🪞⚡ Emerson’s Self-Reliance - what does it mean to be yourself

**Short essay discussion - read beforehand.**

**What this is**

This revives the cancelled September 27 Emerson event.

Everyone says “be yourself” now. Usually they mean: be yourself in a way that photographs well, does not cost you anything, and still gets approved by the room.

Emerson is more annoying than that.

**Self-Reliance** is about self-trust, conformity, integrity, the fear of being misunderstood, and the strange pressure to become more acceptable than honest.

**A few questions for the room**

* “When does independence become integrity, and when does it become selfishness?”

* “What does it actually cost to be misunderstood?”

* “How much of your personality is conviction, and how much is adaptation?”

**Reading**

Read **Self-Reliance** only.

Original text:

[https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2944/pg2944-images.html](https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2944/pg2944-images.html)

Modernized reading package:

[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wXfBQMEeXKnp14sw0HdEjFWSkkHgqzRE/vie