear of being wrong, and disappointing her. Mrs. Jing then told us that she encourages us to mistakes within these paragraphs so we can learn from them and therefore receive more out of our learning experience. In relation to Emerson’s quote that I analyzed above, my classmates and I were not using our raw independent thoughts within this type of homework for fear of the reaction of our teacher. In working in fear of the repercussions of ‘society’ (our teacher), my classmates and I were not fully representing our thoughts. Once Mrs. Jing encouraged my classmates and I to make mistakes, we were not as self-conscious about being daring and potentially failing within this type of homework and therefore we were able to get more out of the paragraphs we wrote because cowardice was not standing in our way.
Part Two of my blurb:
ReplyDeleteIn both my personal situation and Emerson’s quote, faith and emotion played a large role in entrusting ourselves in expressing our independently created ideas. Emerson, within his quote means to say that the emotion of ‘fear’ prevents us from doing our job in this representation. We also have to have faith in our own ideas, for devaluing our own ideas will therefore lead to that ‘fear’ and obstacle in the way of free expression. Within my personal situation in Chinese class, I was not extremely confident in that class to begin with and I therefore devalued any ideas that I had that deviated from exactly what we were learning. This resulted in my personal discouragement from expressing new ideas of my own within my paragraph homework. Through exploring faith and emotion in the context of both my own experience and Emerson’s idea, I was able to form my KQ below.
How does a lack of faith in our own knowledge affect our emotional response to that piece of knowledge upon expressing it?
Revised KQ:
DeleteTo what extent can biased shared knowledge alter our interpretation of our own knowledge?
One sentence from Self-Reliance that resonated with me was, "In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty."
ReplyDeleteI take this sentence to mean that every masterpiece, whether it be a painting, a book, a dance, an invention, an idea, etc., has been thought of by the knower before, but has been cast away as a useless idea by the knower or has not been investigated enough by the knower. It is the idea that every work of genius is familiar to the knower because it is something that they have thought of or something that they could have thought of before. That undeveloped or rejected idea then comes back to haunt them because they did not develop it and were unable to create the work of genius themselves. In this way, they have failed to explore their "gleam of light" and seeing their idea as someone else's work of genius is their punishment for not having done so. I think that this sentence is meant to motivate the knower into exploring ideas that they believe have potential or else they will regret it later. I think of this as the same feeling that you get when you see a piece of abstract art with a bunch of different colored splotches on it and you think to yourself that you could have easily created that, but you did not, and that is why this artist is $2 million richer than you.
A real life situation that connects to this is when I was a member of an Odyssey of the Mind team with six other teammates. We were supposed to create a play, including all of the scenery, costumes, and props ourselves while fulfilling all of the Odyssey of the Mind requirements. The play was Greek mythology based and one of the requirements was to have a moving god or goddess that was not a person dressed in a costume. We did not want to make a puppet because that is what most other teams would do and we wanted to be more creative. I came up with an idea that would use magnets to move the arms and legs of the god or goddess. However, I did not share my idea because I thought that everyone else would think that it was stupid. A few minutes later, one of my teammates said this exact idea that I had out loud and he was given all of the credit for it.
The ways of knowing that I used or did not use in this situation were faith and emotion. I did not have enough faith in my idea and therefore did not get any credit for it. I had dismissed it as useless, but it was what we ended up using for our play. I also used emotion because I felt sad and regretful that I had not shared my idea and this feeling of regret taught me that I should believe in myself and share my ideas more often.
KQ: How does the amount of faith that one has in their own ideas affect their rate of success when creating "works of genius"?
Revised KQ: How does faith in oneself affect the success of one's ideas?
DeleteThe sentence(s) that I have picked: "[Do] your work, and I shall know you. Do your work, and you shall reinforce yourself"
ReplyDeleteWhat I interpreted it as: When you find the work the resonates with you, the work that you are a genius for, by working and sharing with others, others will get to know you. You do not need something big and flashy to show your genius and who you are, your genius in what you are doing will enforce who you are.
How I connect it to real life: I think that this sentiment is very true. This sentence made me think of all the work musicians and athletes go through to be noticed for their talent. This phrase in Self Reliance means that when you are unknown, if you show your talent and genius you will be known, and will be heard. I think this is true because although sometimes for musicians and athletes they go through agencies to try to get famous or well known in their fields. But many times, in the end, the ones who rise to the top, besides the ones with prior connections, are the ones who are randomly selected by agents because of their display of their work ethic and dedication. On the other hand, sometimes people who are geniuses in these departments have trouble seeing the genius in others. Sometimes the reason why someone may not rise to stardom is because the people around them who are geniuses or successful in their field may cloud their judgement of other people's genius.
