Insist on yourself

For a good little stretch the theme a Goat Rope has been the life and thought of 19th century American writer Ralph Waldo Emerson. Here's one last bit of advice from his signature essay Self Reliance:

Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation; but of the adopted talent of another, you have only an extemporaneous, half possession. That which each can do best, none but his Maker can teach him. No man yet knows what it is, nor can, till that person has exhibited it. Where is the master who could have taught Shakespeare?  Where is the master who could have instructed Franklin, or Washington, or Bacon, or Newton? Every great man is a unique. The Scipionism of Scipio is precisely that part he could not borrow. Shakespeare will never be made by the study of Shakespeare  Do that which is assigned you, and you cannot hope too much or dare too much.

JUST DO IT. Yesterday, nearly 200 West Virginians gathered to urge Governor Tomblin to expand Medicaid coverage to low wage workers.

AND WHILE WE'RE AT IT, here's Krugman on the same topic.

PERCHANCE TO DREAM. Scientists are making progress at decoding dreams. Where will this end?

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED