The Friendship Experiment

I reread “Friendship” and picked out a few ideas to think about before I attempted to be an Emersonian friend for a day. These are the quotes that stuck with me and that I tried to think of throughout the day:

“I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new.”

I have friends that I have known since I was in diapers. I’ve gone to school with them my whole life. I also have friends who I have known for less time but I hold just as dead as my life-long friends. This quote is a good reminder to me to be thankful for my friends, the old and the new.

“A friend is one before whom I may think aloud.”

I have opinions on almost everything and have noticed that I can express them to my friends without feeling like they won’t listen. If they disagree then of course I am willing to talk about it. I think this definition of a friend really limits the number of people I can define as my friends. During my experiment I couldn’t say what ever I was thinking to people because that wouldn’t always be such a great idea. I realized that I filter what I say the least around my closest friends. When I’m with them I am the closest to being who I really am.

“The only way to have a friend is to be one.”

So true. You get what you give and when you give someone friendship and support that’s what you can expect back. Throughout the day I came to evaluate some of my “friendships” with people. In some of the cases I felt that I was contributing more to the friendship than they were. In other cases it was the reverse and I felt I wasn’t working for the friendship. I think there needs to be a good balance in order for a friendship to be healthy. For me my closest friends seemed to be the ones with whom I had the healthiest friendships.

"Better to be a nettle in the side of your friend than his echo."

This is the quote that I especially tried to think about during the day. I completely agree with Emerson here. In friendships there has to be truth and sometimes you may have to tell a friend something you know they don’t want to hear. But nevertheless to be a true friend you have to say it. In the long run that honesty will help your friend not hurt them.

This day was really interesting because for me it made me reconsider my “friendships” with people and evaluate them in Emersonian terms. I discovered that I have fewer friends than I would have guessed but in the words of Emerson, “when they are real, they are not glass threads or frostwork, but the solidest thing we know.”

Nature

To speak truly, few adult persons can see nature. Most persons do not see the sun. At least they have a very superficial seeing. The sun illuminates only the eye of the man, but shines into the eye and the heart of the child. The lover of nature is he whose inward and outward senses are still truly adjusted to each other; who has retained the spirit of infancy even into the era of manhood.

- Nature

Before I spent some time in Nature, I decided to reread Emerson’s Nature Essay. The quote above from the essay seemed very relevant to what I was about to do. It’s true that people take nature for granted and forget how stunning it is. It becomes such a habitual thing for me to see the ocean everyday on the way to school. I overlook its beauty and magnificence. Children tend to appreciate nature more than adults probably because it is new to them and they have the time to really look at it and see it. As people get older they no longer take the time to connect with nature.

Saturday morning I decided to walk down to the ocean and spend some quality time with Nature. I live a few blocks away but can not recall the last time I walked to the beach First of all, I rarely walk anywhere anymore since I can drive so the fact I was walking to the beach was out of the ordinary. I began my walk and immediately noticed that my mind slowed down. All the thoughts that were rushing through my head stopped rushing and calmed down. Walking does that to me. It’s different than driving which can stress me out. Anyways about 10 minutes later I was on the beach. I found a rock and sat down and stayed there for a good half hour. I realized that my senses wee heightened. I wasn’t just using my eyes. I was hearing more and feeling more. The waves were gorgeous and watching them calmed me so much. They just keep crashing down over and over again. I watched the birds fly around and the surfers in the water. I think it was good for my mind to be out in nature… very clearing. After a while I started to think about conflicts in my life but I didn’t think about them the same way I always had. I had a much clearer vision of the problems and I was thinking about them in a much more logical way.

I feel like being in nature makes you put things in perspective. Problems that had seemed so important, seemed less so when I thought about them then. I was also reminded of the fact that I’m a very small part of a very large world. Seeing the ocean which is so vast and seemingly unending made me think about that. Life’s short and you shouldn’t spend it worrying about things that don’t matter (something I tend to do).

All in all, I really enjoyed that walk down to the beach and will definitely do that again sometime soon. I too often overlook nature and on the walk I truly appreciated it.

Post 2: Gifts

When gifts are given, the giver should receive no self- satisfaction. The receiver should not feel glad or sorry after receiving a gift. If you are glad, you also feel sorry your independence has been invaded. If you feel sorry, it's because the person didn't know your spirit. Emerson also says that sometimes gift giving leads to the receiver loving the gift more than the giver. The best gifts are the ones that the giver made because then the person is giving a part of themselves. Emerson is critiquing the way people receive and give gifts. He also doesn't seem to like the role gifts play in society because he doesn't see how they strengthen ties between people.

If I were to become a gift giver in the Emersonian sense then the gifts. It would have be more personal and meaningful. It would take more thinking to decide on an Emersonian gift for someone.

Post 1: Self-Reliance

"Travelling is a fool's paradise."
People travel to see new things and try to escape themselves but that's impossible.

"We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents."
We only say things and do things society will deem acceptable. In doing this we are hiding the divine part of us (our soul).

"Life only avails, not the having lived. Power ceases in the instant of repose."
You can only have power while you're in action. Giving up or stopping takes that power away. You have to live every moment of your life because that avails, not the fact that you have lived.

"What I must do, is all that concerns me, not what people think."
To Emerson this was what distinguishes greatness and meanness. To be great you have to stop caring about how society will react to what you say or do. This is hard especially when people think they know your place better than you do. They will try to tell you what to think and what to do but you can't listen. It's easy in solitude to do this but once you add society it becomes harder. A "great man" can maintain solitude in a crowd. Ne can keep his own ideas and opinions and not let them be drowned out by the crowd. You have to rely on your own instinct and can't be swayed by the crowd's position. I personally think it's hard not to care what people think. Sometimes not thinking of others is selfish because ultimately your actions do affect others. But in general I'm all for defying society's norms if you don't agree with them or they restrict you. Emerson says that a great man is the nonconformist. You have to rely on yourself and make your own judgement calls. Do your own thing and surprise society, it may lead to revolutionary action. Think back to the abolitionists whose ideas were considered radical. They didn't conform to society's standards and their work helped lead to the end of slavery in the US.