My own knowledge experience: A few days ago, I had to write a blues piece for IB Music. When Greg first saw it, he thought that it was too complicated to do in such a short amount of time. Maybe from the phrase from Self Reliance, at this stage he "didn't know me". Eventually,when he allowed me to do my work, and I played my piece, I reinforced my capability to play my piece. He was able to see my "genius" by me playing the work I created that resonated with me. As I said in the paragraph above, in some situations genius is not seen because of the confidence in the genius one sees in themselves. Although the original says that "[They] shall know you" by you doing your work, sometimes that is not always the case. Luckily in my situation, Greg was able to see the "genius" of my piece and was able to accept it.
KQ: To what extent can having too much faith in our own genius block us from seeing the genius in others?
The sentence I chose is, "[...] To-morrow, a stranger will say with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time, and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from another."
ReplyDeleteMy understanding of what this sentence is saying is that one's original thought merits more weight and attention than the word which are ascribed value simply because the person who said them was famous/noteworthy.
My moment of knowledge which relates to this occurred in a conversation I had with my sister about a week ago. We were discussing her recent dilemma in which she was struggling to reconcile her faith with the concept of an unforgiving God who would banish anyone to Hell. I knew what she was talking about, having mulled over the very same question myself. She told me that in a conversation with one of her friends who also happened to be an ordained minister, she was reassured that it was okay to question this aspect of her faith. She then elaborated on her understanding of Hell, comparing it to C.S. Lewis's portrayal of it in his book The Great Divorce (which has been on my to-read list for a while). To over-simplify and summarize, Lewis states that, while some people do indeed go to Hell, there is always the option to repent and return to Heaven. This precise idea had been one which I had always tried to cling on to whenever I doubted my faith, but until then, I unfailingly dismissed it as irrelevant and uninformed because it was my idea. I had been ignoring my "gleam of light", dismissing it as unimportant and faulty, when in fact, one of the bards and sages had said the exact same thing. Interestingly, when I heard that my ideas lined up with his, I immediately ascribed them value and legitimacy simply because C.S. Lewis had had them (this lines up with another segment about the bards and sages, but I figured I had to pick one).
KQ: How does our perception of our own ideas change once we know someone else has had them?
Idea in Self-Reliance: Speak your latent conviction, and it shall be the universal sense; for the inmost in due time becomes the outmost, - and your first thought is rendered back to us by the trumpets of the Last Judgments.
ReplyDeleteInterpretation: I chose this quote because it speaks to me as a writer. The idea to me is that if you contemplate, develop and then express your thoughts and ideas, then in time you will find people who can relate to it. It is extremely unlikely that no one in the world would identify with your opinion no matter what it may be. Therefore, your latent conviction i.e., undeveloped thoughts should be brought forward because they can ignite similar thoughts or convictions in others.
Moment of knowledge: I recently gave a proposal to Mr. Larson about the Off-Campus Dances. I had thought of the idea a long time ago but I was afraid that it would not make sense to others because I would not be able to explain it properly. Surprisingly, when I shared it with my friends this weekend they agreed that it was a good idea and encouraged me to share it with Mr. Larson and Sally. In the end, Mr. Larson showed interest in it and it might be passed.
KQ: How can the media used to share knowledge affect or modify its underlying meaning?
Relation: I thought of how worried I was that my proposal would be turned down because I did not explain it properly. This was because I was struggling to explain it vocally to my friends. This made me think that different people would interpret the knowledge different ways and even though we think it has become a “universal sense,” it might actually be quite different. I also realized that while speaking my latent conviction it may lose its truest meaning. The medium used in transcribing thoughts and ideas also dictates the range of acceptable interpretation. For instance, a thought in writing leaves a smaller range of interpretation than the same thought through dance or art. Thus, the arts plays a role in this as well as language as a way of knowing.
This is even later then I thought it would be because my comment didn't post.
ReplyDelete...Sorry.
My sentence is "Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his."
I interpret that as saying that we often dismiss our own thoughts as not being valid, or being the "right" opinion.
Moment of knowledge: this is actually multiple, because I have often found myself not saying what I am thinking in class for fear that my idea isn't a good idea. I know that's not true, but the fear is still there. I believe that the idea behind this is that I often think if someone else hasn't already said my idea, it isn't good, because if it was good, someone would have thought of it already. It's a vicious cycle.
KQ: In what ways do our memories affect what we say and how we say it?
