Jay Woods: Reliance Vs. Self-Reliance

Being Together While We’re Apart

Because we all miss our Fondren family, here are our Sequester Stories—a series of stories and photos by Fondren folks sharing what our “pandemic lives” are about.

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Mary Jo and Jay Woods

There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried. 

— Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance

My last regular day in Room 324, Building A of the Mississippi Department of Information Technology Services agency, was March 16. During the tedious, two-minute commute home I pondered what we should have for dinner, whether I remembered to turn off my computer, whether I should renew my online subscription to the Clarion Ledger . . . and how I would spend my time now that I had just been freed from the confines of my fluorescent office cell. 

Seeking inspiration, I thought of Emerson and his famous essay, “Self-Reliance," in which he implores each of us to pursue our own creative genius. Not knowing how long this emancipation would last, I immediately and relentlessly set out to answer Emerson’s distant yet compelling call and . . . well . . . the results are below – a photo essay titled, Reliance vs. Self-Reliance.

Jay’s art and music recommendations:

Wassily Kandinsky >> Click to Learn More

The Butchart Gardens >> Click to Learn More

Thich Nhat Hanh >> Click to Learn More

Baruch Spinoza >> Click to Learn More

Van Morrison's "Enlightenment" on YouTube >> Listen on YouTube