Emerson Wrap Up

Today was the day I put my final thoughts on Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay "Self-Reliance" into a project. What my group and I decided would best represent Emerson's theme of looking inside yourself for the answer rather than in others is the use of boxes to represent different emotional layers to us beneath our physical appearance. We had three boxes - each different sizes. One box was decorated elegantly to represent the side - or layer - of us that we want people to see because we conform to society in order to blend in by making ourselves appear homogeneous to everyone else in society. The next box was a less-elegantly decorated box that represented how we were beginning to scratch the surface and look within. This box was pretty bare with almost no decorations. It goes along with a Mean Girls quote where one of the characters takes a moment to step back and think how they "used to walk into a room full of people and wondered if they liked me, now i wonder if I like them." The Mean Girls character begins to challenge their "prescribed" place in society as a conformist, which is exactly what Emerson tells us to do, when he tells us to not conform to society like a "brute". The final box was a nice color with a nice but not perfect appearance. It represents our core and our soul. Our soul is who we really are and we should "Accept yourself, you don't have to prove SHIT." It really resonates with what Emerson advises because he warns us that "For nonconformity the world whips you with its displeasure. And therefore a man must know how to estimate a sour face." The final box ties in to Emerson's biggest message of all which stuck out to me the most: people who don't conform to society and stay true to themselves are ridiculed and may be seen as crazy. But we must keep our head held high.