The Long and Violent War Against Your Soul

this video is brought to you by muie a curated streaming service dedicated to elevating great Cinema from all around the globe in our Information Age it has become obscenely difficult to know ourselves we are inundated by Brands group think Trend cycles and material rewards so often when we ask why we are doing things our answer points to some external Force this is incredibly dangerous the more we act on behalf of others the more we erode ourselves we no longer exist as mountains but as sand dunes happy to shift and mutate by The Winds of a

demanding ocean for each new shape we are rewarded but we are destroyed after some 85 years of this destruction we are at risk to die with an index of knowledge and beliefs but with a missing volume on our self our souls remain a mystery but things do not need to be this way in fact acting against this danger is not easy but it is accessible it is a change we can make Ralph Waldo Emerson was a 19th century writer and philosopher who penned the essay selfreliance in this work Emerson extols the virtues of instinct faith

in oneself and he rejects Concepts like Conformity and consistency in the most basic terms self-reliance is a belief that our own hearts and souls may direct us successfully through life here we are at risk for a clumsy obtuse handling of Emerson's concept Emerson does not believe every man for himself his idea is not so concrete as to call for libertarian leair public policy furthermore he does not believe that each individual should act according to each and every whim that they feel Emerson's self-reliance is not a blind faith in ourselves it is not so much a

practical guide for dealing with everyday material realities but a fundamental shift in how we perceive process and appreciate the world around us Emerson's self-reliance can be described as a Vigilant strike against seeing oneself as a finished item we must be in tune with our instincts and our intuitions and reject holding on to values out of Conformity or Dogma we must embark on an eternal quest to cast off accepted knowledge in favor of a more authentic wisdom in favor of a true reflection of our own experiences the idea is perhaps said best if not cryptically when

Emerson writes though the wide universe is full of good no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till we must find our identities values and even actions from the labor of experiencing life not from a passive except acceptance of the things the world tries to imprint upon us for Emerson our instincts are a type of Genius that cannot be captured by hard data science or even material results he notes that a man should learn to detect and watch that

gleam of Light which flashes across his mind from within more than the luster of the firmament of BS and sages we are all gifted with a Sublime genius we know what we must do what we want to do what we believe no matter how hard the world tells us to resist these impulses acting Faithfully towards our own senses being faithful to our genius this is Emerson's selfreliance imagine your intuition as a sword when honed sharpened and maintained it can cut through the most oppressive forces in our world but likewise each time we attempt to cut

through these things the world is like a stone which dulls the blade left entirely unexamined and unmaintained the weapon of our own selves becomes blunt and useless the world demands Conformity consistency and obedience these are all Stones which dull our blade which inhibit our ability to listen to our own internal guidance but if we can sharpen our instincts so much that they slice through these things we can truly Triumph Emerson asks where is the poet who taught Shakespeare when we speak how we feel and we act according to our own intuition we Ascend to a

new realm of greatness The Plato and the Shakespeare of History were not great because they obeyed tradition and regurgitated Convention quite the opposite it was the Bucking of these things which made their greatness it was the wholesale prescription to their own Souls Emerson concludes that if we attempt to imitate conform or borrow the talent of others that is all we can do borrow we never own these qualities and we fail to even search for what makes us individually great so instead we should seek our own individual genius this is not a way to find out

what you can achieve it is the only way this genius is powerful precisely because it is ours and it is whole when we strike with it as our sword we have put a lifetime of events Toil and consideration into our blade it is tempting to think that Emerson's self-reliance closes us off to the world but precisely the opposite is true as we cast off the insistences of others we suddenly find ourselves ready to think any thought to experience any feeling to live in every moment indeed the mere idea of thinking for Emerson is to be

receptive to new thoughts nothing hinders the reception of new thoughts like the Declaration that our old ones are final and conclusive in contrast by embracing self trust and reception we experience the world much more profoundly we tune our radar to cast off group think and instead examine opinions thoughts and ideas without regard for Conformity Emerson notes that fate likes to trick us into thinking we have found peace he writes a political Victory a rise of rents the recovery of your sick or the return of your absent friend or some other favorable event raises your spirits

