Transcendentalism

When most people hear the word "transcendentalism," they think "ew, that's a long word. It sounds boring." But when I hear "transcendentalism" I think of trees, flowers and forests and how transcendentalists believed nature was true beauty. They were also strong supporters of the whole "carpe diem" theme and believed that everyone should be their own unique individual and live every day like it is their last.


In class this week, I had to read Steve Jobs' commencement speech and relate it to transcendentalism. In his speech, he was basically telling people to go do what they love and be unique and be your own person and live every day like you won't have another, and all of that relates back to transcendentalism. 

However Transcendentalists also believe that death is inevitable so you should live life fully because death will catch up, so embrace it, and don't fear it, as well as that nothing you do is permanent but nature stays constant and continues. In "The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls," the poem has a lot of repetition and parallelism to symbolize nature's consistency.


 Transcendentalism also makes me think of the movie "Avatar;" how the Na'vi are so nature-oriented and how they pretty much worship nature which similar to transcendentalists' views of nature  only one step farther.