Experience Summary & Analysis

“Experience” begins with a long epigraph in the form of a poem about the powerlessness of the individual subject in the world. The speaker describes how “lords of life” pass in a “succession swift” in an inevitable movement from east to west, like the sun. The speaker describes the “little man,” small and powerless in relation to these gigantic figures as well as the “inventor of the game” (i.e., God), who is “omnipresent” but unnamed. The “little man” stands among the legs of these great figures, unable to understand where exactly nature is taking him. The poem ends with nature whispering words of comfort to the little man, telling him that the giant men are “thy race,” and that tomorrow they will appear different, in “another face.”

The essay proper begins with a question: “Where do we find ourselves?” Emerson immediately answers this dramatic query by telling the reader that “we” are in a “series,” the exact length of which we do not know. We “wake” into experience, somehow already in the midst of it but unable to understand exactly how we got there. Emerson uses the metaphor of sleep: the “Genius” who, according to an unnamed “old belief,” shepherds us into reality, gave us a sleeping potion but made the drink a little too strong. So human beings have a kind of metaphorical “lethargy” about them, with the result that “all things swim and glitter” as in a dream, and the rules and logic governing experience are not clear.

Another feature of the human condition is that people seem to lack “the affirmative principle” by which they can bring “new creation” into the world. People have enough energy to live but not “to impart or to invest” in the world. “Ah that our Genius were a little more  of a genius!” Emerson laments. He compares people to millers whose mills are stationed low down on a river, where the current is weak because factories higher up have slowed down the flow. Human beings, in other words, are born already sleepy and exhausted when they come into the world.

Human beings, Emerson claims, have difficulty understanding the relationship of their daily experience to the sum total of their lives. This is particularly clear in the case of work and productivity. When people think that they are “indolent,” they discover that afterward they were, in fact, productive. Every day seems unproductive, and it is unclear when and where we attained “wisdom, poetry, virtue.” Emerson suggests, facetiously, that the gods “intercalated” some “heavenly days” in which people achieve such good and noble things. For on the whole, “our life looks trivial,” and even martyrs, lovers, and adventurers seem mundane when we encounter them.

The excitement and romance of life seems to come not in actual experience, but instead in expectation and in retelling. Farmers always think that another man has a more fertile field (i.e., the grass is always greener on the other side), and it seems to be “the trick of nature […] to degrade to-day.” Reality is always elsewhere. People spend so much of their time in routine, in anticipation, and in memory, that “each man’s genius contracts itself to a very few hours,” and even the greatest literature is “a sum of very few ideas, and of very few original tales.” In all of human culture, Emerson sees “very few spontaneous actions,” very few genuinely creative and independent acts of the will or imagination. Most of behavior is dictated by custom and “gross sense,” something like received wisdom or common sense.

One result of the restriction of most human life to the banal and the mundane is that people hunger for real experience. Even disaster seems to be softened by a kind of “opium,” and the Greek goddess of retribution, the Ate Dea, seems to come “with tender feet treading so soft.” As a result, people seek real experience, the “sharp peaks and edges of truth,” in suffering and grief. Emerson, who lost his son Waldo in 1842, speaks from personal experience when he claims that, instead of bringing him to “reality,” grief has only revealed itself to be shallow. Like every other aspect of experience, it “plays about the surface,” and does not permit contact with reality. Emerson cites a scientist’s theory that physical bodies never truly touch one another, and extends this principle to human souls, which, he claims, “never touch their objects.” Even though we may get close, there is in fact an “innavigable sea” between subject and object.

The result is that losing a son was, for Emerson, not altogether different than losing a beautiful estate or learning that people who owed him money would not be able to pay back their debt: it would be an “inconvenience” but would not essentially change him. He explains that a “calamity” like losing his son “does not touch [him].” Emerson had thought his son was a part of him, connected to his soul in some direct way, but says that in reality Waldo “falls off from me, and leaves no scar.” Even the events that seem most important to one in life are like rain that slides off one’s raincoat.