and you think good days are preparing for you do not believe it external stimuli are fine and good but they leave as quickly as they arrive they have very little forward momentum we can never find peace if our barometers only operate by fetishizing Good Fortune but when we act in a way which is true to ourselves and which makes us authentically proud of what we've done we find a piece that is immune to the fickle Winds of good or bad luck so here we have the power of self-re Alliance it is the road to peace

of course the world does not exactly incentivize this approach to living quite the opposite so we would be well served to consider and thereby dismantle the things which obstruct our path the world seems to present us with many rewards for rejecting Emerson's self-reliance or at least we think it rewards us but these rewards inhibit our ability to lead a fulfilled existence and self-re liance Emerson says there are the voices which we hear in solitude but they grow faint and inaudible as we enter into the world 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 indeed this is true today perhaps more than ever our world is made up of segments and Brands each insists that you must accept their judgments and tastes the trend cycle demands that you like one thing sections of society be they left Center or right insist that you accept their ideology without question to speak against accepted truth

no matter how authentic you are being to yourself is to slap these groups in the face you risk ostracization or outright penalty thereby we so often encounter People Media or groups which claim to know our own Duty more than we ourselves do as Emerson suggests we should recognize these as what they are charlatans when we volunteer our loyalties and live in accordance with the tastes of other people this is something we pay for not with money but instead with the very thing which makes us alive with our souls the books of our Consciousness become as

Emerson notes unreadable hieroglyphics unfortunately it is tremendously easy to go through life this way you will be rewarded socially and materially for wearing this mask Concepts like popularity and market value seem to hinge on Conformity the world can be an already difficult place and so it is understandable that we often go with what is most comfortable when we obey the imploration of other people we put on a mask each and every day the more you wear this mask the harder it becomes to remove the less you can recognize your own reflection Emerson points out that

we often measure our present selves in the unit of consistency against our past selves consistency in character is often said to be virtuous but this simply is not true in self-reliance Emerson famously says that consistency is the hobgoblin of little Minds as we examine this idea of consistency we can see that it provides very little worth it is a tree which we believe will provide us sustenance and we wait and care for it season after season but it still Bears no fruit why toil for this tree when the world is a garden Emerson tells us

with consistency a great Soul has simply nothing to do he may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall consistency neuters growth we become slaves to yesterday slaves to Old ideas in a world which is new every day Society moves the World Turns and so the soul must do the same external factors antagonize us for inconsistency another person may tell us that yesterday we said X but today we said y this is fine other people as Emerson notes work only with a limited set of data they are not privy to the complicated internal

minations and circumstances which you experience they know only the words you say and at the very best the tiniest kernel of your thoughts but you know the why of each and everything you do you can see a map which they cannot in rejecting your yesterday for your today you will certainly be misunderstood but who cares be misunderstood as long as you understand yourself Emerson further suggests that if we chase after consistency we create an illusion which is tremendously easy to see through he says the soul is acrostic no matter what we say or do on

a given day our truest selves look the same from every angle your soul is not expressed in actions or words but in a place more mysterious and profound Emerson writes men imagine that they communicate their virtue or vice only by overt actions and do not see that virtue or vice emit a breath every moment the things you do and say are just temporary aesthetic representations of your soul we are like a ship on course to its destination the path looks ragged and zigzagging as we weave around Coral avoid shallow Waters turn with the tides and

the currents but the further you get from the ship the more definite its path becomes this zigzagging route reveals itself to be a straight line the soul when it is faithful to itself moves in a definite consistent Direction which is more profound than everyday turns and Tides people tell you what to do and how to think and what you should believe reject all of this accepting these demands spoils your character when we adopt the views of others without consideration we become a member of a herd we lose our state of individuality we lose our ability

to even be a person while we may be granted some aesthetic rewards for this sort of acqu Ence we actually lose our power to act significantly in the world as we so proudly brand ourselves with labels and categories we become abundantly predictable why should anyone listen to you speak if they already know what you will say why should anyone beware your actions if they already know what you will do consider the natural world it is beautiful because of its individuals on the ground there's an ant in the sky a dove land has the wild dogs

