Transcendentalist Geniuses

Junior year of high school I was first introduced to a movement called the Transcendentalist movement. If you've never heard of it, look it up. It's amazing. Emerson, Thoreau, Dickinson, and Fuller were all Transcendentalists and man did they have good ideas. I'm a little bit of a dork (I have no problem admitting it), and I sometimes like to just ponder about life and talk about, think about, or write about deep things. It's really fun and soothing. Whenever I come across big concepts that make you think and where deeper meaning lies, I soak it up. Hence, my love for the transcendentalists. These people stepped outside the materialist lifestyle they found around them in the mid 1800s, and looked for deeper meaning and purpose in life. They were indeed spiritual, but didn't associate with particular religious groups or organized religions. Instead, they went out into nature and away from the hustle and bustle of the common world, and used the quiet bliss that surrounded them to just listen. Listen for something more. Listen for a deeper spirit that connects the world and all the things in it. In doing so, transcendentalists were looking to find themselves. They believed that within each of us is a soul that is close to a Deity and that the ideal spiritual state is realized only through one's own intuition; how we feel and think within ourselves without being influenced by outside forces. God gave humans the gifts of intuition, insight, and inspiration, so we should use them for ourselves to find truth in the world. All humans have access to this vast cove of spiritual enlightenment because it lies within their own soul. That is why many of the transcendentalists tried to completely escape society and plunge into nature alone or create utopias conducive to allowing for this type of isolation and ability to tap into their inner soul.

It all sounds maybe a little too deep, but I think these people were really getting at something. Humans all have the a certain sense of right and wrong and a compassion for one another (even if this fails from time to time) no matter what culture or area of the world they live in. There seems to be something connecting us all and I think it lies within us and that once we tap into that little soul within us we can discover who we truly are, what we are to do in this life, and really do good in the world. Although you may believe a different Deity provides this soul to us all than I do, I think if we all strive to find out more about this spirit if you will we will arrive at the same end. Even if we use different means to get there. Self-actualization is the first step, and, if this were to occur with us all, as Emerson writes: "We will walk on our own feet; we will work with our own hands; we will speak our own minds...A nation of men will for the first time exist, because each believes himself inspired by the Divine Soul which also inspires all men." So ladies and gentlemen, run out into nature and get to thinking!