The only real thing that can happen to a person—that can actually affect one’s soul—is death. People might be able to derive a certain satisfaction from contemplating death, because it is the only even which one cannot “dodge.” Otherwise, in most of life, people do not really make contact with reality. “Nature does not like to be observed,” keeping her workings hidden from humans; instead of her peers, humans are nature’s “fools and playmates.” All “direct strokes” one makes with reality are accidents. As a result, people can only ever really interact in an “oblique and casual” way.

 “Dream delivers us to dream, and there is no end to illusion” as life moves along through a “train of moods like a string of beads.” In Emerson’s metaphor, these beads—each an individual mood or disposition—act as “many-colored lenses which pain the world their own hue.” One’s mood, in other words, determines how one experiences reality. The result is that “nature and books belong to the eyes that see them”: reality and art are always experienced in a subjective way.

Whether or not one experiences the beauty of a poem or a sunset depends upon one’s “structure or temperament,” which Emerson compares to the “iron wire” on which the beads of individual moods are strung. One’s temperament determines the “actual horizon” of one’s experience: whether or not one will actually be receptive to certain kinds of experiences, like beauty or suffering. This is a fundamentally troubling thought, Emerson admits, but it is the reason why some young people who are so gifted seem never to fulfill their potential, either dying young or never distinguishing themselves from the “crowd.”

Since it colors and therefore predetermines all of human experience, temperament is partially responsible for the fact that individual experiences are illusions, and not reality itself. This has implications for social life, namely that every person one encounters presents a kind of “optical illusion.” That person appears to be independent and autonomous, but in reality his or her behavior is predetermined by his or her “individual texture,” and the same is true for oneself. The “optical illusion,” Emerson suggests, affects all parties, not just the observer: even if a person resolves to act morally, for example, or to improve him- or herself, at the end of the day his or her temperament will determine the “measure of activity and of enjoyment” thereof that actually takes place. The power of temperament is one of the reasons that any efforts to predict human behavior through science—such as physics or, more absurdly, phrenology, the prediction of human behavior through the shape of the skull—will ultimately fail. The phrenologists are guilty of the grossest kind of “impudent knowingness” when they claim to understand human behavior.

But in reality, Emerson suggests, the true value of social interaction lies in the very unpredictability of the person one encounters, the “inscrutable possibilities” that life presents one in the form of another person. Emerson contrasts the presumptuous and ultimately arrogant approach of the physicians with his own openness to the unpredictability of others, which he views as a manifestation of divine creative energy. Every “intelligence” has a “door which is never closed, through which the creator passes.” Even though most of human life is absorbed in the mundane, there are moments in which the intellect makes contact with “absolute truth” and the heart makes contact with “absolute good.” In these moments, one shakes free of the “ineffectual struggles” of human life calls the “nightmare” that is subjective experience.

Emerson explains that the “secret” of the illusory nature of reality is the fact that the “succession of moods or objects” is necessary for human beings. Humans want to “anchor” themselves in some stable reality, but “the anchorage is quicksand.” There are moments in which things seem stable and stationary, but they are in fact moving, just like the stars in the sky. Movement is a necessary part of human experience because human beings themselves are constantly changing. Just as the body requires circulation, so the mind requires “variety.” Emerson cites his own experience of reading. He used to think that he would never tire of reading Montaigne. But before reading Montaigne he had had the same thought about Shakespeare, and before that Plutarch, and so on. Similarly, certain paintings capture one’s attention for a moment, but then the “emphasis of attention” shifts. Emerson uses the example of the child who asks his mother why the story she told last night was less pleasurable upon the second hearing. The answer to the question is that the child, like every person, was born a “whole,” and the story is a “particular”: that the story stays the same while the human being changes. Once someone understands this, it becomes clear that human relationships are also fleeting, since people and their affections constantly shift.

Just as the story was a “particular,” rather than a changing human whole, like the child who listened to it, so do other people seem to be “representatives of certain ideas, which they never pass or exceed.” One always experiences others as constant, as having a particular and stable nature with particular and stable abilities and talents. Emerson compares them to a piece of rock (Labrador spar), that looks uninteresting until the light hits it a certain way and it shines. Successful people are able to make this talent evident to others often, and therefore do not appear useless to others too much of the time.

