“Self-Reliance”, Emerson, Dialogue 6 – D58

There are few things better to do at the MPC than read Emerson in the Jardín Ayau, sitting on the grass and reading it aloud. Instead of doing performing arts, we decided to keep reading Self-Reliance by Emerson. In this dialogue we discussed the things we value, the nature of observation, the scientific ethics, and materialism. The most important quotes we talked about were the followings:

“Yet they (material things) all are his, suitors for his notice, petitioners to his faculties that they will come out and take possession. The picture waits for my verdict: it is not to command me, but I am to settle its claims to praise.”

• Things related to this quote: “value what you value”, nature of observation, Polanyi: “Science has a moral dimension.”. 

“…it (the popular fable of the sot and the duke) symbolizes so well the state of man, who is in the world a sort of sot, but now and then wakes up, exercises his reason, and finds himself a true prince.”

• There are people, like Socrates, who we think of them as “gods”, but we forget they were once humans who have awaken. 

“Who is the Trustee? What is the aboriginal Self, on which universal reliance may be grounded? What is the nature and power of that science-baffling star, without parallax, without calculable elements, which shoots a ray of beauty even into trivial and impure actions, if the least mark of independence appear?”

• Here, Emerson puts in question materialism; something that we are still questioning in the 21^st century. 

Emerson singing “Deck the Halls”– D56

Ok, so the title is a little misleading. What I refer to is that on performing arts we sang Deck the Halls, practicing for our Christmas carol. We recorded it and when listening to it we found out we sing awful haha.

Then, we read and discussed some Emerson’s Self-Reliance. We talked about the consistency of being genuine with yourself and your actions, and of not being afraid of not being consistent with your actions per se as long as they are genuine to you. Scorn the appearances! This is the most important note I wrote: “Be consistent in doing the right thing, if it’s genuine, you’ll be consistent from the distance, you’ll have honor.”

Emerson’s Comeback and Debriefing – D51

Today’s programming class was cancelled because Kyle is being very busy since he is about to launch his new project. Instead of having a programming class, we read Emerson’s Self-Reliance, which was very fitted to the moment we are living at the MPC. Nice comeback, Emerson! We only read like one page and a half, but had a great dialogue, inquiring into a deeper sense his ideas. One of the most important things we talked was about the importance to judge the past in order to improve our present. If we change the meaning of our past experiences by learning through those past experiences, we will be more prepared and succeed in the present and future. We related to the gratitude of the past Bert mentioned during our Thanksgiving dialogue.

The debriefing went pretty good. It feels good to have a peaceful debriefing and focus on the positive things we have been doing and did during the day. Definitely the most touched person today was Gabbi, because she had a rough start on the morning by confronting Bert and almost leaves the MPC for the day, but she came back, fixed things with Bert, and had an active participation during the Consilience dialogue, although she was on the outer circle. It’s very interesting how people can discover their potential through many ways and some are not pretty, but when you know you can positively contribute to others’ learning process of life and knowledge, and you commit yourself to become better and better, you can do wonderful things. If everyone could realize this, at least on the MPC, our culture would change dramatically. 

Some debriefing and some Emerson – D31

For performing arts, nobody had anything prepared so spontaneously we started debriefing. We talked mostly about the “silent room” now called “individual work room”. We decided to keep it as a room for individual work, with everyone more commited on working on their stuff.

After that, we had a dialogue/reading of Emerson’s Self-Reliance, which I enjoyed a lot and also think that everyone enjoyed it as well. What I’m learning from Emerson’s essay is to live with integrity, do what you want to do with your life and not by what society expects or wants you to do, don’t give up on your liberty, think and speak for yourself, not for your party or “usages that are dead to you” as he writes. I have found this essay very insightful and wonderful, a true piece of art!

Franz’s Morning Meeting and Individual Work – D30

After resisting for 30 MPC days to direct a morning meeting, Franz finally directed it. His activity was about reading something he wrote called, “What I talk about when I talk about “This” and “That””. As I understood it, it was about doing what we really want and not what society expects and wants us to do, just to fulfill some “social requirements”. It relates a lot with Emerson’s essay, Self-Reliance, because both talk about speaking up for yourself and not to surrender your liberty to the society’s approval. The activity was cool, although it lacked some dynamics to do it more interesting. Plus, he didn’t make time for announcements or for making the schedule for the day, but I don’t blame him because, being honest, he hasn’t been in many morning meetings for him to know that.

The rest of the morning was for individual work. I decided to work on some documentation and to make most of the eight-week self-evaluation Bert gave us. I think it was averagely productive.

Presenting the Liberty Project and some more of Emerson – D29

After lunch, Isa, Alejo, Pablito, Marce, and I presented our idea on forming a liberty club, and I must say that it didn’t went as we expected. Many of our classmates misinterpreted us in many things of our project and reacted in a negative way towards it. After some intense dialogue, I found it helpful to see other perspectives and actually decided as a group that it would be better to implement some suggestions they gave us and substitute them for what we had before. After the discussion, we were able to improve our project in order to do a better work.

Later, we read some more of Emerson’s essay, which we are finding the true meaning of what Emerson is trying to tell us. I found this essay very interesting and accurate in his ideas. I’m also starting to think that Emerson is quite a libertarian for the way he writes and what he claims on individualism.

Carmen's look during the dialogue

Just dialoguing

Individual work, debriefing, and Emerson – D27

After the morning meeting, we had individual work. I decided to read Taming the Infinite, since for the past days I have had trouble trying to focus on documenting. I managed to read two chapters and got up to date with that book, which was cool because I’m a little behind with both documentation and readings, hoping to get to date by this week. Although it was a productive time, I later saw that all the MPC’ers were debriefing the morning meeting, which I had no idea we would do it at that time because I didn’t heard anybody say that. I got in the circle and of course, apologized for my innocent mistake. After the debriefing, we read some more of Emerson’s essay, Self-Reliance, and had a dialogue about it. I have to admit that this time I really liked it because the last two times we discussed this essay, I was falling asleep (I know, shame on me!). This time I was able to make connections and really understand what Emerson is saying to us. I enjoyed it a lot!

Ralph Waldo Emerson’s, Self-Reliance – D25

After lunch, we “discussed” Emerson’s essay, Self-Reliance. I say “discussing” because I was so sleepy and you must remember that Emerson’s language is not so easy to follow, and me not sleeping enough the day before, lead to me sleeping for seconds in the middle of the dialogue haha. I do apologize with all because of this. There were also some other four or five that were also having trouble keeping awake! I wish I could say more about this dialogue, but I can’t since I was not mentally there.