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Do you like a good lecture? Really? Well aren't you the rare bird. [Professor lectures]

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Well, you would have loved Ralph Waldo Emerson. [Finger points to Emerson] For 50 years, people turned out

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in droves to listen to the man known as "the Sage of Concord," and "the Grand [people talking]

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Poobah of Transcendentalism," drone on and on about us all sorts of different [Emerson lectures]

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subjects. Well, Emerson was born in Boston in 1803 to a Unitarian minister and his [Emerson with father]

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wife. Unfortunately, the Grim Reaper slashed away at Emerson's family until [Grim reaper with family]

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only he, his mother, and three of the siblings were left. Yeah, this reaper guy

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was a real jerk. Well, death couldn't keep Emerson away from Harvard, however, or [Emerson at Harvard]

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from taking up the family profession of Unitarian minister. By 1829, he was a [Emerson preaches]

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married man with his very own pulpit in Boston. Yep, he talked about God in Harvard [Emerson with wife]

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Yard. Sadly, Mrs. Emerson died of--what was it? Oh yes, tuberculosis... less than two [Emerson at wife's grave]

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years after the wedding, and her poor left-behind husband began to have

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serious doubts about the divine. Emerson stopped preaching and took off on a road [Emerson travels globe]

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trip to Europe. Well, shortly after his return to the states, he gave his first

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lecture and a public speaking star was born. In 1836, Emerson was remarried and

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living in Concord, Massachusetts along with a bunch of other free thinkers. It [Emerson with new wife and friends]

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was here that he wrote "Nature," an essay all about how the universal spirit manifests [Emerson and "Nature"]

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itself in the great outdoors. According to Emersonm you didn't need a church in

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order to commune with God. You just needed some trees. So God really is [God is in nature]

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everywhere, got it? In 1841, Emerson published an essay entitled

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"Self-Reliance." He argued that the best thing a person could do was to trust

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their instinct to do what was right. Guess he never interviewed anyone from the [Emerson has cake]

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Westboro Baptist Church. Emerson's critics ask, what if a person was of a

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naughty persuasion? Like, what if his instinct was to steal a buggy, or punch [Person questions Emerson]

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an old lady, or straight-up murder the guy who cut in front of him in line? [People do bad things]

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Should he actually do those things? Well, it was a loophole in Emerson's thinking

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that he never actually addressed even though he lived in another, uh, 40-ish

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years... but you know, people get busy. Emerson continued to be an enormously [Emerson speaks]

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popular public speaker until 1875, when it became obvious that he was losing his

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marbles. He left public life, and in 1882, kicked the bucket... or however you'd like [Foot kicks bucket for metaphor]

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to say "he died" more poetically. Emerson had his faults--he could get so stuck on

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himself and his theories that he would act like a jerk to those around him. He was [Emerson gloats]

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kind of insecure. But he also served as an inspiration to Americans by telling us

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that, hey, individualism and independence and character traits are worth

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embracing. Yeah, better to end on a high note and on that jerk thing. [Finger points to high note]

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