I have a recurring day dream argument where someone in conversation misappropriates an Emerson quote and I go mental. The source material is full of great quotes and a lot of them remind me of me.
“Meantime nature is not slow to equip us in the prison-uniform of the party to which we adhere. We come to wear one cut of face and figure, and acquire by degrees the gentlest asinine expression. There is a mortifying experience in particular, which does not fail to wreak itself also in the general history; I mean “the foolish face of praise,” the forced smile which we put on in company where we do not feel at ease in answer to conversation which does not interest us. The muscles, not spontaneously moved, but moved by a low usurping wilfulness, grow tight about the outline of the face with the most disagreeable sensation.”
I have done that too many times and hated myself for it. The “foolish face of praise”. Don’t give in to it. If you have your own opinion be true to it and state it in all you do.
“For nonconformity the world whips you with its displeasure. And therefore a man must know how to estimate a sour face. The by-standers look askance on him in the public street or in the friend’s parlour. If this aversation had its origin in contempt and resistance like his own, he might well go home with a sad countenance; but the sour faces of the multitude, like their sweet faces, have no deep cause, but are put on and off as the wind blows and a newspaper directs. Yet is the discontent of the multitude more formidable than that of the senate and the college. It is easy enough for a firm man who knows the world to brook the rage of the cultivated classes. Their rage is decorous and prudent, for they are timid as being very vulnerable themselves. But when to their feminine rage the indignation of the people is added, when the ignorant and the poor are aroused, when the unintelligent brute force that lies at the bottom of society is made to growl and mow, it needs the habit of magnanimity and religion to treat it godlike as a trifle of no concernment.”
The sour face of the multitude, otherwise referred to as Slines ( for a reference to baseline intelligence ), Negs ( as having a negligible influence on those around them) or the Hoi Poloi (an expression from Greek that means the many or, in the strictest sense, the majority). It is so easy to be one of them and find yourself swayed this way or that by the dictates and subliminal messages of the media and the second hand regurgitated media. Everyone has an opinion but rarely is it their own.
“The other terror that scares us from self-trust is our consistency; a reverence for our past act or word, because the eyes of others have no other data for computing our orbit than our past acts, and we are loath to disappoint them. But why should you keep your head over your shoulder? Why drag about this corpse of your memory, lest you contradict somewhat you have stated in this or that public place? Suppose you should contradict yourself; what then? It seems to be a rule of wisdom never to rely on your memory alone, scarcely even in acts of pure memory, but to bring the past for judgment into the thousand-eyed present, and live ever in a new day. In your metaphysics you have denied personality to the Deity: yet when the devout motions of the soul come, yield to them heart and life, though they should clothe God with shape and color. Leave your theory, as Joseph his coat in the hand of the harlot, and flee.”
The corpse of your memory. Believing some edict or idea merely because you have long held that thought without further consideration. Is it true of you now? Can you reassess who you are today and still maintain the values you once held in absolute certainty? I doubt it. Look again afresh at what you believe today and stand by that new conviction. Then it comes to my favourite part. Often misquoted to belittle any task done with consistent detail by those who would rather take a more lackadaisical approach, in fact speaks of the error in going through the motions of a previous conviction and thinking it to be the right path just because it is well trodden.
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — ‘Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.’ — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.”
Po Mo Cyn wants you to cower from fear that you may be misunderstood. It wants you to stay silent, even in fear of not knowing enough, and rather pretend that you know everything and are absolutely sure in all things. It is OK to say that you do not know the full amount. It is good to state that you will learn new things in order to become more aware of the situation and it is absolutely crucial that everyone allow themselves to decide on any given thing, even to change one’s mind at the last possible second, if it comes from a place of better information and clearer understanding.
Source: http://www.emersoncentral.com/selfreliance.htm