Waldo

Today, Emerson. Today, "Self-Reliance," for just about the fortieth time.

No matter. Still thrills my soul--or Oversoul, or whatever weird spiritual essence the dreamer Emerson had in his sights. I admit I'm powerless in the man's charms, even though I've been over and over and over that silly essay. I know it's crazy, just so much dreamy madness, the rantings of a parlor prophet who watched the heavens so fervently his feet only rarely touched the ground. I know it. But no matter.

Transcendentalism was among the goofiest excuses for a religion America ever birthed. Ian Frazier calls the Ghost Dance, a cultic phenomemon in Native America in the late 19th century "America's first religion," and skips thereby New England's hybrid Transcendentalism. But then, there were Europeans similarly convicted; the roots of Emerson's dreaming lay as much in Europe and the Far East as his own native soil. Even though it grew here, I suppose it wasn't born here.

In whatever soil it took root, Transcendentalism was a hazy hybrid that curled up and died in 1860, once this nation went to war. When blood flowed as deeply as did then, reality brought transcendentalism down like fire did the Hindenberg, and Emerson and his band of New Age groupies became little more than a chapter in a history book.

No matter. I love him, always have. "Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist." Those were marching orders way back when, during the late 60s, I first read Waldo. And they still thrill me, even though when I look back it's hard to conceive of a life's path that has been more conventionally institutional than my own. Mark me among those most rarest of evangelicals--I never left the church into which I was born.

No matter. "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines." Still thrills me, even though, after years and years and years, I still call myself a Calvinist.

No matter. "Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members." Still thrills me, even though I've been on boards and committees more often that I care to count, even chaired 'em. I've been a conspirator myself, for heaven's sake.

No matter. "I would write on the lintels of the doorpost, Whim." Still thrills me, even though I came to place where I teach close to two generations ago and, like a barnacle, never left.

No matter. "Nothing is at last sacred by the integrity of your own mind." Still thrills me, even it's as heretical as it is poppycock.

No matter. "Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string." Still thrills me, even though, methodically and even consciously, I just about always do the opposite.


Today, in class we have Ralph Waldo Emerson--flaming heretic, peddler of grandiose illusions, pie-in-the-sky romantic, dizzy dreamer, buzz-bomb idealist, founder of the uniquely American school of positive thinking, half-whacko, three-fifths genius and two-fifths sheer fudge.


Today, Ralph Waldo Emerson's famous essay, "Self-Reliance." Forty times over, I'm still thrilled.

Today I'm thankful for a heretic, a lovely dreamer named Waldo. I'm no disciple, but he still gives me goose bumps.