Escape into Meaning: Essays on Superman, Public Benches, and Other Obsessions

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When it comes to collections of essays, it's either hit or miss for me. I either detest them or love them enough to recommend to friends. There's no middle ground.

While some found the speech compelling, many were scandalized by Emerson’s radical individualism. It threatened the core of their faith. For Emerson, Jesus was someone who had the courage to seek the infinite in himself, and his example should have been an inspiration for the rest of us to do the same. Instead, Christianity adopted a “vulgar tone of preaching” that commands its followers to “subordinate your nature to Christ’s nature,” that speaks of “revelation as somewhat long ago given and done, as if God were dead.” To Emerson, everything necessary for revelation is available here and now, in nature, in us. God isn’t a “vaunting, overpowering, excluding sanctity, but a sweet, natural goodness.” When Emerson found me, I was barely lukewarm, but the result was the same. Everything I’ve written since that afternoon in Kenmore, including this book, I owe to his inspiration. “The man is only half himself,” he writes in “The Poet,”“the other half is his expression.” More than a decade ago, Emerson helped me with the first part. The second is his work in progress.I haven’t endured such a loss, but in these words I feel the bitter apathy of Emerson’s heart. Experience should teach us something. Wisdom should be the compensation for failure and loss: “To know a little, would be worth the expense of this world.” But this grief is empty. The only thing it can teach is that it doesn’t, which is the coldest comfort. “The dearest events are summer rain,” he declares, “and we the Para coats that shed every drop.” Puschak has a very succinct and eloquent way with his arguments and his research is always impeccable. He’s also a rare sort of philosopher these days in that he doesn’t want to just analyze the external things he’s most passionate about or wants to hold accountable in society, he wants to analyze and hold himself accountable as well. Producer, editor, and writer behind the highly addictive, informative, and popular YouTube channel The Nerdwriter, Evan Puschak presents an unconventional and whip-smart essay collection about topics as varied as Superman, politics, and public benches.

When Emerson found me, I was barely lukewarm, but the result was the same. Everything I’ve written since that afternoon in Kenmore, including this book, I owe to his inspiration. “The man is only half himself,” he writes in “The Poet,” “the other half is his expression.” More than a decade ago, Emerson helped me with the first part. The second is his work in progress.

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In the years before its 1836 release, Emerson served as a junior pastor at a Unitarian church in Boston, but quit the ministry after just three years. He’d grown increasingly frustrated with the Church’s teaching, believing it to be stale and doctrinaire, so he started to develop his own philosophy. You can hear Emerson’s frustrations in the essay’s opening lines: The title, in retrospect, seems to be ironic as one of the things Puschak states is that he doesn't believe there is any meaning to anything. Except of course what we might create ourselves. I also enjoyed the first essay, which explores education vs. enthusiasm for learning. The rest of the essays varied, the one on Superman reading to me like a guy's take on Superman, and I didn't finish the one on Seinfeld--I tried twice to watch some of the show, but both times got to where this loud, boring guy mansplained at the top of his lungs to a captive audience and I flipped the channel both times. I tried reading the essay but nothing engaged me in the opening graphs, so I moved on.