Fortunately, many different kinds of people are necessary in society, so that on the whole people are able to cooperate productively and accomplish what they need to do. Considered as a whole, “divinity” is responsible for both the good and the bad, the useful and the useless, in society and in individuals. The “Power” of divinity hops from person to person the way a bird jumps from branch to branch in a tree. Sometimes divinity manifests in one person, sometimes in another, hence the importance of being open when interacting with others.

In general, Emerson writes, humans can only get so far through intellect and reason. In the end, “life is not dialectics,” and reason, critical thinking, and analysis promise more than they can actually deliver. “Culture  […] ends in head-ache,” because the human capacity to shape reality is limited. So, instead of attempting to plan one’s life, “go about your business anywhere,” Emerson preaches. “Life is not intellectual or critical, but sturdy,” something that is experienced through body as well as mind.

Reality itself is indifferent to human efforts, so one should concentrate on the present, on what one is experiencing in the here and now, finding “the journey’s end in every step of the road.” True wisdom is maximizing the number of  “good hours,” rather than trying to make one’s life into a glorious unity or attempting to ensure salvation in the afterlife. Adopting the tone of a preaching, Emerson tells his readers that since “our office is with moments, let us husband them,” treating our time as if it was an end in and of itself, and treating other people as if they were real, because “perhaps they are.” People “do broad justice where we are” and treat everyone, regardless of status, with respect, accepting our “actual companions and circumstances” rather than wishing for better things.

Expressing contempt for the urbane “fine young people” who “despise life,” Emerson declares that he values the present, and “the potluck of the day.” He is thankful for “small mercies” rather than holding out for big accomplishments or seemingly profound experiences. Unlike his friend, who “expects everything of the universe,” Emerson achieves contentment through expecting nothing of the world and accepting the “clangor and jangle of contrary tendencies” in his experience. Emerson claims that if people see the good in what they have, they will be happy. They should not think too hard about their experience, because “the great gifts are not got by analysis” and everything good is “on the highway,” had in actual experience rather than in thoughts. In general, the mean between rational thought and sensual experience is the “temperate zone” of the soul, the place “of life, of thought, of spirit, of poetry.”

Emerson generalizes his claim about the value of the middle zone between extremes to the realm of art. The best paintings are not the rarest, but rather the great paintings easily accessible in the great museums of the Vatican, the Uffizi, or the Louvre, and the natural art one can see in every sunset and sunrise, or in every human body. Similarly, Emerson prefers the literary classics, rather than the newest or the most learned works. Human imagination thrills at the exotic, and looks for the “nooks and secrets.” But the most unusual people, animals, and art are not essentially different than their normal, easily accessible counterparts.

Everyone and everything is merely a transient presence on earth. This means that no person or animal has privileged access to the world. Therefore, in the self and in art, the “mid-world is best.” Saint is not essentially different from sinner, foreigner no different than native. Emerson also argues that the transience of all things in life means that people should be wary of religions or laws that emphasize the future above all. Emerson wishes to “set up the strong present tense” against all “rumors of wrath.”. Similarly, Emerson disregards arguments about copyright, which were under debate at the time of writing, as well as other property laws concerned with futurity. Instead of concerning oneself with such questions, Emerson urges to “dig away in your garden” and enjoy life and property while one still can.

Human life is a delicate balance between “power and form.” At first glance, the scholar, the artist, the orator, and the poet appear to be unbalanced, their arts like a “disease.” But they become that way as a result of “irresistible nature.” Each person who reads could become a writer, each person who looks at a sculpture could become a sculptor Each person is a “golden impossibility,” his or her destiny determined by the very fine balance that nature has established in his or her soul.

This balance may easily be upset by a random event or encounter. One’s entire worldview may change as a result—only to revert to its former state the next day. The important point is that everything is out of one’s control. Power s not directed by the “turnpikes of choice and will.” Humanity’s efforts to direct this power, through medicine or physics or diplomacy, are in vain.

