The Road

     For the Transcendentalist Essay Assignment I am going to use Walt Whitman's quote, " Not I, not any one else can travel that road for you, you must travel it for yourself", and compare it to Emerson's quote, "It cannot be recieved at second hand. Truly speaking, it is not instruction, but provocation, that I can recieve from another soul.", to talk about how we cannot be forced or led to believe something that we do not wish to believe. All of our decisions have to be made by us for us.

To what extend is god?

Obviously religion today has taken bashings and many changes. Back during the first colonies in America religion was a reigning force, so important it controlled many aspects in life. However as time has passed it has become much less prevalent than it was back then. I notice that Emerson and Thoreau often times not necessarily question Gods existence but more shave away some of the greatness he is given. I look to work off Emerson's Quote about how everyone is capable to achieve what Jesus did. Also how Emerson talked about the blasphomy of the so called "Miracles" performed.

Essay Idea: Simplicity vs. Society

For my essay, I would like to write about Thoreau's idea of simplicity. He claims that, "An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest." To start out, I want to explain this idea by connecting it with Thoreau's lifestyle. He reduced his life "to its lowest terms" while living in the woods in a half-built cabin. Then, I want to contest that simplifying your life to the level Thoreau suggests isn't viable in today's society. Today, you can't just forget everything and go live in the woods keeping, "your accounts on your thumb-nail." I want to justify that society is inherently complex because of its structure and expectations.

Do you have any suggestions? Why do you agree or disagree?

Robin's conformity idea

I was thinking about writing an essay relating to conformity, even though a lot of people are already doing that. I would refer to Whitman's, Thoreau's and Emerson's opinion on conformity. I think that we (especially our generation) tend to conform to those who may appear popular or cool in order to make ourselves more similar to that person. However, I do think sometimes conformity is acceptable such as having a strong role model to help you strive to do good. Having a strong and good role model in my opinion will help you to achieve your goals. However, I think too much conformity that we see in society and the media can take away our individualism.

conformity

I wanted to write about Emerson's idea of conformity. I know that a lot of people were intrigued by this idea but it stuck with me throughout all of the reading we did. Life as a high school student is engulfed in conformity, everyone has this idea that they have to fit in or to be cool to survive their four years here. However this just leads to loosing your true self, the sense of who you are. I could ask anyone who they are and the answer would be altered by the views of todays society, and i admit i fall under the same category. Is it not impossible to not conform to todays life? everything is a trap, school, popularity, wanting the latest technologies, sports. you can so easily get caught up in the crowd. so I want to write about being able to break free of this, being yourself and avoiding these to the best of our abilities. any thoughts?

Tristans essay idea

Hello fellow class mates, as we embark on our inaugural I find myself rather excited for your feed back for my exciting essay ideas.


    I have decided that the major thoughts that come through in Self-Reliance such as
"There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide."
"Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist."
"Nothing can bring you peace but yourself."
             I believe that these thoughts are misleading to people and is destructive to society as a whole

ESSAY

I am mainly going to focus on the quotes simplify, simplify, simplify, and Our life is frittered away by detail.  I am going to write about how many people focus on the stuff we don't need, I am also guilty of having to many things I dont need. I will be giving examples from my life and quotes from the reading.

Conformity

I was thinking of focusing on the idea of conformity. Also i wanted to touch on the fact that conformity is complex. The idea of total independance of thougth and body is almost impossible in this day and age with the internet and so on. Also i was going to touch on emerson's, thoreau's and whitman's differing views of conformity.

Transcendentalist Essay

I want to use the quote "Our life is frittered away by detail." I believe we have too much stuff and let that get in the way of what really matters. We pay too close attention to all the minor details in our life and therefore don't focus on what really matters. I think many of us believe that material items make us happy and that shouldn't be how it is. Happiness should come from the world around us and from within ourselves. This relates to my life because I pay too much attention to all the details and don't live in the moment. We are always planning ahead and thinking of the future but what we should be doing is enjoying the here and now. At this point in our lives I know it is difficult not to pay attention to detail but we shouldn't let the details  control our lives. With all the technology these days it is easy for that to happen; our society is making it more difficult not to get sucked into all the unnecessary detail.

Transcendentalists Essay Idea

I was thinking about talking about how learning second hand isn't always bad. About how Whitman had the right idea that you could learn second hand as long as you filtered it for yourself. That when you learn from somewhere else you are getting to a higher stage of understanding more quickly than if you were to start from the beginning all on your own. That way you can learn and understand more in less time because the mistakes to be made have already been made by your teacher. I was also going to talk about how Emerson had the right idea also that sometimes learning second hand can be bad because sometimes what you learn can be corrupted by the teachers views and beliefs that would differ from your own. For the main part of the essay I was going to tie this concept to our world. Thoughts?

transendentalist essay ideas

For my transendentalist essay I am thinking about writing it on the idea that you can't take things second hand. In the Divinity Address , Emerson stresses that you need to experence things for your self, they can't be recieved through someone else. When we all look at pictures of places we want to visit, we are taking the beauty of these places second hand. Instead we should go out and see and experence these places for ourselves. I think I would focus on writing about my experences living in Telluride. How we experence so much in terms to nature and being out doors, but we don't get to experence the city life. I would also bring up how we sit in classes for most of the day, learning things from other people, not experencing them for ourselves....

