At the bottom of the abyss between us lies the profound truth that being a unique individual is inherently distinct from what anyone else may perceive. This realization underscores one of life’s most challenging lessons: we cannot love, scold, coax, or persuade someone out of their personal suffering or into their potential; we cannot guide another person’s journey of becoming. While our lives may run in parallel, at the core, we experience existence in solitude, within the private realm of self, our consciousness resembling a Möbius strip, folded within itself. Our personal growth is the most intimate and significant endeavor we undertake.
Walt Whitman (May 31, 1819–March 26, 1892) transformed this private journey into public art, with his poetry resonating across time due to its deeply personal roots. Filled with existential loneliness yet connected to every aspect of life, he dedicated himself to writing and refining Leaves of Grass — a testament to his evolution — consistently reaching for the reader and embracing his own identity.
While Nietzsche was cautioning from across the Atlantic that “no one can build you the bridge on which you, and only you, must cross the river of life,” Whitman was grappling with the responsibility of one’s own life. In one of his poems, he asserts:
No one can acquire for another — not one,
Not one can grow for another — not one.
The song is to the singer, and comes back most to him,
The teaching is to the teacher, and comes back most to him,
The murder is to the murderer, and comes back most to him,
The theft is to the thief, and comes back most to him,
The love is to the lover, and comes back most to him,
The gift is to the giver, and comes back most to him — it cannot fail.
Resonating with Hermann Hesse’s belief that “no prophet or teacher can relieve you of the need to look within,” Whitman calls us to listen to the singular voice of our own becoming amidst the noise of the world:
Underneath the lessons of things, spirits, Nature, governments,
ownerships, I swear I perceive other lessons,
Underneath all to me is myself, to you yourself.
He encapsulates this ultimate truth of existence in the closing lines of “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” — a masterpiece and one of the most profound reflections on time. He insists that one must abide “no master, owner, better, God, beyond what waits intrinsically in yourself,” observing that at life’s end, we all inevitably confront…
…the part that still looks back on the actor or actress,
The same old role, the role that is what we make it, as great as we like,
Or as small as we like, or both great and small.
A generation later, another of the world’s most original poets would articulate the best manifesto for the courage to be yourself.
Complement your reading with Virginia Woolf on how to hear your soul and Marion Milner’s excellent field guide to self-possession inspired by Woolf, then revisit Whitman on what makes a great person and how to keep criticism from sinking your soul.
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