To conform is to neglect one’s intuition. In moments of weakness, I have resulted to conform to society’s standards. Luckily, these moments have been brief since I discovered the displeasure that results from conformity. This approach, the suppressing of one’s intuition and nature, is the more convenient way to live life… but should we conform for the mere reason of convenience? Ralph Waldo Emerson highlights the cost of nonconformity in his essay Self-Reliance, where he states that “for nonconformity, the world whips you with displeasure.” In a world where society upholds fixed expectations and conspires against “the manhood of every one of its members,” Emerson emphatically stresses that one must practice self-reliance: the ability to Not only was Thoreau’s take on simplicity enlightening, but I also found that I identified with his philosophies on nature. Thoreau counselled that to truly live, you must “resign yourself to the influence of the earth.” In his book Walden, he recounts the two years he spent isolated from society at Walden Pond. He says of the experience, “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” {Because of Thoreau’s devotion to a life in nature, it is no surprise that he concerned himself with understanding science as well. He identified that the way we understand and represent nature can be done both scientifically and aesthetically, a philosophy that very much coincides with my own. I have come to embrace the fact that I stand out in every environment I find myself in. Growing up as a Finn in Utah, I felt much too European for America. When I moved to Oxford at the age of fourteen, I expected to fit right in… only to find that _____. The transition from Utah to Oxford was difficult, and school was a completely different ordeal from what I was accustomed to. Somehow trusting my intuition, I decided to leave school and study online independently. From over three years of studying alone in an advanced programme, I have become highly independent and academically motivated; a trait I fear many of my peers lack. Homeschool has taught me to value education at its core… education isn’t simply showing up to school to be spoon-fed
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