I've often found that when I'm about to speak up in class, I flash back to one time where something I've said didn't quite make sense, and caused me to be embarrassed. This often leads to either making a very broad and general statement, which is abd, or not sharing the idea at all, which is worse.
The sentence(s) I chose from Self-Reliance are "Do not think the youth has no force, because he cannot speak to you and me. Hark! In the next room, his voice is sufficiently clear and emphatic"
ReplyDeleteIn context, Emerson included this quotation to emphasize the idea that children are the best examples of those who possess uninhibited innovation and "genius," but that over time their individual creativity is stifled. I interpreted Emerson's words to mean that although the young cannot necessarily understand nor communicate with adults of superior experience, that does not diminish the magnitude of a child's thoughts. A child's ideas are still clear and original in their nature, regardless of whether a another person can understand his or her expressions.
Emerson's words reminded me of a moment of knowledge I had with my father. We were eating brunch, and he told me of a study he had heard on NPR where MBA graduates and five-year-old's were put in the same room and given ten minutes to build as tall a structure as possible using only chopsticks. The five-year-olds' structures were on average 17 inches higher than those of the MBA graduates, because the five-year-old's would spend the ten minutes trying multiple different methods of building if their structures toppled, whereas the MBAs would spend most of their time sketching one detailed plan and barely spent enough time actually trying to build something. The study proposed that young children possess a greater creative problem-solving intuition than adults, and that a traditional education can actually strip us of our creativity instead of enhancing it. Initially, I underestimated the children's abilities and believed that the MBAs would build higher structures. The ways of knowing I relied upon to make this conclusion were language and memory. I believed that since the MBA graduates had a broader life experience; that is, more memories to draw upon, they must be smarter and therefore more quick to pose a solution. I also believed that since they had a larger language facility, they would better be able to voice their ideas and put them into action. However, Emerson proved me wrong- the youth were more successful because their own voices and creative visions were "sufficiently clear and emphatic", even though I did not possess the language to understand them.
KQ: In what ways does language limit our abilities to share knowledge?
“There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction … that imitation is suicide”
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me that there is need in our world to do everything new and differently. To do something that someone else has done, even if you are not copying that person, makes what you do seem much less creative. For example, I noticed this in myself during weaving class. We were given a set pattern with certain required colors, but the direction we took was up to us as well as which color we started with. I found myself started with the most untraditional color I could think of and going backwards so that mine would not be like those of the other girls in our class. They had not even started yet, but I felt a need to have my project be different from theirs even though there was no way their projects could have influenced mine.
This leads me to the knowledge question: In what ways are our own ideas influenced by other people’s ideas?
We come up with our own ideas but then we are often influenced by similar ideas to change ours, because it is not as desirable to be the second. It does not matter if the original influenced the creation of the second idea, but if the second could be construed as a copy, people change it to make it different. Our memory and emotions control us because even though our idea may be original to us, it is not to the word and that makes it seem to be a less genius idea.
The idea from Emerson that I decided to explore was
ReplyDelete"I am ashamed to think how easily we capitulate to badges and names, to large societies and dead institutions. Every decent and well-spoken individual sways me more than is right."
This excerpt uses powerful language, "ashamed", "capitulate", and "dead institutions", to express the point that the population is far to easily manipulated.
To me, this brief passage addresses one of the principal problems we see in our world today; an over dependence on major corporations and an inability to detach ourselves from them. Not to mention, on a more minor scale, we see evidence of such ideas in peer pressure and opinions being changed by the people we are close to.
A moment where I experienced this was when my sister and I were watching How I Met Your Mother, and my sister made a comment about a character, Ted Mosby, being annoying. Until that point in time, I had not realized this small detail. However, after this comment, coming from someone who I look up to, I could not think of Ted Mosby in any other way.
Emerson was talking about how opinions and ideals were too easily influenced by powerful people, ideas and institutions. My sister's opinion on a TV character is fundamentally coequal to the problems with society that Emerson explored. They both deal with "higher powers" influencing the opinions of others.
Knowledge Question: "To what extent do the opinions of others, when communicated, change our own."
Revision:
DeleteExcerpt: "It seems to be a rule of wisdom never to rely on your memory alone, scarcely even in acts of pure memory, but to bring the past for judgement into the thousand-eyed present, and live ever in a new day."
KQ: How can our personal interpretations of memories differ if the event is one shared by many?
Revised KQ: How does our understanding of our 'works of genius' change the amount of faith we have in our future ideas?
ReplyDeleteRevised KQ: To what extent can people’s inner thoughts be overwhelmed by outside influences without their awareness?
ReplyDelete