Self-Reliance - What would Ralph say about Malibu and the Fin Whale?

Ralph Waldo Emerson in his essay "Self-Reliance" wrote:

“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." 

Emerson also wrote: "[R]eliance on Property, including the reliance on governments which protect it, is the want of self-reliance."

Self-Reliance is a word people in Malibu know well.  

This past week Malibu was self-reliant again when a group of citizen's figured out how to do what someone in Government said couldn't be done - that is to move the dead beached dead whale out to sea.

With natural disasters on the rise, is it time that we all think about how we can rely, not on Government, but on oneself and community?

The Fin Whale tale is another example of how Government, for whatever reason, can't always act quickly and get the job done.

Self-Reliance seems like a stronger and better word than Government.  Don't believe me?  Ask Matt Haines and his friends who saved their homes during the 2007 fire storm.