"We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents."
-We are too scared to fully expose our true selves, to be left vulnerable to the world, so we never fully express that very essence of God within us.
There is a divine idea in all of us. God lives in all of us, in our souls. This is fundamentally who we are, it is our life force and it resides in the very depths of ourselves. It transcends our body and mind in its eternal nature. Whether our conciousness is lost with age, time, or death. The soul will live on. Each one of us has this essence and it is unique, else society would make all of the people of the world the same. From this comes emotion, felling, and expression. The latter of which wehave nearly full contorl of. Sometimes when feelings get too overwhelming that we temporarliy lose control of how much we express. We are able to hold back emotion and even use our mind and memory in order to create false emotions as actors do.
This brings us to Emerson's idea of half expressing ourselves. We choose what we want other people to see us express. This ability is both a good and bad thing. It is good in order to spare others from the possibly terrible feelings we are feeling and becasue it allows us to cheer people up and other such things. The good aspects center themselves aound interaction with other people. The mallous elements of this ability concentrate on the issue of our own individual emotional and mental health. For example we can tend to hold feeling back, in denial, and so unhealthy feeling can build up within. This is the half expression we as humans take part in quite frequently, varying from person to person.
The reason we only express part of ourselves is because we are ashamed and scared of what other people, society, and the world think of the divine idea. It leaves us so exposed and vulnerable but if you have strong self reliance (which is the subject of the essay) it should not matter, for you will be strong and selfconfident.
5 comments:
I completely agree with you Alex. God is everywhere and our souls will live on past death. Our souls are who we really are. There are no secrets and lies in one's soul. I believe this is exactly what Emerson is trying to say. We do not need to conceal our souls. We should be able to express who we are and not be judged negatively by it.
It is sad that we live in a world that admires such horrible things. These things are fueled by the media and therefore are exposed to everyone. I wish the world admired more respectable things like the church and public service and traditional virtues like loyalty and patriotism. I believe if the world promoted these values instead of promotting what is "cool", we could have a better world and no one would need to hide who they really are.
The values of respect and kindness, if promotted by the public, would allow people to be who they are. The "cool" values that are being shown now are not who most people are and because of that, people try to hide their souls to conform to this standard.
Standards are good for the world but it is the quality of the standard that determines if it is right or not
It is disappointing that all people can only “half express themselves.” This has especially been a problem in the recent past with the concept of political correctness. I agree with you in the sense that political correctness is good as not being politically correct in front of unknown people can offend the people you know. Political incorrectness can also result in the inability of a person to gain the trust of the masses, which is essential to being able to influence more people in the end with one’s actual beliefs.
There are only a few benefits to being politically correct, though. America is extremely fortunate to be suited for democracy in many ways, especially geographically. America’s isolation from European affairs during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries made it easy for America to defend itself without an army, preventing a potential military coup d’ tat. However, the practice of political correctness in recent years has degraded our democratic institutions. The PATRIOT Act was passed after September 11, 2001 due to the fear that people experienced in voicing their true beliefs. The cornerstone of all totalitarian and authoritarian regimes has been fear. The people of the United States, who are blessed with a geographic situation that encourages democracy, should not permit the decay of their blessing.
This brings me to George’s comment about the values of patriotism and loyalty to one’s nation. Although patriotism and loyalty can be beneficial for improving the condition of one’s country, these ideas have proven disastrous in many cases. The nationalism and patriotism that gripped the masses of the Third Reich kindled the avarice that created the Holocaust. Nationalism and patriotism have created by far the bloodiest wars in world history. The church has been corrupted throughout history by numerous crimes, including indulgences. I do agree that people should follow certain institutions at times, including patriotism and the church. However, if one does follow an institution, one should be very wary of how the institution or belief is developing in society before it almost always inevitably gets out of control.
Hey Alex,
I really enjoyed reading your blog because it was easy to relate to your opinions and views. It is unusual how people can simply choose what others see or learn about them. But this is not always a feature that is good. By holding back certain feelings and emotions, there can be a buildup within oneself.
I can also see why someone would not show their true feelings. Many people are often found fighting the pressure and judgement of society. Overall, it would one day be nice if the barriers holding us back could be taken down, therefore we can express ourselves fuly and truthfully.
I was intrigued by your idea that being able to half-express ourselves was both a blessing and a curse. The utility of it in, say, cheering others up, had really never occured to me. At the same time, though, it really does rob us of some of our identity. So often I find that the way I appear to different people or in different settings is so greatly varied. I sometimes find myself trying to separate different parts of my life so that they don't ever appear to conflict, though in truth a panoramic view of all the different Peters would certainly include its share of hypocrisy. The fact that I am ashamed of different qualities of mine, and so exclude them from certain settings, is really unhealthy, as your essay has shown me, not unique to me. This itself is strangely encouraging, though the thought of a problem being an epidemic rather than an individual peculiarity doesn't initially sound terribly comforting. In one of Craig's writings, he mentioned that people are, as a rule, self-conscious, and your essay gives some compelling arguments for why we should strive to avoid this. The fact that you suggest a solution is the icing on the metaphorical cake. Certainly we should not be surprised that the solution of self-reliance came from an essay of the same name, but your connection is nonetheless valuable. This essay makes me want to try to fully express myself always and not fear what people think. It would certainly remove the problem of keeping the various shades of Peter from overlapping. Thank you for writing this.
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