{"id":172929,"date":"2020-12-21T12:00:52","date_gmt":"2020-12-21T12:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=172929"},"modified":"2020-11-16T07:29:26","modified_gmt":"2020-11-16T07:29:26","slug":"walt-whitman-on-what-makes-a-great-person-and-what-wisdom-really-means","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2020\/12\/walt-whitman-on-what-makes-a-great-person-and-what-wisdom-really-means\/","title":{"rendered":"Walt Whitman on What Makes a Great Person and What Wisdom Really Means"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\u201cThe past, the future, majesty, love \u2014 if they are vacant of you, you are vacant of them.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Twenty-four centuries after Pythagoras contemplated the purpose of life and the meaning of wisdom<\/a> as he coined the word philosopher<\/em> to mean \u201clover of wisdom,\u201d Walt Whitman<\/strong> (May 31, 1819\u2013March 26, 1892) contemplated the meaning of personhood and the measure of wisdom as he revolutionized the word poet<\/em> to stand for \u201clover of life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tucked toward the end of his ever-foliating Leaves of Grass<\/em><\/a> is what might be his most musical poem \u2014 a sweeping thirteen-page symphony of thought and feeling and rhythm in language, undulating across three distinct thematic movements: the carefree optimism of embarking upon a new path; the transcendent self-discovery in traversing new landscapes of beauty and possibility; and the transcendence of the self in connecting with something larger than oneself: nature, time and space, love. Whitman himself considered it his \u201cmystic and indirect chant of aspiration toward a noble life\u201d and \u201ca vehement demand to reach the very highest point that the human soul is capable of attaining.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/a>

Art by Marianne C. Cook from a rare 1913 edition of Walt Whitman\u2019s Leaves of Grass.<\/p><\/div><\/figure>\n

For his remaining decades, Whitman lived in it and with it for, changing its title from the humble \u201cPoem of the Road\u201d in the first 1856 edition to the wanderlustful \u201cSong of the Open Road\u201d in 1867, fine-tuning the verses again and again, mapping the poem\u2019s 224 lines into fifteen numbered sections by the final edition in the winter of his life.<\/p>\n

The second movement of the lyric symphony peaks at the sixth section, erupting with Whitman\u2019s most direct and life-tested hypothesis about what makes a great person and what wisdom really means. It augurs his hard-earned wisdom on what makes life worth living<\/a>, at which he would arrive half a lifetime later while recovering from a paralytic stroke. It echoes the famous prose-meditation on the key to a vibrant and rewarding life<\/a>, with which he introduced Leaves of Grass<\/em> as a young man. It hums, surefooted and sonorous, as a kind of blessing song for the road of life.<\/p>\n

Now I see the secret of the making of the best persons,
\nIt is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth.<\/p>\n

Here a great personal deed has room,
\n(Such a deed seizes upon the hearts of the whole race of men,
\nIts effusion of strength and will overwhelms law and mocks all authority and all argument against it.)<\/p>\n

Here is the test of wisdom,
\nWisdom is not finally tested in schools,
\nWisdom cannot be pass\u2019d from one having it to another not having it,
\nWisdom is of the soul, is not susceptible of proof, is its own proof,
\nApplies to all stages and objects and qualities and is content,
\nIs the certainty of the reality and immortality of things, and the excellence of things;
\nSomething there is in the float of the sight of things that provokes it out of the soul.
\nNow I re-examine philosophies and religions,
\nThey may prove well in lecture-rooms, yet not prove at all under the spacious clouds and along the landscape and flowing currents.<\/p>\n

Here is realization,
\nHere is a man tallied \u2014 he realizes here what he has in him,
\nThe past, the future, majesty, love \u2014 if they are vacant of you, you are vacant of them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Complement with Whitman on optimism as a mighty force of resistance<\/a>, what it takes to be an agent of change<\/a>, how to keep criticism from sinking your soul<\/a>, and women\u2019s centrality to democracy<\/a>, then revisit a beautiful reading from his furthest-seeing, deepest-feeling poem<\/a>.<\/p>\n

_______________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

Maria Popova <\/em><\/p>\n

Brain Pickings is the brain child of Maria Popova, an interestingness hunter-gatherer and curious mind at large obsessed with combinatorial creativity who also writes for <\/em>Wired UK and<\/em> The Atlantic, among others, and is an MIT Futures of Entertainment Fellow. She has gotten occasional help from a handful of guest contributors<\/a>. Email: brainpicker@brainpickings.org<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 brainpickings.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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