In the death of my son, now more than two years ago, I seem to have lost a beautiful estate—no more. I cannot get it nearer to me. If tomorrow I should be informed of the bankruptcy of my principal debtors, the loss of property would be a great inconvenience to me, perhaps, for many years; but it would leave me as it found me—neither better nor worse. So it is with this calamity: it does not touch me: some thing which I fancied was a part of me, which could not be torn away without tearing me, nor enlarged without enriching me, falls from me and leaves no scar. It was caducous. I grieve that grief can teach me nothing, nor carry me one step into real nature. Esta oración no es una traducción de la original. Este barrio es insoportable, la única salida es mudarnos. Essay collections are such a wonderful thing. I’ve read bits and pieces of quite a few, but not many to completion. I always find it interesting to see the way various writers apply their style to the medium of essays. David Foster Wallace with his intricate yet hilarious prose. Orwell with his journalistic and insightful voice. John Green with his deeply human and romantic lens.

When it comes to collections of essays, it's either hit or miss for me. I either detest them or love them enough to recommend to friends. There's no middle ground. While some found the speech compelling, many were scandalized by Emerson’s radical individualism. It threatened the core of their faith. For Emerson, Jesus was someone who had the courage to seek the infinite in himself, and his example should have been an inspiration for the rest of us to do the same. Instead, Christianity adopted a “vulgar tone of preaching” that commands its followers to “subordinate your nature to Christ’s nature,” that speaks of “revelation as somewhat long ago given and done, as if God were dead.” To Emerson, everything necessary for revelation is available here and now, in nature, in us. God isn’t a “vaunting, overpowering, excluding sanctity, but a sweet, natural goodness.”I don’t agree with everything Emerson wrote. If I did, Emerson himself would be the first to disapprove. But his points, in “Self-Reliance” and elsewhere, are subtle enough to overcome their excesses and still be of great value to the modern reader. There are ways Emerson’s exaltation of the self goes too far, but it’s also an essential message, made all the more essential for the beauty of its articulation. We all need to forge a confidence in our own mind. To achieve great things, we first need to believe we’re capable of great things. That belief, as we know, wavers. It erodes against a constant bombardment of self-doubt. If you’re feeling low, “Self-Reliance” is the best pep talk imaginable: “You cannot hope too much or dare too much. There is at this moment for you an utterance brave and grand as the colossal chisel of Phidias, or the trowel of the Egyptians, or the pen of Moses, or Dante, but different from all these.” And confidence in the self, once attained, gives you the confidence to see its shortcomings.

O father, O mother, O wife, O brother, O friend, I have lived with you after appearances hitherto. Henceforward I am the truth’s… I appeal from your customs. I must be myself. I cannot break myself any longer for you, or you. If you can love me for what I am, we shall be the happier. If you cannot, I will still seek to deserve that you should. I won’t hide my tastes or aversions. I will so trust that what is deep is holy, that I will do strongly before the sun and moon whatever inly rejoices me, and the heart appoints. A brilliant, wide-ranging essay collection that explores meaning and how we make it with the thoughtfulness and open-hearted generosity that have long been hallmarks of Puschak's writing." —John Green, New York Times bestselling author of The Anthropocene Reviewed Superman is Clark Kent - an exploration of one of the most recognizable characters in pop-culture that leads to the old discussion around nature vs. nurture and identity.

This is not to say I had bad teachers or went to bad schools. Some of my teachers were extraordinary, like Mr. Leventhal in eighth-grade English and Mrs. Bienkowski in twelfth-grade economics. They all, I think, sincerely wanted to teach, to pass on knowledge to their students, to help us think critically. (They couldn’t have been in it for the money.) But warped systemic incentives can prevail over the good intentions of smart and generous people. Learning is not the chief goal of most American schooling. The chief goal is turning out graduates. And those two things are not the same. As YouTube’s The Nerdwriter, Evan Puschak plays the polymath, posing questions and providing answers across a wide range of fields—from the power of a split diopter shot in Toy Story 4 to the political dangers of schadenfreude. Now, he brings that same insatiable curiosity and striking wit to this engaging and unputdownable essay collection. If Emerson was mentioned in one of my high school classes, I must’ve been daydreaming (which was my default mode) because I don’t remember it. That, or I brushed him off as a dreary old statue of a man, who, from his high perch in the American Pantheon, had little to say to someone like me. Clearly, I was an idiot. If there’s anything Emerson is not, it’s dreary. He’s a thinker bursting with ecstasy for life, and his prose is an attempt to bottle that ecstasy. He approaches everything with a child’s sensitivity. Often the essays swell with excitement, like a nine-year-old itching to tell you the coolest thing ever: Ode to Public Benches - I'm a fan of walking around cities and sitting on their benches, drinking coffee and experiencing some of that nice ol' sonder and it turns out I'm doing right.