I read Self-Reliance in my college American lit class. Talk about
dropping jewels:
Society everywhere
is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members.
Society is a joint-stock company, in which the members agree, for the
better securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the
liberty and culture of the eater. The virtue in most request is
conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities
and creators, but names and customs.
That right there--
names and customs--convinced me to drop out of school. Weirdly enough, in preparation for Kenyatta's return to school, we're re-reading the essay:
I do not wish to expiate, but to live. My
life is for itself and not for a spectacle. I much prefer that it
should be of a lower strain, so it be genuine and equal, than that it
should be glittering and unsteady. I wish it to be sound and sweet,
and not to need diet and bleeding. I ask primary evidence that you
are a man, and refuse this appeal from the man to his actions. I
know that for myself it makes no difference whether I do or forbear
those actions which are reckoned excellent. I cannot consent to pay
for a privilege where I have intrinsic right. Few and mean as my
gifts may be, I actually am, and do not need for my own assurance or
the assurance of my fellows any secondary testimony.
Sorry, it's a little early for this, I know.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
Never too early in the morning for Emerson and Thoreau. "Morning is when I am awake and there is a dawn in me. Moral reform is the effort to throw off sleep. Why is that men give so poor an account of their day if they have not been slumbering?" Walden
Emerson in the morn is like a good shot of expresso. This idea of "loves not realities and creators, but names and customs" has a parallel in the work of Heidegger's "they-say", or "gossip". The idea is that instead of doing the hard work of making out what things mean for ourselves, and therefore taking individual responsibility for them, we go with the flow of groundless opinions/trends. In the world of govt/bureaucracies this has some of the resonances of Hannah Arendt's "the banality of evil". In the words of Pink Floyd "and we do what we're told". For folks looking for a link between the ideas of Emerson and the effects of the civil war see Louis Menand's "The Metaphysical Club".
http://forum.wgbh.org/lecture/louis-menand-pragmatisms-three-moments
ps, for some highly readable essays written for a general audience by the leading heir of Emerson see: The drama of possibility : experience as philosophy of culture / John J. McDermott
for you more serious Thoreau (on John Brown) heads check out:
http://religion.syr.edu/Misc/Thoreaus%20Translations%20copy.pdf
"a parallel in the work of Heidegger's "they-say", or "gossip""
Heidegger, deeply inspired by Nietzsche, who was deeply inspired (though Continental philosophers are loath to admit it) by Emerson. Read the first few lines of "Experience" by Emerson and then the preface of "On the Genealogy of Morals" for confirmation.
sure, that was my thought. Didn't want to get into too much genealogy here, but probably the Heidegger has more directly to do with Kierkegaard. This gets a little esoteric so perhaps at an open thread some time...
Read his Divinty School Address. I think he was not allowed anywhere near Harvard for something like 30 years after his address. I had a huge crush in college on him after reading it. Strange, but true.
Yes, he went into Harvard, and basically said you couldn't find God in college--no second hand God. It was as radical at its time as when Timothy Leary, whom I believe had been a Harvard professor in psdychology, told everyone to turn on, tune in, and drop out. His "American Scholar" essay was a manifesto for just the kind of scholarship TN is doing on the civil war, an argument for scholarship and curiosity to be unbound from institutions and indwelling in a particularly American, individualistic, sensibility.
I do think it is rewarding to read all of Emerson's major essays in sequence, not so much because I found him as remarkable as many do, but because his thinking changed over time, and reading them in sequence is like reading a novel about the consciousness of an ever evolving and very thoughtful man.
hi E, my sense was not that one couldn't find God in college as much as one couldn't rely on traditions/practices/symbols that no longer had any life to them and that was all they had to offer at divinity school (not sure that this has changed much). Leary, who I enjoyed, in some ways is an anti-Emerson in so much as he sought to transcend the world of "appearances" and of conversation, and is more like the brain-dead stoner mind-meld of "know-what-I'm-sayin". As for your comments on his form of writing as thought unfolding this seems exactly to the point and why the kind of exchange/evolution of ideas here is valuable.
Well, Leary's psych texts preguru days were pretty much full of the empty academism that Emerson had found wanting, but when he came along and told people to drop out of college and school, albeit via the medium of psychotropic inebriation, traditions/practices/symbols were what he wanted to by pass.
Thanks. Even though I had to read these a couple of times to fully absorb (in between absorbing sips of strong tea), it's centering to start the week this way.
