SELF-RELIANCE

Somewhere along the line someone spotted a postcard - with our family name on it - along with our family coat of arms - along with our family motto.  They sent it to me.  

I wasn't in on the drafting of the shield, or the motto or the coat of arms.  I didn't even know we had a coat of arms.  My mom described where she came from in Ballynahown, Ireland, "Ireland has nothing." I saw the spot - on Galway Bay - as not that hot.

And my father used to say that he was within a rock's throw of where my mom was from. 

Asked to translating the Latin on the coat of arms, I said it means something like,  "Don't be searching for yourself, outside yourself." 

"Quaeseveris" is the only tricky word of the 4 words in the motto.  The quest, the seeking, the searching, the asking is at the heart of the motto.

"Quaeseveris" is the 2nd person perfect active subjunctive of the verb "quaero". It means questing,  as indicated, asking,  seeking, inquiring, requiring. 

I would like to translate it  as: "Be who you is, because if you  be who you're not, then you're not who you is."

Ralph Waldo Emerson calls this "Self-Reliance."

Here is Emerson's famous lecture on Self-Reliance. Just hit the triangle on the button.