near impossible.

So the day, that day being yesterday, that I planned on doing my Emersonian friend experiment... my situatioon was accidentally, or perhaps coincidentally, perfect. I drove off in the morning from my house with my phone on top of my car. I was, therefore, completely released from all technological pressures. No phone! Not even to recieve phone calls from my mother. I was forced to plan ahead and to speak with my friends face to face. I also had an incredible workload, so I spent a lot of my time by myself. Okay... so maybe that's not exactly considered reflection, but it was kinda close. Without these accidents... coincidences... you decide, I'm not sure how I would have done but I can't imagine it would be too easy.

During milkbreak, when I did allow myself time with my friends, I had a conversation, actually, about all things Emerson. Well not all things, but one thing. The idea of reflecting upon relationship, which is important to him as a means of solidifying that bond. I completely disagree. I guess I'm a romanticist when it comes to relationships rather than a realist. I think that dwelling on the "Why" of a relationship you have with another person is so silly. In my opinion, that would only lead to discontent, as it paves a smooth road to the uncovering of another's faults and the faultiness of your companionship with them. Now, this is not to say that all issues should be ignored and overlooked- that just causes a build up of tension and/or annoyance- but to spend more time reflecting upon these problems than enjoying the friendship as it is seems... a bit oxymoronic. I suppose an arguement for this could be something along the lines of, "Well, if they are a real friend, you won't find faults to dwell upon." That's crazy. Every single person has faults. A friendship is based on being able to accept these faults as part of the person, as they are, and to love them anyway.

I have had friends who asked me to change for them. At first, I was offended and thought that if they couldn't accept me as I was, I didn't want their acceptance at all. But as I looked into myself a little more, I realized that they were seeing a part of me that I was unable to see. They had objective opinions and were unbiased; they were trying to help make me a better person. The faults that I was expressing were overtaking the personality that they grew to love me for and so I learned to appreciate criticism. That may sound like a contradiction to my previous claim regarding the stupidity of reflecting on other people's issues. However, there is a difference, in my mind, between searching for friends' faults and recognizing a fault that has taken that person over. When someone beings to change (for the worse), I think that it is fair for someone close to that person to make these things known. "A friend is a person with whom a may be sincere," right?"A friend is a person with whom a may be sincere," right? The strength of a good friendship, one that is stronger than "glass-threads" or "frost-work", is strong enough to allow for that criticism to lead to growth, rather than to inhibit it. When this critisism is ignored or denied, it leads people close to you to distance themselves- what they have to say is deemed unimportant and they stop trying to "help" and they caring. Going back to my self-reliance post, I do believe that standing by your own beliefs is really important. But the thing is that beliefs can change; if everyone is your life is hinting that you are taking a turn for the worse, maybe a self analysis is in order.

Anyway. I have gone on a long, tiresome tangent. Back to my day as a "perfect Emersonian friend". I was surprised at how many of my friends thought that "something was wrong" or that "I was mad at them". It's such a weird society that we live in that requires us to be friendly and sociable all the time. Emerson believes that we should not focus all of our attention on being friends with everyone, that "It makes no difference how many friends I have." He says we should direct our energy to a select few, the few who have come to us "unsought", the few who are "self elected." I agree with this, but only to an extent. I see no reason why one person cannot choose to be friendly to those who surround them. Now, I don't think that it is wise to befriend all of them on a really seriously level. (note: the difference between "befriend" and "be friendly" is up for interpretation. for the sake of my blog, think of it as having the ability to, say, travel with the person for an extended period of time versus having a casual lunch together, respectively.) I can't say that I have one particular best friend, which I do think Emerson would frown upon. But this is because I have found a handful of people with whom I have formed "an alliance of two large, formidable natures, mutually beheld, mutually feared, before yet they recognize the deep identity which beneath these disparities unites them." Yesterday, when I gave this experiment a try, I could tell easily who those people were. I already knew and so this wasn't an explosive discovery but it was definitely a solification of the people who I know would... put a big fluffy matress underneath me the day that I decide to try walking across a tightrope. (woot, metaphors.) When I was sick, I got a number of phone calls and texts asking if I was "still alive" or demanding that i "Feel better. That's an order." One of my friends, though, came to my house and sat on my bed with me while I lay there coughing and croaking out a couple words. Still sat there while I slept. Example 1: big, fluffy matress.

My aunt (no, not my dog) died this past September. It really shook me up and turned my whole world upside down. That sounds dramatic, but go with me on this one. I, weirdly enough, lost friends over it. Well, one anyway. And it loosened ties with another few. However, I don't regret that. The support that I recieved from a few of my friends, even though I didn't want to talk about it and it took, I can imagine, an immense amount of effort to not just leave me to wallow on my own, was... pretty unbelievable. Someone, durng this time, after I said that it wasn't something I was ready to discuss, told me that it was fine that I didn't want to talk about it but that I shouldn't expect them to be there if I needed to talk later. So I didn't. I relied on the people who were holding me up, as few of them as there were, and it proved just fine for me. This support was a "spiritual gift worthy of [them] to give, and of me to recieve." This experiment reminded me of that because those people still gave me a hug goodbye at the end of the school day or sent me a message to ask "what's up" later that night, even though we hadn't really conversed the entire length of the day. They didn't need reassurance of our friendship. They allowed me, for a moment, to "even bid [my] dearest friends farewell." A friendship that requires reassurance is a friendship lost, a doomed enterprise, if you will.

All right. This is long enough, I think. Basically, I think that being an Emersonian friend is a very internal way of coexisting with other people and may work for authors in the 1840's but is not such a hit with me. I know who my "real" (whatever that means) friends are and I don't need to construct a day of solitude for myself to figure that out.

ps. sorry if this got kind of personal or... too intense at any time. i'm just rather opinionated, i guess, when it comes to this sort of stuff. :-) it's also so long that i don't really feel like reading over it so i apologize for any errors, be they spelling, grammatical, or moral.

the end. really.

getting in touch with Nature.

    All right.  I have been on major bed rest this entire week so I haven't really had time to get outside and tune into my nature side.  However, I'm a bit of a nature freak on my own, even without Emerson, so I can maybe shed some light on past experiences. 

    A couple years ago, my family and I went to stay with family friends who live in Denver, Colorado.  I just have to say, right off the bat, that Colorado is one of my favorite places in the world when it comes to all things nature.  Anyway, their house was not in the city, but outside 

a little ways; paved roads turned to dirt, apartments turned into big houses turned into ranches, etc.  Basically, it was gorgeous.  I'd already had a "wow" moment on the plane ride in, watching the sun set over the rolling grass hills... anyway, I was in love already.  So the next morning, my mom and I decided to take a walk through the side streets and stuff because, well I guess there was nothing else to do really.  We trekked out a bit and the sun peeked through the clouds and I had one ear with an iPod headphone in it and the other ear open to hear my mom's end of the conversation and we were just walking, with no idea where we were going.  It was such a moment of perfection.  I turned off my iPod.  It was early enough that there were no cars or other manufactured sounds>  There was just the sounds of our voices and our feet crunching in the dirt and the feel of the hot, hot, hot summer sun on our shoulders and the view of tree after tree and flower after flower and it sounds so cliche, probably because it was, but there's definitely a reason why it's a cliche.  I know that Emerson said that we had to be solitary in order to really enjoy nature, but this was an example of sharing that enjoyment with another person.  Especially because it was my mother, I, essentially, am her, so maybe Emerson can forgive me.

ps-  this is not my mom.  this is kathryn.  and this is colorado, not exactly where i'm talking about but... go with it.

An example of solitude and nature mixing together is from earlier this year and it's stuck with me as a pretty solid image.  I'd just had a... rough, I guess you could say, well... rough but sweet... complicated.  Anyway.  I'd just had a (insert adjective here) family gathering at my grandma's house.  The gathering basically solidified my aunt's imminent death.  It wasn't the first death I've dealt with, but it hit me hardest, no doubt.  I tried to find solace with a friend, but he wasn't really doin' it for me.  So I drove to the Del Mar beach (not fifteenth street... the one, like, when you're driving down from Torrey Pines?  Down the coast?  Might even be called Torrey Pines Beach) and I parked on the dirt and went for a walk.  I'm honestly not really sure where I walked but it was through a bunch of garden-y things... I wasn't paying much attention to that.  I was paying attention to the setting sun and the thoughts that were zipping through my head.  I didn't have anyone there to hold my hand or wipe my tears or anything.  But it was so... "illuminating".  Emerson talks about how "The name of the nearest friend sounds then foreign and accidental" and that is kind of what I let happen to me on that walk.  I forgot about Marilyn.  I forgot about my family and the

sadness and the denial and I just thought.  I thought about life and about death, as it was foremost on my mind. 