One more thing. Been thinking about why you dropped out. That took guts and a great deal of independent thinking. Frankly, I would have been too scared of my parents or the world to do something like that. But I also really enjoyed school--especially, a bit later, grad school. It was this awesome moment where I was free to just wrestle with texts and ideas and classmates--not unlike what goes on here on your blog. It seems you're one of those few people today who can ditch school but still do something significant and satisfying, so obviously you don't need to go back. But do you ever think about going back--just for the interaction and stimulation? (Btw, haven't yet read your memoir, so maybe you've already covered this.)
It's worth noting that I was much better working at writing, then I was working at college. I was a piss-poor student. And I was taking out loans to cover my piss-poorness. You would have done it too, if you could barely sit still in class. I had issues.
And I do think about going back. Mostly because someone compared my book to Joyce. And I've failed every time I've tried to read Joyce. People say it's better to read it in a class.
Thanks for this--and that more recent post on the community of commenters and the power of blogging. It's all starting to make sense now.
And I've never been able to stick with Joyce either. Thought about it again today when I was in a bookstore looking at the list of "best" 20th century fiction. But I went for John Cheever instead.
I dropped out of college just before my senior year in part for reasons of economics but mostly because I WAS BORED OUT OF MY SKULL! My first job after dropping out was to become an airline stewardess (it was the 1970's.) Twenty years later I had a fairly senior position at the White House. I guess I was much better at working--period.
I also tried to penetrate the imprenetrable Joyce, but Faulkner was more my stick.
Re:your post and this thread, God Almighty, I love this blog!
Recently I went back at Joyce; I reread the Odyssey and got myself up for it, I have book as large as Ulysses with annotations in it; I even read the summaries of every chapter, but what I ended up with was this:
Joyce is funny. Telemachus is a screwed up intellectual wasting away teaching school children who bore him to tears. Ulysses a Jewish ad man wandering around Dublin so he won't run into his wife screwing a guy with the presposterous name Blazes Boylan. And Penelope, the decades long faithful Penelope, is a woman screwing around on her husband. Early on we have a scene of Leopold Bloom, our modern Ulysses, sitting on an outhouse thrown smelling himself and as he is wont to do ruminating on this, that, or the other mundanity of life, albeit some sprinkles of sagacity thrown in. Ulysses--the tittle is a bit of a joke.
And as a word slinger, he's slick. No doubt, even when you don't know wtf he's talking about, it sounds good.
But I don't believe he really believed in his characters. His characters are a front almost for the cultural history of Wester Civ. thinking as it had hit Irish shores. He had to stuff his novel with allusions, half of which upon discovery struck me as literary name dropping, rather than having much relevance or significance. His two main characters cannot, either of them, turn off their minds for even a second, and their ability to have a continuous thread of thinking for more than a paragraph despite one obviously being portrayed as a genius and the other as at least somewhat learned is maddening. One friend of mine described it thus: it's as if the narrative voice is sitting in a bus all day long and looking out the window, and you are forced to listen to them noodle as they go in and out of waking consciousness.
Ahh Emerson... I don't think any other author or set of authors inspired more discussion in my political philosophy class than Emerson and the transcendentalists. By the time we read Emerson and Thoreau the ideological lines in our class had become more or less apparent. Emerson was a sledgehammer that re-divided the class along what seemed like very odd lines. I found him to be one of the more frustrating philosophers I had to read at that time, but also one of the most compelling, fascinating, and useful. I’m on my way back to school too and I think I will reread Self-Reliance. Thanks for the idea.
Just to be contrary, never been a big fan of Emerson. The sort of guy who nobly refused to give in to the burden of taxation and sat in jail for several hours until his aunt paid them for him. (Of course, probably the law insisted he clear out regardless. Still....) Or who wasn't a big fan of nature in the raw up in the Maine woods....the Concord woods were overgrown former farms, and a stroll to a nice cup of ale was always an option.
Not that the ideas aren't compelling. Just that I can't shake Louisa May Alcott remembering her dad Bronson sitting around with the transcendentalists discussing how to properly fathom the world, while his 4 small daughters staggered about trying to actually run the household.
Just to be contrary, never been a big fan of Emerson. The sort of guy who nobly refused to give in to the burden of taxation and sat in jail for several hours until his aunt paid them for him. (Of course, probably the law insisted he clear out regardless. Still....) Or who wasn't a big fan of nature in the raw up in the Maine woods....the Concord woods were overgrown former farms, and a stroll to a nice cup of ale was always an option.
