Gifts

Emerson has a very unique perspective on the dynamic between the giver and reciever of gifts. Most of us think of the most expensive thing we have been given when we are asked what the best gift we have ever been given is. He says that a gift given should reflect on the giver as a sort of biography or piece of that person. Otherwise the gift should reflect the relationship between the giver and reciever. Emerson provides a social commentary when he says that we as a society ask for the whole, and are not satisfied when we recieve less than that. Emerson also creates a paradox withing his own logic by saying this because another of Emerson's points is that we as people desire to be self-sustained at all times. So having an unfullfilled desire when we recieve a gift that is not to our liking contradicts our need to stay within ourselves and to remain self-contained. He is reflecting on the greedy nature of us as a society but does not offer any way for us to possibly change our ways. He is critiquing our consumer ideals and how the giving of gifts has lost meaning beyond simply the immediate gratification of our material wants.

Self-Reliance

"Nothing at last is sacred but the integrity of your own mind."

Emerson said this over a hundred years ago and yet it still seems to hold true today. Nowadays we live in a time where things are becoming less and less private. With the advent of the Internet and many social networking sites, we can hardly keep anything to ourself anymore. If some celebrity does something that was not predictable of them, it is only a matter of hours until it becomes headline news on the cover of some tabloid or gossip magazine. Things that are fundamentally supposed to be between two people such as email, or even the low tech version, letters, are subject to the prying eyes of protective parents or invasive postmen. Our society has become one that is primarily based on personal gain. Many times this gain can come in less that savory ways and at the sacrifice of good ethics and morals. The personal term "confidante" has virtually disappeared from our vocabulary because of the fact that things presumably told in confidence often become common knowledge in no time at all. In this sense Emerson's words ring true because the only place you can truly keep things private is within your own mind where it is not subject to outside interference. On another level, the mind is a sanctuary from pain for virtually every person. When you get hurt emotionally, you look inside yourself for solace, whether it be for memories of happier times or simply to empty your consciousness of all thoughts in order to relax. When you get hurt physically there is a biological response of your body to not feel the pain immediately in order to preserve some clarity of mind. This is especially true with trauma to the head where the body's natural response is to lose conciousness in order to protect the mind from the overflow of pain in the body. Your mind goes within itself and puts up a wall of sorts in order to protect itself. Even your body on the most carnal and instinctive level holds the mind as a higher entity than the body, and so tries to protect the mind over all else. I believe this is why many people consider the most brutal way of killing someone to be an execution style gunshot to the head. This is because this method of death attacks the mind almost directly while bypassing the majority of the body. Unlike a poison which takes an almost circuitous route through organs and tissue, the gunshot takes the shortest possible path to destroy our last sanctuary in life.That is why this type of killing has such an effect on men in war, because whther or not they know it consciously, everyone thinks of the head and the mind as the most important part of the body.