Ralph Waldo Emerson's "The American Scholar"

     While reading "The American Scholar," I began to question how I go about thinking.  Emerson says that a scholar in the right state is "Man Thinking," but "in the degenerate state, when the victim of society, he tends to become a mere thinker, or, still worse, the parrot of other men's thinking" (521).  As I thought about this idea of being a "parrot of other men's [or women's] thinking," I began to question if I do that myself.  It's easy to take what people say and apply it without question, especially when their ideas sound attractive.  However, this can be problematic, because then we ourselves are not going through the process of learning but taking the short cut after someone else has already done the hard stuff.  And ideas may sound attractive but actually be destructive, which is why we need to apply our critical thinking to formulate our own opinions.  I don't think it's a bad thing to be influenced by the work of others, as long as we don't become blind followers.
     Along with this idea of being a parrot vs. being "Man Thinking," I thought about how we strive to find our identities as human beings.  When someone asks me about myself, I immediately tell them what I do.  It's unfamiliar and seemingly impossible to describe who we are apart from what we do.  Why is that?  I wonder if it is cultural, or if others struggle with the same thing.  Are we so caught up in our work as Americans that we don't know who we really are?  Or is it not possible to separate what we do from who we are?  These are not simply rhetorical questions, I am open to opinions and suggestions! :)