What is interesting to me is how Emerson believes that "Nature always wears the colors of the spirit."  It is not at all so for me.  Nature is a way to clear my head of my own spirit when it's weighing me down.  It's a way to forget about the craziness of my personal life and reflect on something much greater than me... much more stable.  There is nothing, not really anyway, that can remind me of my own personal issues and so they are forgotten.  The specifics, anyway.  Of course, it's a lot harder to actually clear my head so I just think on a grander scale.  Nature has always been like that.  The clouds never spelled out her name and I never saw the ocean paint an image of her face.  The wind never whispered the word "cancer" and the tree trunks never sent pitiful, sorrowful glances in my direction.   I was allowed to think in solidarity and I was allowed to figure out my thoughts, without any kind of opinionated intervention.

The only thing that sucked was walking back to my car and finding the 35$ parking ticket on my windshield.  That brought me back to reality.  Thirty-five dollars was worth it though.   I couldn't have put a price on that particular hour and a half.

The Giving and Recieving of Gifts

Emerson would not, I'm sure, approve of how we give gifts in modern society.  He believes that they should be given with no further expectations, kind of an... "out of the goodness of your heart" sort of thing.  We should give with indifference.  He also believes that gifts should be something of our own hand, not something bought at a store; "The poet brings his poem; the shepherd, his lamb; the farmer, corn; the miner, a gem; the sailor, coral and shells; the painter, his picture; the girl, a handkerchief of her own sewing."  We should also give gifts that are a necessity of the receiver; in his mind, we shouldn't give a starving man a set of Legos when we could just as well get him a Supersized meal at Mickey D's.

       Gifts, according to Emerson, should be received with a mild amount of gratitude.  If we thank the giver too much or give him too much credit for his gift, then his gift will not be given correctly. We are not to "Flatter our benefactors."  We, also, then, are allowing for our independence to be stolen away from us.  The giver would see how pleased we are with a gift, should we be pleased with it at all, and would then feel the need to continue providing, unnecessarily.  We cannot feel as though we have been stripped of our independence when receiving a gift.  We know that we could have provided for ourselves but we are gracious enough, rather than upset, that another person has done it for us.  If we dislike the gift, we are to act the same.  We cannot show nor feel any discontent or else "the debtor naturally wishes to give you a slap."

He offers social commentary on independence versus dependence.  Emerson says that we all wish to be independent and that we want to provide for ourselves, but that there is an inevitable "universal dependence" in society.  And, okay, while we may feel degraded by living off of another's donations, we also have to realize that we're not all cut out for cow slaughtering in order to provide dinner, or we don't all have these incredible heart surgeon abilities.  And for those of us who do, well I'm sure I could find something that you're not a pro at, unless your da Vinci, and even the ultimate Renaissance man had his weaknesses.   Independence, as you'll see as you continue reading to Self-Reliance, is a very important thing for individual people.  But I don't think that our community as a whole would benefit all that much from a bunch of super-human crazies who think they can do everything for themselves.  This is why we give gifts.  And this is where I come to a crossroads with Emerson.  I can't say that I have a friend who can really sew me a pair of jeans from scratch or create and then put together an iPod.  I don't think that buying a gift is insincere.  I guess it shows more devotion to a person if you take the time to create a gift out of thin air for that person, but I think it would be moderately insane for me to expect every one of my friends to hand-craft a gift for me for the holidays.  I think that people can buy gifts that are, in a way, "a portion of thyself."  And since I've gotten a bit off topic, I can explain two gifts: one that fits Emerson's ideal gift, and then one that fits my own.

One of my best friend's names is Olivia.  My fourteenth birthday was the first birthday since we'd become friends that she hadn't spent the night at my house with me.  She called me first thing, of course, and sang the birthday song for me and told me that she'd come over another day to celebrate with me.  Later that night, I came home from dinner with my family to find a bunch of sunflowers, my favorite flower, sitting next to a box of See's Candy chocolates, and she knew my favorites.  Sitting there was also a card, with a big, long note written to me, that I still have somewhere in my room, I think.  It put the biggest smile on my face, I remember (and she's not a florist, a chocolateer, nor a Hallmark employee, by the way).  I went up to my room, arms full, and opened the door to my room.  And she was sitting on my bed with a photo album in her arms.  It was the greatest surprise, just to see her there.  But then the Emersonian gift was to go through all of our memories, sitting there together laughing... there was a letter of the alphabet dedicated to every page, which led into a myriad of inside jokes and photographs and ticket stubs and other crazy memorabilia.  I will never forget that and I don't think she did it expecting gratitude.  It wasn't engraved in gold or anything, though it meant that much to me.  Sorry if this is all super corny, but maybe you know how I felt. :-)  I definitely still have that.