Living in our past

"The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes." That is the quote I am planning to use in my essay. I like the idea of us living in the past, and being young adults coming into the world we are living in our parents ideas. They overwhelm us with their ideas and we follow along because right now we havent come with our own ideas. Since there is an election coming up I thought this would be the perfect idea to write about. I want to bring Emerson to life in my story and have him touch on how we dont have our own ideas we are only thinking what we think is right which is usually what our parents think. I wanted to touch on how we live in a town full of liberals/ democrats, and there is that very small amount of people who are republicans, or who will admit they are republicans, because there is that little bit of parents who are republicans. I want to have it be the day of election, were it is in full discussion and people are arguing about who should win, whos better and why, and Emerson is just standing going my god this is stupid, come up with your own ideas, be your own person, do not take past beliefs, he is looking at how ignorant most of us can be when half the time we dont know what we are talking about.

I want to write my essay about the quote "There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imatation is sucide." I have noticed throughout school, especially as young adults, we are very tempted to try and immitate our counterparts, and to do things in order to fit in. I think this quote applies to my life alot because I even find myself doing it sometimes. In the end though, we all realize that being yourself is better, and that tghe people who embrace their own potential go farther in life and are happier. You can never be another person, and by trying to acheive another persons standards you become unhappy. I just want to write about young adults temptaions to envy and immitate, like we all do, and how it relates to my own lifew with school and friends.

I relate to the quote: "The morning, which is the most memorable season of the day, is the awakening hour." I consider myself a morning person and I believe that I'm the at the freshest point of the day in the morning. It's the best time for me. I want to expand on this section from "Where I Lived and What I Lived For" by Henery David Thoreau. I want to talk about how I go about a day, when I'm at my highest and lowest points and how that morning comes around and thats the best time for me. My idea is that I will start off by explaining my day either from when I wake up to when I go to sleep and wake up again. I basically want to show that even if you aren't a morning person that the morning can still be the best part of the day.

Essay idea

For my essay i am going to connect the vinotok with emmerson. The Vinotok is a festival in Crested Butte. It is the festival of fall. They make a 50 foot tall bon fire and burn the grump. So i am going to connect and compare emmersons points on nature to our views. what is nature to us? is it like it was emmersons? im gonna answer thoise questions along with others

Transcendentalist Ideas Essay

Hey guys! For my essay I'm going to write about Thoreau's quote, "Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!" Our lives are very complicated these days. Our minds are constantly filled with plans for what we will do in the future, and we are always surrounded by technology. We spend so much time preparing and focusing on our future. It becomes easy for us to forget about today and think more in the long run. We also are always near a phone or computer, which makes our lives all sorts of COMPLEX! The constant connection to the people and the world around us makes it next to impossible for us to be alone in nature. We've become materialistic and dependent on our interaction with other people. In order to get a clear mind and reach our full potential we need to be able to think alone and experience nature first hand. Why can't I hold all this complex in my life? I need to simplify!

i am thinking about writing on the concept of nature. and how even though people like tharough and emmerson thinks we have completely lost touch with nature. but that is not neccesarily true people in modren day still long to be in harmony with nature and try to incorperate nature into their lives. look at many homes people grow plants in their homes just so things feel more like they would outdoors. humans evolved in nature so we will never truly be able to live without a connection with nature.

Transcendentalist Essay Ideas

Hey classmates,

For the transcendentalist essay assignment, I thought of using Thoreau's quote "to a philosopher, all news, as it is called, is gossip", to talk about the state of today's news and media, and how it is rarely relevent to our lives. Instead, most news channels and sources tend to show a natural bias toward one side of the other, and sometimes fail to give us the "full story". We get caught up in the news of the day, and fail to live our lives in the present. The news becomes a distraction, a detail that prevents us from "simplifying" our lives. News becomes the same every day, some bomb went off in Libya, a drunk driver killed 3 people in a head on collision, repeat, repeat, repeat. We forget what real news is, fail to experience things first hand, and become numb to reality while getting caught up in the news and gossip of everything else but ourselves. We need to figure things out to ourselves, make up our own minds about the news and what it tells us, and find the full story to uncover the truth, instead of taking it second hand.