of Africa and in the sea PODS of dolphins jumping with the tides Snowy Mountains balance tropical beaches and each and everything is made more beautiful by its opposites so too is a world full of individuals the voices of each are music and the thoughts of everyone are like the ant the dove the dogs the dolphin but if we let ourselves become instead a morass of herds our world becomes repetitive boring and stale we don't love one another we love teams and mantras the world holds billions of individuals but we are so quick to reduce that

number to three or four the world need not be armies as Emerson notes we recruit each to the banner and we become weaker every opinion has an opposite which are sometimes equal if we choose one another will suffer if we choose another one will suffer we must accept this as the reality of being every position brings opposition all positions are extreme and All Views require antagonism we need not rejoice or weep in response to contradictions the man who is self-reliant and receptive reaches conclusions intentionally with recognition that opposing ideas carry validity be wary of those

groups who claim their ideas to be perfected this is an impossible task by being receptive we can recognize others ideas and even understand them we can detect their faults their rewards and understand what our soul desires to earn and sacrifice the world likes to hurl regrets at us as proof for the justness of its operating procedures for the rightness of conformity systems and accepted syntax but do not let this be proof societal expectations murder our experiences in life they raise the stakes and can force us into despondence we all fail at things we will inevitably

do so when the world expects us to hit and we miss we sink into misery but imagine Emerson suggests the man who is guided only by his own soul and not by the ethics of the World undeterred by so-called failure he may have a dozen careers in his life and each time he lands like the house cat on his feet he does not postpone his life with anxieties about failure nor over miseries once he has failed instead he simply lives in one of his more controversial moments Emerson takes aim at the idea of Charity a

clumsy reading of self-reliance would indicate that Emerson just rejects out write the notion of charitable Deeds but this is false in self-reliance he writes there is a class of persons to whom by all spiritual Affinity I am bought and sold for them I will go to prison if need be it is not charity which he excuses but the wanton institutionalization of Good Deeds the idea that we can pay a tithe and that alone makes us good people Emerson rejects the idea that we must be forced to charity out of obligation or pressure to do what

the world has told us is correct we are so quick to pay for the sufferings of others be it through Charities political campaigns relief efforts or colleges we broadcast our participation in these things and turn our life into a show but as Emerson notes life is for itself and not for spectacle goodness bought paid and broadcasted to the world is no sort of goodness at all do not be good because the world insists it or because you feel obligated but instead act because your soul directs you to hurl yourself at the causes and people which

are relevant and deserving of your Genius and cast off the [Music] rest so to review Emerson's self-reliance is not a simple concept but like the most complex things of all it has Anatomy this Anatomy consists of three parts self-trust self-criticism and receptiveness Emerson writes what have I to do with the sacredness of traditions if I live holy from within my friend suggested but these impulses may be from below not from above I replied they do not seem to me to be such but if I am the Devil's Child I will live then from the devil

Emerson tells us to live by our own law that no system is sacred except that of our own nature he notes he is ashamed at how easily we capitulate to badges names societies and institutions even Emerson himself Falls victim to this noting that Wells spoken individuals affect him more than is right but in totality we should resist this we must live only to by and with ourselves this type of goodness Emerson says has an edge it will not be agreeable to everyone and it may not always meet the accepted metrics of proper conduct or convention

but it is goodness and it will lead us to Paradise we should also not ignore the role of self-criticism within Emerson's IDE aidea of selfreliance he does not tell us to blindly accept whatever conclusion we stumble upon he does not insist that we are all perfect in another piece called circles Emerson tells us that quote the way of life is abandonment we must be constantly always ready to abandon old ideas and replace them with the new we cannot anchor ourselves with stale ideas or we ourselves become stale we live chained to antiques ignoring the new

material which we could otherwise EXP experience self-reliance is not I'm always right it is I can always be right by trusting our instincts and recognizing when things feel wrong or false our radar becomes tuned to the world and we can explore the endless new ideas our world will present vanities vanities which our society is so quick to reward things like consistency or Pride inhibit our ability to change our ideas so we must resist these things in another work titled intellect Emerson writes truth is our element of life yet if a man fasten his attention on

