The official dictionary definition of being self reliant is to be reliant on one’s own powers and resources rather than those of others. That is what I thought it was and what I will always think after this class and I forget everything. However, after reading Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay and that thrilling novel In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, I have come to see that there is more to be being self reliant than just being a lone wolf. To be self reliant is to quite simply as Mr. Emerson would have put it, is to avoid conformity and false consistency, and follow his own instinct and ideas. What this has taught me is not to be a follower or a conformer. To be self reliant is to basically be a leader. You think for yourself and do not follow. “Your conformity …show more content…
Dictator’s see being self reliant as a threat to their power. If we continue the cycle of rinse and repeat in our education system, we will be blind to the tyranny going on in the world and be zombies. Hippies have the right idea to go off and their own thing,\. So what if they go and have some acid trips and stare at the sun until their eyes melt out of their head. At least they aren’t blind to what is going on in the rest of the world like the rest of the people who just go along with life as if nothing is wrong. It goes beyond staring at the sun on a drug journey, Our own government is trying to silence non conformist. Call this man what you will and call me a conspiracy theorist but what Edward Snowden did was expose how our government spies on us and showed us many of their wrongdoings. Even in his wherever he is hiding in Russia he is still trying to speak out. Had Snowden been captured, he would have been branded as a traitor which he may or may not be but there's no denying the fact that our government would go out of it’s way to silence those that are self reliant free thinkers. So what does it exactly mean to be self