The Serene Ineficiency of Simplification

I think im going to write about how even though the idea of having a simplified life, and a more basic existance is a nice, and comforting hyptothetical, it may or may not be aplicable in life today. Times are to fast,& far more efficient than they were in the past; people are to connected... we have adveanced society in such a way that we find ourselfves in dependant rlationships with technology, advanced medicines, and global connections such as e-mail and facebook. Social media drives society, spreads ideas, and connects people. The internet makes information infinitley accessable at rapid speeds. Sciences have enhanced the lives which we live. Could it be that simplification would mean to drive society backwards? in such a swiftly advancing society to hold back is to fall behind. However, to a certain extent, could some things benefit from a level of simplification. Do we NEED to tell everyone on twittwer how good/bad our day was? Is it a waste of time to tweet everyone a picture of you at a concert? Is it possible that simplification of specific aspects of society could make us more efficiant; allowing to remove distraction and focus on more practical niches of life? idk.......

Transcendentalist Essay Idea

Greetings classmates,

I was thinking about using Thoreau 's quote, "Our life is frittered away by detail". The main subject I was planning to write about was the media and today's technological advances, specifically what affects teenagers. How the news is rarely positive or useful to the average american. The huge impact that cell phones, the internet, and television have upon our generation and how it is all a major distraction from living our lives. I was going to use facebook as a major point, how can you focus on your life when you're wrapped up in the detail of other peoples lives through facebook. Eventually I am going to tie it into Emerson's ideals about nature's importance in our lives, and how it is becoming less and less a part of our lives as we are swamped and overcome with detail. In addition I was thinking about tying the detail and media portion into Emerson's non-conformist ideas.  

Simplify

The quote "Simplify, simplify, simplify" has really stuck with me through all the readings so far. In the essay I'm going to take that quote and apply it to fashion and accessories in everyday life, and how we have way too much. There are a lot of people that have so masny clothes and accessories that only need about half of what they have. Some people dont have anything at all. People really need to simplify their entire life, but I chose to focus on fashion becasue I am guilty of having too many clothes and accessories myself. This way I have a connection with what I'm writing.

Transcendentalism

          My goal is to focus on statements that stood out to me from Thoreau's Where I Lived and What I Lived For. "Our life is frittered away by detail."  "For a man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.""To a philosopher all news, as it is called, is gossip" "I am monarch of all I survey, My right there is none to dispute." I also want to analyze his mindset that we must live with deliberation. Because he so strongly feels that humanity has destroyed itself by fussing over every last detail, I can branch into his rights and wrongs. Thoreau, having decided that we need to simplify, gave us an idea of becoming one with nature, more so than we already have. To some, his idea seems to regard in similarity to the lifestyle of a hippie. But in all reality, he is morally thinking. If we don't heed his warnings to have minimal complications and worries of power, we may very likely crash and burn. I think I can morph these ideas into my own and analyze Thoreau's state of mind and how it came to be.

Nico's Stuff' Primarly I will focus on the ideas of seperating yourself from society an materlism. I am hopeing to touch on Emerson's "Nature" and the idea's of materlism and the need to seperate ourselfs from the ties to society. Also i am going to tie in Thoreau's "Where i lived and what i lived for" and his play on emerson's ideas and his evolvement of them. Im going to bring both of these fellas back from the dead in a new form and allow them to see what today's society is like in comparison to their hopes of where society would be today. I think it should be an interesting comparison to the lives they lived and the lives we live today, and i will focus mainly on myself.

My thoughts on Transcendentalism The transcendentalists talk a lot about imitaion and nonconformity. This makes me think about how in our society today, we spend a large amount of our time trying to imitate and fit in. An example of this is in high schools all across the US. I want to use quotes such as "For noncomformity the world whips you with its displeasure" and "inmitation is suiside" to adress how in today's society and in high schools poeple do imitate and are conformists. Things like clicks and being "popular" have been stressed in most schools to the point that people spend the majoity of their time trying to fit in and loose the unique aspects of their character. This is so different for the idea's of Thoreau and Emerson and how they believe that "imitation is suiside" and such.

Transcendentalist Essay Idea

My idea is to focus in on Thoreau’s comment to the news and how it inundates our lives. I will specifically focus on the major quotes in his paragraph anchored towards the news. "We are determined to be starved before we are hungry", "After a half-hour's nap... What's the news?” "News is as indispensable as the breakfast”, and "To a philosopher all news, as it is called, is gossip.” I want to focus in on discussing the opinion of news in Thoreau’s piece and comparing it to the media's influence on life today. The media today, shapes most parts of our life. In todays society we only know as much or what we are told. Media influence effects social reaction to events, elections, and the severity of a situation. In my essay I will use Thoreau to explain why we are so attached to trivial things like the news. I might include an interview, playing off of the news, with Thoreau.