Self-reliance is essential to avoid distraction by the many particulars that life brings our way. We must not pay too much attention to custom and opinion, must live our own lives and think our own thoughts, must keep our focus on the eternal. Emerson admits that the eternal and the material are essentially irreconcilable. He attempts to answer the question of what the practical results of understanding the relationship between idealism and experience might be. The effects of our explorations of truth, he answers, are cumulative, incalculable within the span of a single human lifetime. Moreover, while people in general place too much emphasis on doing rather than knowing, he himself accepts the primary value of knowing. He recognizes that the world he lives in is not the world he thinks it is, and trusts that he will some day understand this discrepancy. But we cannot resolve it by attempting to translate the world of thought into reality, as is attempted by various reform movements. Emerson urges patience, avoidance of squandering precious time and attention on inconsequential details of living, and persistent, optimistic openness to the intuitive insight that will bring "the light of our life." Ultimately, genius will be transformed into practical power.
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