Post 2: Emerson

 Emerson was one of the first and most famous transcendentalists. In many of his works, central transcendentalist ideas emerged. Such ideas include optimism, intuition, idealism and individualism.

Optimism: Optimism appears in Emerson's Nature when he writes "The sun illuminates only the eye of the man, but shines into the eye and the heart of the child"(Emerson 180). In this he is saying that children see the true beauty in everything. I think that he is subtly implying that to see the beauty in everything as a child does, one must unlearn everything that he knows. The only reason that we don't see the beauty in everything is that we become used to it that if fades into the background. To see it once more we must take the time to admire the beauty and stop to see the beautiful world around us.  

Intuition: A mother's intuition is a common phrase used today and it means a gut feeling and mother's usually have such feelings. This idea is explored in Emerson's Self-Reliance when he says "They teach is to abide by our spontaneous impression with good humored inflexibility then most when the whole cry of voices is on the other side"(Emerson 183). Although he doesn't come right out and say it, Emerson hints at intuition because he is describing how our first impression should be the one we follow which can be your intuition kicking in. A more simple way to put this is that you should trust your gut feeling about things, because a great majority of the time it is right. We, in society, are not taught to do this, which is what transcendentalists wanted to teach us. To trust ourselves because we are the only ones truly watching our backs.

Idealism: The ideal world, an ideal self, these are all things that we imagine and want for ourselves. Within Emerson’s work Nature he plays with this idea that there are ideals to everything in our lives because, as people say, there is always room for improvement. He inscribes this when he says “Within these plantation of God, a decorum and sanctity reign, a perennial festival is dressed and the guest sees not how he should tire of them in a thousand years”(Emerson 181). This quote describes a perfect world where no one would tire of seeing the stars shine at night and they could never even conceive that it would be possible. I think that Emerson says the people think this is because when you are admiring something so beautiful, you can’t possibly imagine how it could ever become less beautiful. But as time will tell, things become old and they fade into the background, no matter how beautiful they were at first sight.

Individualism: One example of individualism from Emerson's Self-Reliance is when he writes "We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents"(Emerson 184). In this he is describing the fact that the general population doesn’t say anything about their opinion or speak up because we are afraid. We are too afraid of what others think about us because acceptance is a very important part in being human. Everyone wants to be accepted for who they truly are but in fear that they will be pushed away, they fake being someone else. Before long the true them is gone and all they know is that person they were pretending to be. This is the reality that will come true and Emerson is trying warn us that it’s going to happen sooner rather than later if we don’t do something about it.