Life is ultimately a “series of surprises,” the mechanics of which are hidden from individuals. Everything interesting and worthwhile comes as a result of chance. Nature “hates calculators,” who try to predict the future, and instead is “saltatory and alterative.” In the same way, the human mind is only creative in bursts and is not consistent. Human beings “thrive by casualties,” by chance not by intention. This is why the most admirable kind of people, according to Emerson, are those whose genius is not the intentional result of effort or calculation.

Human actions—like nature—are essentially obscure to the observer. Hence every human being, simply by being unpredictable and by bringing randomness and chance into the world, manifests a kind of creative genius, since “every man is an impossibility, until he is born; every thing impossible, until we see a success.” Every action represents the activity of forces that are hidden to humans, including writing. Therefore in virtually all areas, it is impossible to predict what will happen in the future—what one will create or do or how one will feel or think—for “the individual is always mistaken.”

The ancients understood the limitations of human knowledge, and hence elevated Chance into a god. This, however, only captures a small part of the wonder of the universe, just the creative spark and not the full “miracle of life,” which occurs in growth. Emerson compares the growth of the soul to the development of the human embryo, occurring along several dimensions simultaneously. It is impossible for the subject to understand the many, seemingly contradictory elements of him- or herself and experience, but there is an order, a “musical perfection” that obtains in the seeming dissonance. The “ideal” is always governing experience, revealing itself in chance encounters with great souls or in random experiences of the beauty of nature. In these moments one experiences the beauty of the world like “the sunbright Mecca of the desert,” as a “new yet unapproachable America” filled with promise.

Emerson now corrects his definition of life as a “flux of moods” by adding the constant element of “consciousness.” Consciousness operates on a “sliding scale,” sometimes identified with the embodied experience of the subject and sometimes identified with the First Cause. This is called by many names (Fortune, Minerva, the Muse, the Holy Ghost, etc.). All refer to the “unbounded substance” that defies naming but is felt to be at the beating heart of the subject and the world more broadly. Emerson catalogues ancient attempts to pinpoint this First Cause: Thales called it water, Anaximenes called it air, Anaxagoras called it nous or “mind,” Zoroaster called it fire, and Jesus called it love. Emerson includes in his catalogue Mencius’s “vast-flowing vigor.” All of these are attempts to name Being, Emerson claims.

All of these metaphors for Being, according to Emerson, get at one’s sense that human life is only the hint of something greater. What is greatest about human behavior, it seems, is the great potential that it suggests. The “universal impulse to believe” is not restricted to one particular religious creed or doctrine but is something that has to do with the nature of the human spirit as it manifests in each individual. Individuals manifest their spirit in their actions, and hence do not need to explain themselves in language. Wherever one may be, that person is able to communicate with his or her friends through a mystical spiritual connection; Emerson claims that he himself “exert[s] the same quality of power in all places.” Human life cannot be described by any set of religious beliefs, but instead always pushes outward, toward the “ideal.” Any philosophy must take into account the way the human spirit evolves.

Emerson now takes a step back and considers the nature of the thought that he has been describing.. Self-consciousness, he claims, was the real “Fall” from grace. Before humans were conscious of their own existence, there was no difference between subject and object: people were not conscious of the boundaries of the self. Now, however, the human subject is aware that it is separate from objects and “threatens to absorb all things,” reveling in its power to do so. God, Nature, literature—all are recognized as subjective phenomena.

What Emerson is describing is a kind of relativism, in which there is no such thing as a hierarchy of values. His tone is not entirely critical as he describes the way in which the proud are humiliated because their pretensions to superiority seem ridiculous from Emerson’s philosophical viewpoint. Similarly, religious definitions of good and bad are revealed to be nothing else than subjective definitions. Seemingly sacred human relationships, like friendship or even marriage, are no more stable than the changing individuals who take part in them.