You are confusing Thoreau and Emerson. Certainly they had similar philosophies. I'm very far from an expert on either, but my sense is that Thoreau made some attempt to live by this difficult philosophy (not enough to impress you, obviously!), but that was much more than could be said of Emerson.
You're right, I've mixed up Emerson and Thoreau. Sorry, Emerson.
It's always bugged me, out of all proportion, that Thoreau made one little batch of cement from shells to demonstrate the principle, then purchased the rest.
Maybe that's kind of the point. Thoreau wasn't trying to impress you or anybody else by how tough he was. He was just trying to figure things out for himself.
But then why write about it? Like Emerson's "My life is for itself and not for a spectacle" up there, it's sort of like a reality tv person complaining about media attention before we had any of those things--if you're going to philosophize about how one ought to live, people are going to look at how you yourself lived up to those ideals.
Granted Emerson and Thoreau are not in Rousseau's league here, but there's a certain disingenuousness I was referencing with Alcott, unlinking ideas about how to live with the reality of living.
While Thoreau's essay, "Civil Disobedience," was probably more important than all of Emerson in its impact on the necessity to protest injustice, even if it requires incarceration to do so, what makes Thoreau more important was his love of nature, which bordered on the erotic. He must by all intents and purposes must be considered the grandfather of modern environmentalism, though he himself would have eschewed any mass social movement. And at least to my eyes, he was a better writer than Emerson--his language more alive, far less abstract.
While Thoreau's essay, "Civil Disobedience," was probably more important than all of Emerson in its impact on the necessity to protest injustice, even if it requires incarceration to do so, what makes Thoreau more important was his love of nature, which bordered on the erotic. He must by all intents and purposes must be considered the grandfather of modern environmentalism, though he himself would have eschewed any mass social movement. And at least to my eyes, he was a better writer than Emerson--his language more alive, far less abstract.
sorry to be cranky, but i don't hear any argument in there, just a lot of sloganeering. a string of assertions, with no development of thought.
and the assertions themselves? pretty much just nike ads in nineteenth-century prose.
"I do not wish to expiate, but to live."
yeah; just do it.
"Few and mean as my gifts may be, I actually am".
uhuh; let u be u.
i mean--c'mon. this stuff is like brain-candy; it sounds nice and gives you a brief buzz (of "self-empowerment"), which is why it is the basis for modern advertising slogans. but does it hold up to scrutiny? does it answer any hard questions?
"I cannot consent to pay for a privilege where I have intrinsic right."
sure; that's fine. in fact, it's almost tautologous. if you have a right to it get something for free, then you have no obligation to pay for it. can't argue with that.
but *what* do you have these "intrinsic rights" to? does this beautiful flow of words actually settle any hard questions about the nature or extent of our rights?
ah well--maybe it's all better in context.
I agree. When I was doing my reading project last year I found Emerson to be the king of blowhards. I have a fondness for blowhards, however, so this isn't entirely a bad thing.
I go back and forth on the American Transcendentalists. On the one hand, there’s a lot of valuable words and ideas to be gleaned, on the other hand, they--particularly the two heavyweights (RWE and HDT)--have this obnoxious self-importance about them that has caused me to grow considerably colder to them than I was in my teens. I do like Kant quite a bit, though.
Does it answer hard questions? I'm not sure. But I'm not sure that's really hte right criteria. Emerson was a thinker, but not really a philosopher, in the modern sense. If you're looking for rigorous formal arugment and conclusions about political questions or derivations of laws for action, Emerson won't give it to you.
But, hard or not, he does answer the most important question, namely how to go about living your life. It's an essay, and Emerson generally writes conversationally, not rigorously. Many, if not all of his essays, were originally or primarilly intended to be given as talks and listened to, not to be read and studied. And he was writing about individual life, not about political philosophy or other more abstract issues. Combine those two, and you get his epigrammatic prose which is short on rigorous formal argument. (Somewhat similarly to Nietzsche--it's not a surprise that Emerson was one of his favorite writers, given how much they have in common.) It's in the lineage of the Montaigne, not Kant.
As far as being banal, I think most writers trying to impart wisdom about life end up that way if you boil them down enough. There's not that much new thought in the area, really, just restatements of old ideas. But it's doing Emerson a disservice to boil him down, since his wonderfully phrased epigrams are a chief pleasure of his work. I'd say putting something in just the right way, and breathing fresh life into old ideas, is a worthwhile accomplishment.
