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Transcendentalism In Modern Life Essay 1.) The modernity of life has come to the extent where human beings are becoming mechanical and less sensitive to the physical environment. The human as a physical form, as being part of nature, as being one by nature is losing his capability to connect and feel himself as being part of it and thus he is alienated, apathetic to his surroundings. Human as a body is one true part of nature. Every physical parts of him correlate with nature. From the Walden of Thoreau, â€Å"A lake is the landscape’s most beautiful and expressive feature. It is the earth’s eye; looking into which the beholder measure the depth of his own nature.† The human eye is said to be the â€Å"window to the soul.† The depth of one’s character can be reflected thru his eyes. His eyes express sincerity about his thoughts and feelings. The lake is like the human eyes, reflecting the beauty of nature. The human eyes exude beauty. Beauty is nature. Nature is beauty. The nature and the human eyes gives all living creatures something to explore, something new and colorful that makes life worth living each day. The modern life has given us everything that is actually not part of nature. Consumerism is one thing that incites our desire to seek for alienation to nature. Endless offers of products and services that degenerates our senses, especially the eyes, to lose its depth. Thoreau laments over this culture,   Ã¢â‚¬Å" There is an influx of novelty into the world, and yet we tolerate incredible dullness.† As mentioned nature as beauty, it has so much to offer. But with the modern life of consumer culture, the beauty of nature is so much unappreciated. Modern humans are incessantly losing his ability to connect with nature. He failed to willfully discover the beauty of nature, the beauty of his own humanity because of the exceeding production for consumer goods that creates his lifestyle. The paradigm of his life based on this culture creates him in a way apart from nature. Thus the modern human life denies him self of beauty as he denies himself being part of nature and for the years to come, only nature can bring out true beauty. 2.) For a moment, the voice of the unheard, â€Å"I,† come to life. One cannot deny that living in oneness with nature will speak out the voice of our unsaid and ignored self. The truth about nature say tells you that life offers so much more than what you can see from the daily modern life created by superficiality of human life. It is true that nature and the human body is one. Without those gadgets around me, I came to realize that every thought and every word in my head offers me something new, something exciting. My thoughts are part of nature. With my thoughts and with my words I have come to realize that life’s essences exist in the discovery of my very own ability to receive my very own thoughts. It helped me become true to myself. Myself is true to nature. Nature is who I am. The exploration of thoughts comes like an overflowing river. I swam into the overflowing river of thoughts. It is diverse and fresh. Something is yearning to be heard and that voice is nothing else but mine. I don’t need anything to tell me that I am beautiful. Nothing in this consumer world would define that beauty for me – only my thoughts. I am becoming more open to this mind and bodily presence. I need not to conform to anything that nature does not give. Anything that is natural is pleasurable. Abundance is present at this very moment. I am thankful that I have everything I need to live. The less I think of the superficial, the more abundance of life is offered to me. As I perceive things that I purchased, I find out that this is going to be an endless thirst that comes merely from insecurity. Now, I don’t need to linger my thoughts when and how will I finally get this and that but now, I am becoming more and more eager to seek my humanity in the existence of nature as being part of me. I didn’t expect such adventure with my thoughts is such a fun and enjoyable ride. Color I think there is so much color to what I can see now. This color of life is coming from within, a true essence of human nature, my nature. 3. ) Based on the works by Nathaniel Hawthorne, this is the question that I am posing: Why are things not what they seem to be? The greatest antagonist of life is the one that we thought it was but after all, we don’t really know what it is. A great poser of something good but thoroughly evil is the most evil of all. The things that we see that possesses the character of something good hides behind this veil and yet it is actually evil. Opening our mind and heart to truth is the central message of Hawthorne’s work. It seeks to remind us that when we feel we hear about the truth. Denying ourselves from feeling the things around us is a lie. A lie is usually concealed, packed well to hide itself and attack its victim to lose his will to live. A lie is traitor and it will infest itself to someone who will accommodate it. Life is created by packaging. We do not really know what is lying underneath. Because of so many ways to package something, we are usually deceived by our senses. It’s not that our senses take control of that ability but the human mind and heart. When one is deceived by that packaging, he is in weak control of his senses.   It is never easy to realize that something is not what is seems to be. Evil by nature will cover him self from seeing him as evil. Slowly it will pull you to its trap. It will pose in front of you as something good. The ability of one to feel and listen to his own faith will be the only thing that will lead him to avoid evil. Learning to listen to our senses and putting our faith into our minds and our hearts will keep us from going astray. The worst enemy will come closer to our feet as the best friend. Real human intension comes from the goodness of his intentions and not from how good he seems to be. The real test of goodness doesn’t depend on how good one person seem to be. What we see on the outside is usually a lie. Only our true senses kind find that truth of what is within. 4. ) Emily Dickinson’s Poetry NATURE, the gentlest mother, Impatient of no child, The feeblest or the waywardest,— Her admonition mild In forest and the hill By traveller is heard, Restraining rampant squirrel Or too impetuous bird. How fair her conversation, A summer afternoon,— Her household, her assembly; And when the sun goes down Her voice among the aisles Incites the timid prayer Of the minutest cricket, The most unworthy flower. When all the children sleep She turns as long away As will suffice to light her lamps; Then, bending from the sky, With infinite affection And infiniter care, Her golden finger on her lip, Wills silence everywhere. Nature: In this poetry, nature is described as the mother. Her children are the animals and the landscape. Her voice is heard everywhere by her children. She gives unlimited patience and love. Her voice resounds prayer to all living creatures from the one that is the most beautiful up to the very least. Like human beings, our mothers are the endless source of love. We humans are children of nature. We find nature as the endless possibility of our daily needs and resources.   