a single aspect of Truth and apply himself to that alone for a long time the truth becomes distorted and not itself but falsehood when we hold on to ideas for the sake of consistency acceptance or just laziness truths are mutated into Lies We Do Not only damage ourselves but our entire world what good is is the society that lives in Echo conversely as we criticize the things we hold dearest we arrive at the new we increase the value of our souls and make the world a measurably better place in concert with self-criticism we must be

forever receptive to the new Emerson notes the power of other opinions as not purely antagonistic but instead as antidotes to our own by regularly posing our views against others in an honest way we are enabled to reassess and understand not just how we feel but why we feel Emerson for all of his belief in reception does not implore us to just sit on the fence instead we must recognize that virtually any idea we have will come with the baggage of opposition we should seek joy in this diversity of thought for it is this diversity which

propels our world from grayscale into a vibrant Garden of individualism do not dismay at counterarguments accept them and recognize that there does not exist a Flawless opinion Emerson self-reliance is a beautiful lens through which to see the world and yet we still have not uncovered the most striking thing about this concept it's not easy to reshape the mind in the way Emerson suggests but it is tremendously possible we can sit around and wish for wholesale Society to change in a way we deem right but we don't need to too the world changes it grows on

one end and deteriorates on the other Society acquires the new and jettison the old the greatest material achievements of today are disregarded as archaic Obsolete and useless tomorrow these tangible things new inventions and breakthrough Technologies are not permanent instead they are the product of Man Emerson notes that the great genius returns to Man Emerson realizes that we are just pieces floating in this morass so we don't need to strike out to change the world instead we can change internally we can change how we exist in this ever shifting landscape Emerson's prescription is not so Global

it is individual indeed when we look at examples of greatness we find a Reliance on self great artists Express themselves without regard for the meddling opinions of others the most brilliant scientists are motivated by an internal Compass which points towards truth the concept of of Great Men being born at the right time is a myth for Emerson the devices Aesthetics and trappings which we associate with History's Greatest individuals are just the costumes these people wore their greatness is within their souls Emerson notes that time and space are but physiological colors which the eye makes but

the soul is light where it is is day to that point Emerson is not so naive as to suggest every man can be Shakespeare Galileo or Jon of Arc does not express that all people are equal instead that we are all more powerful than we believe we are not blank pages for the world to write upon instead we are born authors we must write our own lives without deferring haphazardly to authorities or Norms be it poetry or scribbling that we produce we must write ourselves this is the only way to find peace the search for

self-reliance is not simple or easy but it is accessible we do not need to go on romanticized travels abroad or grand conquests as Emerson notes your giant follows wherever you go at home we dream of the sea and at Sea we dream of returning home greatness peace intelligence these are not here or there they are instead within furthermore self-reliance is immune to blunt concepts of intelligence or even material capability an idea a conviction of the type which Emerson discusses wears its own armor against the judgment and authority of others finding these ideas is much the

same the search for them depends on virtue that we can all cultivate not on ridiculous Notions of talents or gift which some have and others do not the ordinary man looks at a castle as if it is alien but the castle is made of the same Stone dirt and metal that walks upon every single day in a piece called The Poet Emerson writes the fate of the poor shepher Who blinded and lost in the snowstorm perishes within a few feet of his cottage door is an emblem of the state of man we should then fight

through our snowstorms and trudge intentionally through the snow before we know it we will be home and our Cottage may be much closer than we think [Music] movie is a curated streaming service dedicated to elevating great Cinema from all around the globe from Iconic directors to emerging aour there's always something new to discover with movie each and every film is hand selected by its team of curators discover the best of cinema at your fingertips streaming anytime anywhere this week I watched the 19 19 36 animated short popey the Sailor meets Sinbad the Sailor I was

pretty shocked by how much I enjoyed the piece which was actually nominated for an Academy Award and is currently preserved in the Library of Congress papey the Sailor meets Sinbad the Sailor is now streaming on movie the point is movie has a little bit of everything and it's all really interesting if you like the stuff that is on this channel you will like the stuff that is on movie you can try movie free for 30 days at movie.com horses that's mubi.com horses for a whole month of great Cinema for free