You don't think Emerson is in the lineage of Kant? Really?
"You don't think Emerson is in the lineage of Kant? Really?"
I wouldn't say so, at least in terms of style and goal. (Caveat: I've read more glosses on Kant than actual Kant, who I'd nominate for the title of worst writer in the history of the world at succinctly and clearly explaining ideas based on the 3 works of his I've read (Prologomena, GRoundwork of MEtaphysics of Morals, and Religion withing the Limits of Reason Alone). And I'm only about 150 pages into the Collected Essays of Emerson right now. So I'm arguing on the basis of somewhat incomplete knowledge.)
It seems to me that Kant was doing what I'd call formal philosophy, making rigorous arguments from set principles, and trying to build an overarching system of philosophy about the world. Emerson is none of those things--he's not doing formal philosophy and is certainly not constructing some sort of overarching philosophic system. And he's also, unlike Kant, not really interested in abstract philosophical areas like epistomology. He's all about life and how to live it.
Can you imagine Kant ever talking about the hobgoblin of foolish consistency? But this is very much in keeping with Emerson's writings, from what I can tell.
I don't think Emerson's writing is in the style of Kant. I'm not even sure if Emerson actually read Kant in the long form, but I think it's generally well accepted that, in being a Transcendentalist, Emerson's work is in the lineage of that of the man who coined the term. I haven't read either since before my kids were born, and I can hardly remember anything from way back then (it's nearly three years now!), so I may very well be making an argument I'm in no position to back up without resorting to brand of fake knowledge you get from Google.
Fair enough. I can't speak for anyone beyond me. It changed my life. But that doesn't mean it will change anyone else's.
In reading these passages, I can't help but think of the horrible economic situation that our country was in and how following some of that advice would have prevented a lot of this misery.
People went for ever bigger houses, nicer cars, more glitter and often the price is being tied down to a job that leaves one unfulfilled. The conformity is being forced to maintain a job that one finds dreadful
"I do not wish to expiate, but to live."
Crux of all my current struggles.
Not to be contrary... no wait, I'm actually going to be very contrary.
I can't speak to Emerson, I don't have the knowledge-base, though Self-Reliance sits on my shelf as it has for years. Maybe this will compel me into its pages!
But I can speak to America's vaunted love of self-reliance and independence and individuality and say that, imho (of course, always), it's a load of crap.
No one who lives in a society is alone, and no one can truly thrive alone. We can survive alone, but that's not thriving. American women have paid the price of our love of the notion (note: not the reality -- progressives, of all people, should know that we cannot and do not rely entirely on ourselves) of self-reliance in the form of being told that they must aspire to raise their children without help and support, and that if they actually achieve the middle-class dream and "get" to do just that, they should be damn grateful. American men pay the price in the form of being told, for decades upon decades, that they may have no emotional needs, only sexual or professional; that friends are for back-slapping; and that worries are best drowned in something self-destructive, be it a speeding motorcycle or a bottle of drink. (I say "decades upon decades" because, once again thanks to the peerless Team of Rivals, I have recently become aware of at least the tenor of male friendships in the mid-19th century, when men wrote what today we would call love letters to each other, to express their friendship. So who knows, perhaps it once was and can in future be different).
This is just a small snapshot of the ways in which we pay for our culture's demand that we aspire to "self-reliance." What we really need to aspire to is mutual support that does not deny the humanity, dignity, and agency of anyone. I don't know that that is entirely achievable, but lord knows we won't get there if we don't try. To counter Emerson with Auden, from the poem I so often quote: "We must love one another or die."
(Not that I've thought about this a lot, or have strong opinions about it. Or anything).
No one who lives in a society is alone, and no one can truly thrive alone.
This.
My big problem with libertarians is that they never seem to get this very basic concept. It's interesting to me that Emerson says this very thing and then goes in a completely opposite direction with it. "Society is a joint-stock company, in which the members agree, for the better securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater." Exactly. And that's a good thing in my opinion.
Society has always been a tradeoff--you give up some individual liberty and in return, the other members of the society watch your back and keep someone from the outside from bashing your head in, and you do the same for the other members of the society. The debate is not over whether or not this is a good thing--the debate is over how much individual liberty for how much security and stability.