 

   Now, the kind of gift that fits my own personal description, as I made clear earlier, was given to me as a batmitzvah gift.  A batmitzvah is basically a coming of age, congrats! you're an adult now! kind of thing that Jewish kids go through when they turn thirteen.  So, I was thirteen.  I got hundreds and checks made out directly to me and gift cards to every place imaginable from Jamba Juice to Saks Fifth Avenue to Barnes and Nob

le.  But my favorite gift was one that I was already wearing around my neck.  My parents have these friends, Paul and Betty.  They lived in France with them for a year, right out of college, and then were a part of their daughter, Laura's life until I was born.  We were all very close knit- most of my earliest memories are times spent with them- and it was always so sad when they had to leave San Diego to go back to Canada (or vice versa).  They came to spend the week before my batmitzvah with my family as well, and during that week, Betty gave me her gift.  She handed me this small box when 

we were sitting by ourselves in the dining room drinking tea and talking while Laura and Alex, their daughters, and my brothers were finishing the cookies or... biscotti, maybe it was, in the kitchen.  She told me I could open the box and I did and it was a simple, pretty gold necklace chain with a deep gold Torah charm on the end.  I leaned over and gave her a hug and thanked her for the nice gift and took it out of the box and put it on myself.  She smiled at me and, I think these were her exact words, said, "Look how pretty it looks on you.  That is my mother's charm from when she was batmitzvahed.  It was mine after I was batmitzvahed.  And now it's yours."  Now, the woman is barely five feet tall and I was a good 5'8" at the time and I just crushed her in a huge hug.  I'm not sure if she could breathe or not.  I just didn't know how else to convey how much that meant to me, that she was trusting me with this Moroccan gold family heirloom, if you will.  She is Moroccan but she is definitely not a jeweler.  Nevertheless, sorry Emerson, but it was the greatest gift I've ever gotten.  Ever.  And it's gonna be pretty hard to top.

ps.  sorry for the awkward placement of the necklace in that picture... but it is there and that's the best picture i could find on such short notice.

Self-Reliance: paraphrase and response.

"What I must do, is all that concerns me, not what the people think."

My interpreted meaning of this sentence is sort of the epitome of self-reliance, in my opinion. Having my own obligations and "musts" be of the utmost importance, even above self-image, shows a self-reliance that most people in world, I think, lack. It's not about caroling only about yourself, that's downright selfish, but it''s about caring more about yourself than you do about other people's judgments. That's a big deal, actually. There are so many people that I know who don't do what they want to do because they are worried about their image and about what people will think. I have a friend who is a senior who wouldn't ask out a sophomore girl because he thought his friends would interpret that as an inability on his part of win any girl in his own grade. He really liked her, too, but that wasn't as important to him, I guess, as what his friends might think. Seems silly, doesn't it? (ps. now one can argue that "if they didn't support his decision, then they weren't really his friends at all" and, to an extent, that may be true but it's beside the point and should be left for another blog.)
I used to look at myself through this same lens. In middle school, most of what I did depended on the reaction I thought it would provoke from other people in my grade, and older kids. If I thought that it could win me cool points, I would pursue it. If I thought it might make me look lame, I would avoid it with complete determination, even if it was something I was sincerely interested in. I think that a lot of childhood is like that; you don't really know who you are exactly, so you depend on other people's reactions to formulate opinions about things. That's how fashion trends start, I think, for example. One person does something, gets a food reaction, and then everyone else wants the same reaction so they try to emulate that first person.
Now, I do spend a lot of time thinking abnout how others perceive me, but I can honestly say that, as of recently, I think that my necessities and my pursuits are of a much greater importance to me. I don't base my priorities on how I think other people will percieve me. Pretty frequently, I will do something and a handful of people will come up to me and ask me about it with a, "Really Jess?" kind of attitude, expecting me to come up with some kind of excuse or explanation. But I'm comfortable enough to be able to smile and nod, sincerely. It's really important, in my opinion, to be able to do that. There's a real confidence and a real self-reliance in being able to stick by decisions that you make. When you care more about "what people think" than what "I must do", I think it leads to a kind of unhappiness, or at least dissatisfaction. It's incredibly unfulfilling to depend on the opinions of others rather than to formulate your own. And, honestly, it's not that interesting to talk to someone who is focused on other people's perceptions.
I felt a real difference in myself when I started to apply this lifestyle to myself; it leads to a kind of self-reliance that is just right. It's not too egotistical and it's not too submissive. It's just right.