what does American mean? I realize I have been awakening to the answer. It occurs to me that today people have so many different perceptions of what’s “significantly American,” because culture, technology, and the range of phenomena that are socially excepted have expanded, leaving citizens of this country confused, unaware, and often disheartened in a fermenting, putrid stew of wondering “who are we?”, and further, “who cares?” Sometimes, these times, America seems like nothing more than a dirty tarp all woven with plastics and sort of blowing across a parking lot. Fortunately, and without meaning to brown-nose, I found that taking American Literature this semester illuminated the past and provided me with a bit of hope that because America was born of great minds and true endeavors, all is not lost. Somehow, somewhere, that spirit lives on, or at least can be found, and by taking those ideas and being transcendent and industrious maybe we can reclaim America for Benjamin Franklin, for Henry David Thoreau, for Ralph Waldo Emerson, and for ourselves—Americans-- who are in serious danger of being swallowed whole by our own degeneration.
“America”—the place, the meaning, is one of newness. This is a common theme and one of true importance. Human beings have so much limitless energy, and each moment that we say yes to life, we say yes to all of creation. As Thoreau says in Walden, Chapter 2, “Morning is when I am awake and there is dawn in me (1855)” metaphorically expressing this newness in terms of the time of day. Later on the same page he says, “We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep (1855)”. I feel like this idea is lost to us modern-dayers, who close our curtains hoping that the dawn will never come, that sleep may save the moments and the hours from coming to us with another round of crap—toil, stress, pharmaceuticals, money, video games, school shootings and states of union addresses by the phony prez. Let us embrace the sentiment that “Every morning [is] a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal simplicity, and I may say innocence, with Nature herself (1854).” Go right on back to nature—for there’s nothing so sweet and pure, so new and bursting with optimism than every moment in nature.
Maybe nature can save the Americans—even if the Americans cannot seem to save nature, but rather treat it as an enemy. Perhaps the state we have put nature in is corollary to the state of society—often polluted, sealed with cement, unenjoyed, becoming unenjoyable. Yet, as Emerson says in “Nature”, on page 1111 and 1112, in accordance with the resurrecting powers of nature and of newness, that “To the attentive eye, each moment of the year has its own beauty, and in the same field, it beholds, every hour, a picture which was never seen before and which shall never be seen again.” To see the perfection in nature, which seem to be becoming a lost art, affects a human being with spirituality, and perhaps the two are the same. As Emerson says, “The visible world and the relation of its parts, is the dial plate of the invisible”. This goes hand in hand with Thoreau’s sentiment that there is “dawn in me,”—and perhaps if people can imbibe nature, and believe in their own dawning, if they have spirituality, then maybe the rest will fall into place.
What is quintessentially American is, I believe, a mixture of the nature, the spirit, and the perseverance. Industriousness can be found in later writings, but the best example of it is in Benjamin Franklin’s “The Autobiography,” where he actually makes an account of his pursuit to attain moral perfection. His chart shows that he is human; he does not arrive at moral perfection at the end, but the point, the big point, the point that needs to be driven into the hearts of the downcast and corrupt, is that trying is necessary if one is ever to succeed. Never give up, allow ambition and imagination to coincide and bloom exponentially. Don’t be too severe with yourself; child of nature, but keep the wheels turning—try to arrive—that’s all we need to do. I suppose it really all boils down to having faith in something. Today it seems that people have no center, no belief. This dilutes them, makes them susceptible to dissipation and to laziness. We must look to the perfection of nature in providing spirituality, spirituality then makes a person self-possessed and full of hope and therefore driven to be what we hope is truly an American-- more than a leach, more than a boil on the ass of mankind, more than a belligerent mass of bigots and small-minds, bombarding other countries and killing their children, feeding our own our of the charity box at the supermarket. The Americans, I think, were the people and the progeny of people who settled here, who worked hard and prayed hard, and who had to endure. Their moral fervor was the forbearer of a very humanistic bunch of creators, industriously choosing nature, the spirit, and ultimately-- life-- in America.
“America”—the place, the meaning, is one of newness. This is a common theme and one of true importance. Human beings have so much limitless energy, and each moment that we say yes to life, we say yes to all of creation. As Thoreau says in Walden, Chapter 2, “Morning is when I am awake and there is dawn in me (1855)” metaphorically expressing this newness in terms of the time of day. Later on the same page he says, “We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep (1855)”. I feel like this idea is lost to us modern-dayers, who close our curtains hoping that the dawn will never come, that sleep may save the moments and the hours from coming to us with another round of crap—toil, stress, pharmaceuticals, money, video games, school shootings and states of union addresses by the phony prez. Let us embrace the sentiment that “Every morning [is] a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal simplicity, and I may say innocence, with Nature herself (1854).” Go right on back to nature—for there’s nothing so sweet and pure, so new and bursting with optimism than every moment in nature.
Maybe nature can save the Americans—even if the Americans cannot seem to save nature, but rather treat it as an enemy. Perhaps the state we have put nature in is corollary to the state of society—often polluted, sealed with cement, unenjoyed, becoming unenjoyable. Yet, as Emerson says in “Nature”, on page 1111 and 1112, in accordance with the resurrecting powers of nature and of newness, that “To the attentive eye, each moment of the year has its own beauty, and in the same field, it beholds, every hour, a picture which was never seen before and which shall never be seen again.” To see the perfection in nature, which seem to be becoming a lost art, affects a human being with spirituality, and perhaps the two are the same. As Emerson says, “The visible world and the relation of its parts, is the dial plate of the invisible”. This goes hand in hand with Thoreau’s sentiment that there is “dawn in me,”—and perhaps if people can imbibe nature, and believe in their own dawning, if they have spirituality, then maybe the rest will fall into place.
What is quintessentially American is, I believe, a mixture of the nature, the spirit, and the perseverance. Industriousness can be found in later writings, but the best example of it is in Benjamin Franklin’s “The Autobiography,” where he actually makes an account of his pursuit to attain moral perfection. His chart shows that he is human; he does not arrive at moral perfection at the end, but the point, the big point, the point that needs to be driven into the hearts of the downcast and corrupt, is that trying is necessary if one is ever to succeed. Never give up, allow ambition and imagination to coincide and bloom exponentially. Don’t be too severe with yourself; child of nature, but keep the wheels turning—try to arrive—that’s all we need to do. I suppose it really all boils down to having faith in something. Today it seems that people have no center, no belief. This dilutes them, makes them susceptible to dissipation and to laziness. We must look to the perfection of nature in providing spirituality, spirituality then makes a person self-possessed and full of hope and therefore driven to be what we hope is truly an American-- more than a leach, more than a boil on the ass of mankind, more than a belligerent mass of bigots and small-minds, bombarding other countries and killing their children, feeding our own our of the charity box at the supermarket. The Americans, I think, were the people and the progeny of people who settled here, who worked hard and prayed hard, and who had to endure. Their moral fervor was the forbearer of a very humanistic bunch of creators, industriously choosing nature, the spirit, and ultimately-- life-- in America.
No comments:
Post a Comment