You've hit what bothers me about that bread/eater quote. A bunch of ferociously independent people who truly don't care what anyone else thinks are not going to form a society; there must be some consideration for those norms and customs that make it possible to live together and not break apart 30 times a day.
ee, "self-reliance" here in Emerson would translate as think for yourself and not as up by your bootstraps. If you are looking for a writer/thinker who combines much of the best of Emerson, minus the attitude of self-congratulations, with the kind of thinking that you are offering here look into the works of Jane Addams.
Ah, Jane Addams. I have read a tiny bit more of her (have you ever noticed how damn many books there are to read?), and yes, you're right. I should do more reading in that direction.
And I really should stress: This is why I said "I can't speak to Emerson" -- I really, really can't. But our tendency, as a culture, to privilege rugged individualism has long disturbed me, and I kind of went off. This is what happens when one thinks too much, but works alone at home in front of one's computer. TNC is my water cooler!
And clearly it is never too early in the day to discuss the transcendentalists.
You make some really valuable points, and I've had plenty of the same thoughts reading Emerson and Thoreau. But I never really thought of them as preaching the kind of rugged American individualism you see in truck commercials. To me, it is more of being on guard against the conformity demanded by institutions, and the way customs and names can ossify and constrict necessary critical thinking.
There is a balance: total individualism is a myth, yet insidious forced conformity (have you ever worked for a large corporation?) is not.
I guess I interpret as saying resist customs/names/institutions at the point at which they begin to overreach the benefits they offer and actually constrict people's reasonable individual aspirations.
wait a second, if we can agree that self-reliance isn't a binary concept, then why can't a reasonably identified self-reliant person (who may also be a card-carrying Rugged Individualist) also be a good team player?
Damn, just cause it sounds like it's meant to move product doesn't mean there's no value to the sentiment.
Well, I guess I think it's important to differentiate between conversations about social values and shared cultural concepts, and conversations about individual personalities and value systems. I will be the first to say that not every middle class woman raising her children in suburban isolation is unhappy, or that every American man is self-destructive. I was talking about a general social issue, one that I see as really damaging to a lot of people, but certainly not to all.
But of course, individuals who mostly get along on their own and love to stand apart from the crowd can be excellent team players! (Indeed, I'm married to one such person!) In fact, it might even be argued that people who have the space and time to be by themselves and meet their own needs are more likely to have something to give the group when the group needs it.
I think this falls under the idea of "mutual support that does not deny the humanity, dignity, and agency of anyone."
(and @ Deborah: Apparently not! But then, I am a burden to many who love me, so I do try to keep this sort of thing under wraps until at least breakfast has been consumed).
I would love to hear more about why the "names and customs" line made you actually drop out, instead of merely rethink.
I do rather adore this line, however, "My life is for itself and not for a spectacle." What could be in greater contrast to our modern custom of reality TV and blogging (present company excepted, of course)?
I came to believe a college degree wouldn't make me better at what I wanted. I wanted to write. I didn't think a degree would help. It was a credential--name and custom. It wasn't the thing. It wasn't the reality--plus I sucked at college.
See, now, that's interesting to me (not least because, you know, I'm a subject specialist librarian at a major university). I see our students and so many of them are here to get a degree. Not to learn--not to expand their horizons--not to learn new viewpoints--but to get that credential that helps them get them to the next step.
Now, I agree, for writing, the credential is far less important than for, you know, law or finance or whatever. But don't you think that, no matter how much you sucked at college, you still might have been exposed to some things that would have helped you as a writer? That would have helped frame your thinking? That you might not have come across elsewhere?
I know you've written a bit about how some of your classes--and classmates--opened your eyes to preconceptions you'd held. And in recent months you've embarked on a grad-level seminar in late 19th-century social and political history. Do you feel you had to reach the point where you were ready for it?
I'm not asking out of defensiveness (well, not purely!). I'm genuinely curious about your thinking on this and, by extension, the thinking of the young people I see here every day.
Thanks!
Well, let's not conflate two things--Saying I dropped out of college, or that I felt pursuing the degree was "name and custom," isn't the same as saying I thought going to college was worthless. I most certainly do not think that.
Specifically, going to college where I went--Howard University--was one of the most transformative experiences I've ever had. This post is evidence--"Self-Reliance" was assigned to me by a professor. (It's worth noting that I failed American Lit.) I loved my time at Howard. It gave me a black intellectual tradition which I work out of, to this very day.
