With joy and trembling, I read Emerson's words. In this essay, he answers questions that have haunted me for years. He answers more questions and speaks to my innate feelings more than anyone I've ever come across. His words are a beautiful testament to my work. To understand me, understand this.
... A little consideration of what takes place around us every day would
show us that a higher law than that of our will regulates events; that
our painful labors are unnecessary and fruitless; that only in our easy,
simple, spontaneous action are we strong, and by contenting ourselves
with obedience we become divine. Belief and love,--a believing love will
relieve us of a vast load of care. O my brothers, God exists. There is
a soul at the centre of nature and over the will of every man, so
that none of us can wrong the universe. It has so infused its strong
enchantment into nature that we prosper when we accept its advice,
and when we struggle to wound its creatures our hands are glued to our
sides, or they beat our own breasts. The whole course of things goes to
teach us faith. We need only obey. There is guidance for each of us, and
by lowly listening we shall hear the right word. Why need you choose so
painfully your place and occupation and associates and modes of action
and of entertainment? Certainly there is a possible right for you that
precludes the need of balance and wilful election. For you there is a
reality, a fit place and congenial duties. Place yourself in the middle
of the stream of power and wisdom which animates all whom it floats,
and you are without effort impelled to truth, to right and a perfect
contentment. Then you put all gainsayers in the wrong. Then you are
the world, the measure of right, of truth, of beauty. If we will not
be mar-plots with our miserable interferences, the work, the society,
letters, arts, science, religion of men would go on far better than
now, and the heaven predicted from the beginning of the world, and still
predicted from the bottom of the heart, would organize itself, as do now
the rose and the air and the sun.
I say, do not choose; but that is a figure of speech by which I would
distinguish what is commonly called choice among men, and which is a
partial act, the choice of the hands, of the eyes, of the appetites, and
not a whole act of the man. But that which I call right or goodness,
is the choice of my constitution; and that which I call heaven, and
inwardly aspire after, is the state or circumstance desirable to my
constitution; and the action which I in all my years tend to do, is the
work for my faculties. We must hold a man amenable to reason for the
choice of his daily craft or profession. It is not an excuse any longer
for his deeds that they are the custom of his trade. What business has
he with an evil trade? Has he not a calling in his character?
Each man has his own vocation. The talent is the call. There is one
direction in which all space is open to him. He has faculties silently
inviting him thither to endless exertion. He is like a ship in a river;
he runs against obstructions on every side but one, on that side all
obstruction is taken away and he sweeps serenely over a deepening
channel into an infinite sea. This talent and this call depend on his
organization, or the mode in which the general soul incarnates itself in
him. He inclines to do something which is easy to him and good when it
is done, but which no other man can do. He has no rival. For the more
truly he consults his own powers, the more difference will his work
exhibit from the work of any other. His ambition is exactly proportioned
to his powers. The height of the pinnacle is determined by the breadth
of the base. Every man has this call of the power to do somewhat unique,
and no man has any other call. The pretence that he has another call, a
summons by name and personal election and outward "signs that mark him
extraordinary, and not in the roll of common men," is fanaticism,
and betrays obtuseness to perceive that there is one mind in all the
individuals, and no respect of persons therein.
By doing his work he makes the need felt which he can supply, and
creates the taste by which he is enjoyed. By doing his own work he
unfolds himself. It is the vice of our public speaking that it has not
abandonment. Somewhere, not only every orator but every man should let
out all the length of all the reins; should find or make a frank and
hearty expression of what force and meaning is in him. The common
experience is that the man fits himself as well as he can to the
customary details of that work or trade he falls into, and tends it as a
dog turns a spit. Then is he a part of the machine he moves; the man is
lost. Until he can manage to communicate himself to others in his full
stature and proportion, he does not yet find his vocation. He must find
in that an outlet for his character, so that he may justify his work to
their eyes. If the labor is mean, let him by his thinking and character
make it liberal. Whatever he knows and thinks, whatever in his
apprehension is worth doing, that let him communicate, or men will never
know and honor him aright. Foolish, whenever you take the meanness
and formality of that thing you do, instead of converting it into the
obedient spiracle of your character and aims...
The full essay can be found under "Spiritual Laws" here http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2944/2944.txt
