I got a new journal today – actually, a sketchbook, but I find I am less self conscience when writing in a sketchbook for some reason. It’s a black hardcover sketchbook where you can’t tear out the pages without making a mess of things.
I’m using this for a new writing project,a novel, which encompasses the theme of knowing yourself and not being an imitation of someone else’s psyche. I find this to be more common than not – so much of our tastes, values, beliefs, and preferences are inherited from someone else – be that person a parent, sibling, spouse, or celebrity.
I found this quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Self Reliance”, and it really struck a chord with me. The image for this post is from a wine bottle by the way. Il Bastardo sangiovese. It’s awesome, and it only $7 – $8 a bottle. I thought the illustration suited the quote.
From “Self Reliance”, by Ralph Waldo Emerson:
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.
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 everything 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.
Best,
McKee