But I was a very unusual student--I used to cut class to go and sit in the library. I liked the environment of learning a lot more than I liked the actual tests. I read voraciously--Basil Davidson, Eric Williams, Walter Rodney, David Levering Lewis, Amiri Barak, Larry Neal, Jayne Cortez etc.
Ultimately though, it just seemed better for me to walk my own path. I treasure my time in college--it's part of the reason I'm here now. But the pursuit of the degree, of certification--which is a big part of college--never was for me.
And I don't think I'm ready for college. I have an undisciplined mind. I basically follow my curiosity. I have a hard time taming it. I can only feed it.
The dude is so retro...
TNC--you are not alone. I used to cut class (High School of Music and Art and Hunter College) to go to the Donell branch of the NYC Public Library and the Museum of Modern Art (they were across the street from each other.) I read Thackeray, Austin, Zora and so many others. After lunch at the last Automat standing, I would cross the street to absorb Picasso (especially after I found out he was cribbing from African artists) Monet et al. My kids still don't believe that this is what I did when I ditched class.
You are telling my story. Know what's creepy? My Dad used to do the same thing as a kid coming in Philly.
I dropped out the first time through: I distinctly remember staying up all night to read Doestoevski's The Idiot before a Psychology final and laughing my butt off all through the final period, much to the annoyance of my fellow UC Berkeley students.
Years later, I had a family to take care of and after years of physical labor, I hurt myself, so the most promising thing for me was to become a college English teacher. In my opinion, except for learning more about structure, to do so has been very tough on my writing.
Early on, bored and unyet ready to accept that I was going to school to go to work, I cut class and instead went to a performance on the other side of campus, where a man, a declamador, from Nicaragua was declaiming the poetry of Federico Garcia Lorca with a world famous Flamenco guitarist playing behind him. A Spanish professor, whom I later got to be on my Master's Thesis committee, had arranged the whole thing. I was fortunate in meeting him because he showed me that one could live an academic life and keep learning all one's life. He had taught himself to be an expert on phonetics and linguistics, Mayan poetry, and the painting of Clemente Orozco. After my thesis was presented, he cracked open a bottle of champagne and as we knocked them back, he recited one poem by Lorca after another. That's how academia ought to be.
Sort of, sort of off-topic.
But, TNC, and anyone else, if you're in the Boston metro area during the summer, you should really try to spend an afternoon out at Walden Pond. Take the path around the pond, over to the side away from the beach and screaming children, find a nice little spot in the trees and sun, and read some Thoreau or Emmerson.
It really is a wonderful spot to just sit. It was one of the things I insisted on doing (again) this summer before I leave Boston.
Have they taken down the fences? The goal was good--let the plants recover along the shore--but the last time I took that hike, a couple of years back, I felt I was in one of those cattle moving things.
There's still fencing, especially around the shoreline. I don't have too much trouble with that since it seems like there's an almost constant five-or-more foot drop down to the pond from the path.
I have always liked both Self Reliance and Civil Disobedience, prefering the latter a great deal more since I was a child of the 60s, pissed off that "they" killed JFK, were sending my generation off to die in Vietnam, and we were stuck with Mr. "Your President-Is-Not-A-Crook," which he actually epitomized.
I was more inspired by these portions of Self Reliance:
"For conformity the world whips you with its displeasure...'
"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen, and philosophers and divines."
I think of Peter Sellers in "Being There." ("I like to watch.")
Then he goes on to state that you shoud speak what is on your mind each day, even if you contradicted what you said previously, so you will be sure to be misunderstood, like "Socrates, Luther, Jesus, and Copernicus."
If one reads "The Fountainhead" the same issues seep through--conformity for the greater good of society vs. sanctity of individual creation, individual thought. Thus the eternal dilemma of creative individualists misunderstood and chastised by the masses. One has only to look at how society treats gifted celebrities--and non-celebrities-- to know this to be true.
I agree with TNC, school CAN BE an area for acquiring credentials. But when you say you have an undisciplined mind, college CAN BE the forum to find and hone that discipline. In its purest state, advanced education creates the fundamental background necessary for rigorous intellectual discipline. It CAN BE a place where learning is more important than grades, but it CAN BE a place where grades and credentials trump curiosity and academic training. Fortunately for you, your innate curiosity supersedes your "undisciplined" mind. So many drop out, neither pursuing credential or their own path. I feel for them as they've not found how to travel this awe-inspiring planet on their own. Thanks for sharing your story, I appreciate your insight on this and other topics. Peace, E.