Ralph Waldo Emerson, Blogger Extraordinaire?

What would a 19th century American essayist, philosopher, poet, and leading Transcendentalist know about blogging?

Quite a bit, it seems.

In my teens I discovered the essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson and immediately fell in love with the golden nuggets of individualist wisdom found amongst some otherwise dense writings.  He seemed to recognize in me the desire to own my voice, reaching through time and space to write to my teenage heart.

I’m not a teenager anymore, but I’m still endeavoring to own my voice, and for me, that has happened through blogging.

It’s kind of heavy for a Wednesday morning, but read this excerpt from Emerson and see if you can find parallels to why I might enjoy blogging the way I do:

from the essay Self-Reliance (1841)

To believe your own thought, to believe that 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 the universal sense; for the inmost in due time becomes the outmost [ . . . ]

A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within [ . . . ]

Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty. [ . . . ]

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.

How this translates to me as a blogger:

• I may write personal stories about family matters, but my constant hope is to present universal, relatable themes.
• Others may share their convictions via political or community involvement; I have chosen to share my convictions via blogging, where the inmost certainly does become the outmost.
• Through blogging, the mundane has become much less so as I begin to see glimmers of light through seemingly ordinary activities.  When I recognize those glimmers, I share.
• I could certainly wait to read my own thoughts and opinions come across the screen or page from other bloggers and writers, but I’m choosing to express my OWN thoughts and opinions with my blog.  No more “dismissing without notice” my own thoughts.

It has been a revelation recently that blogging didn’t just come “out of the blue” for me.  I think I’ve always been searching for a format to achieve what Emerson championed, and I’m thankful that five years ago I discovered this medium of blogging.

If Emerson’s looking down on me, I think maybe he’s earnestly satisfied (since “earnest” is kind of his second middle name).  And if he were alive today, I’d love to think of him as a blogger himself.  That’s one blog I would absolutely follow!

You might also enjoy these related posts from Tree, Root, and Twig:

1. Blogger, Can You Spare a Dime?
2. Help a Blogger Out
3. It’s Not What You’re Called, It’s What You Answer To

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