"This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labour to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul; and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body."
- Walt Whitman
This quote is one which challenges me because I struggle to complete all of the tasks set. I also disagree with some of it. To dismiss whatever insults your own soul may be to dismiss constructive criticism. This would be stupid and crazy and although this might get people to stand up to you it would not help in the long run. However, most of the rest I believe to be sound advice.
1 comment:
I almost entirely concur, with the exception that I think you have slightly missed the point in your interpretation of 'dismiss all that insults your soul'.
I don't think Whitman is necessarily referring to verbal or written arguments/criticism, but more to one's way of being in the world.
Perhaps a better way of thinking about it is not to follow a path in life that makes you less than who you really are.
So things that truly insult your soul are never constructive, but always destructive.
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