Each individual is the “receiver of Godhead,” manifesting a creative power that prevents him or her from being a static, stable partner in a social interaction. This divine force has the effect of isolating individuals, preventing love from occurring between two individuals because they are always striving to grow and to change. “The universe is the bride of the soul,” and the union between two individual souls is only temporary.

Every soul, then, is a unity and cannot accommodate the existence of other souls, “admitting no co-life.” The individual operates under belief that it is the only true soul. This is one of the reasons, Emerson suggests, that people are able to tolerate in themselves the moral flaws and crimes that they condemn in others. Subjectively, one understands the complex motivations that lead to a person acting one way or another. One cannot really feel oneself to be guilty of a crime. This is why it is difficult or maybe even impossible for an individual to understand a concept like sin. Sin has “an objective experience, but no subjective.” It is a projection, but, like “crime,” a category projected from the outside.

This relativism applies to everything, for the entire universe “wear[s] our color” and every object “fall[s]” into the experiencing subject. Experience occurs in a subject—it is experienced by a subject—and therefore everything in it only really exists for the subject. The limits of the self are the limits of the world and the limits of language. Great souls—the Greek gods Hermes and Cadmus, Columbus, Newton, Napoleon—are like geologists who reveal new areas of the soul: they show what the soul is capable of. Their “partial action” in a certain direction expands their soul in a certain way, hence shining the light for others to follow suit. The soul will achieve its “due sphericity” when it has been similarly expanded in every direction.

That said, the experience of great individuals, pushing outward the frontiers of the soul, is not fundamentally different than the experience of normal people or even animals. Emerson uses the example of a cat playing with its tail (an example famously employed in one of Emerson’s favorite books, Montaigne’s Essays). An observer sees the cat playing, but perhaps the cat sees “hundreds of figures performing complex dramas” or all types. Maybe the human is similarly isolated, and the hurly-burly of life is just the projection of one’s mind. Emerson concludes by remarking that all experience, no matter how grand—when Columbus encountered America, Kepler observed the planets, a reader reads a book, or even when a cat plays with its tail—is structurally the same. Experience is always nothing more and nothing less than the interaction of a subject and object.

Emerson acknowledges that certain people will not appreciate his insistence on “our constitutional necessity of seeing things under private aspects, or saturated with our humors,” particularly those who are religious. In response to the potentially destabilizing force of this relativism, one must develop “self-trust,” and people must “possess [their] axis more firmly.” One must discover one’s own wisdom, rather than simply inheriting it from others, or adopting the moral code of a religion. The best way to help other people is to first help oneself, because just as one possesses the key to one’s self-mastery, so do others possess their own key. This is why the American tendency to talk and listen to everyone may do more harm than good.

Emerson uses the example of Orestes, in Aeschylus’s tragedy the Eumenides. The Greek hero petitions Apollo for help, but the god refuses because he does not belong to the human sphere and ultimately must fulfill his fate, rather than simply pitying Orestes.

Emerson explains that all of the elements he has been discussing—reality as a kind of illusion, temperament as the defining feature of experience, the inability of humans to go beyond the surfaces of things, the importance of surprise and the unexpected—are “threads on the loom of time.” Emerson explains that these are “the lords of life” mentioned in the epigraph. But Emerson cannot do anything more than report them: he is not wise enough to order them into a “code.” The “fruit,” then, of his inquiry is limited to a kind of moderation, a stoic reserve. “I am and I have,” Emerson writes, “but I do not get.” Fortune governs life.

Some people say that doing is better than knowing. But if Emerson is able truly to know what he has described in “Experience,” he will be satisfied. Modeling the kind of self-trust he describes earlier, Emerson tells the reader that his experience of reality is not reality itself. He will temper his experience in life—the seeming impossibility of getting anything accomplished, or of effecting change in politics—with the philosophical insights he has described in the essay. He will remind himself that, even though life is mostly filled with mundane routines and trivial social interactions, there are moments of solitude when the individual channels the divine force of creation. These moments give the individual a taste of what might eventually happen at the end of “the true romance which the world exists to realize”: the “transformation of genius into practical power,” a mystical transcendence of human limitation.