At night her children sleep, nature is a nurturer that opens her light to the darkness of the night. Like our mothers who always keep us safe during our sleep, nature secures us from sleeping safely through the night.   Her motherly love is endless. She keeps the night quiet to her sleeping children. For anything that makes noise, she keeps them quiet as her every child yearns for serenity. WILL there really be a morning? Is there such a thing as day? Could I see it from the mountains If I were as tall as they? Has it feet like water-lilies? Has it feathers like a bird? Is it brought from famous countries Of which I have never heard? Oh, some scholar! Oh, some sailor! Oh, some wise man from the skies! Please to tell a little pilgrim Where the place called morning lies! Will: Here, a traveler is in search of morning. A human being signifies the traveler for life is a metaphor of journey. Morning signifies serenity. It is something that keeps us happy. The traveler is seeking serenity for it is something that he finds unattainable. He seeks the beauty in of serenity. He knows that it is as beautiful as nature. Serenity is something so mysterious to him that he questions if it is something from another place.   He asks a scholar, a sailor and any wise man to define what serenity is and where he can find it.   Serenity, as simple as it seems to be is hard to find. In every morning that we wake up, we want to seek serenity as life unfolds in our eyes. 5. ) Moby Dick by Herman Melville Nature is one of the most ultimate aspects in Moby Dick. Ishmael is the main character and he begins the journey as he rides the ship Pequod under the command of the captain Aheb. He finds out that Aheb is in search of a white whale. Ishmael learns that Aheb is seeking revenge from the white whale because it takes away his leg. Towards the end, the white whale destroys Pequod. This story is very symbolic about nature. Aheb is the ultimate example of human being who doesn’t care for nature. Human beings are sometimes insensitive of nature and tend to take control of it to the extent that he tries to even exploit it. The white whale is like nature – it keeps its beauty and mystery. When human beings bring something that aims to harm nature, it has all its powers and forces to bring back humans to respect nature. Just like when calamities happens, nature has its own way to destroy the lives that it nurtures. Aheb is one example of the modern human life – the least aware of what can nature bring to him. Like Aheb, sometimes humans think that they really can control of everything. But like the white whale, nature has its own share of mystery to respond to humans who are exploiting her. The very thought of conquering something so huge is usually the common thought of human beings. Huge bank accounts, huge houses, huge malls, huge buildings and the like. Humans seem to have created a huge world about the superficial and the material. But after all, nature is still something bigger than what it seems to be. As humans try to conquer nature against the world that he is trying to build, nature is going back to regain its power and remind humans that he is only a part of nature. Nature has its means to give birth to the life that humans are slowly taking. The only thing that humans can take from nature is what it can also get back. Nature provides its laws for humans to obey and only obey. 6.) From the Great Lawsuit: â€Å"it is a built-in necessity of human nature to express itself, that self-expression, like self-development, is one of the purposes of life itself. [Transcendentalism] insists, first, that the well-being of the individual—of all the individuals—is the basic purpose and ultimate justification for all social organizations and second that autonomous individuals cannot exist apart from others. Transcendentalism believes that the purpose of education is to facilitate the self-development of each individual. The political trajectory of transcendentalism begins in philosophical freedom and ends in democratic individualism.† This tells us that humans are entitled to express himself and this is they way he finds himself. His well-being can be found only within himself. Every human has the power to build himself through the power of his thoughts. It is considerably his most wonderful ability for it is something that is constantly and ever growing. Self-expression is one integral human activity that makes him aware of himself. When one is aware of who he is, he knows what he wants and he knows what he can do. Self-expression to human beings is a basic necessity. However, an individual cannot exist only by himself. He also needs the help of others. Transcendentalism emphasizes that an individual needs to believe himself in order to create harmony with others. Although humans have their own right to self-expression he cannot disregard other nor destroy others by this will of self-expression. For example, a person can ridicule someone with the intentions of pulling him down and his only reason is self-expression. That is not self-expression it is more like self-disdain. Transcendentalism points that education is the foundation of human thought and how human will create the world around him. The human mind is complex and therefore has the ability to create and recreate his world as well as his future. Education is not simply just going to school. It is more like becoming aware of what the world is. Education allows human beings to explore his thoughts and the end of this is for him to explore the world and what he can do to live his life.   Political trajectory of transcendentalism roots from the will of a human to question that is everything around him. His quest for answers in this life is his sole freedom to do. BIBLIOGRAPHY Books: Adams, Stephen, and Donald A. Ross. Revising Mytholo gies: The Composition of Thoreau’s Major Works. Char lottesville, Va., 1988. 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Electronic sources: The House of the Seven Gables Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 1804-1864 Conversion to TEI-conformant markup University of Virginia Library Electronic Text Center ca. 650 kilobytes round up to the nearest 5KB This version available from the University of Virginia Library Charlottesville, Va. Copyright 1999, by the Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/ Commercial use prohibited; all usage governed by our Conditions of Use:http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/conditions.html