On Walden
In 1845, Henry David Thoreau, that impertinent, cantankerous, vegetarian idealist and early steward of nature that we so dearly love and admire, decided to leave the society of his town of Concord, MA, for the sublime experience of a fully self-dependent life out in the forest. He was but a mile and some away from his home town, and the sounds (and sights) of locomotive trade and travel came to him through the woods. He also entertained many a visitor, both the expected and the uninvited, and waxed philosophical on a myriad of subjects touching on all aspects of contemporary New England society. For two years he carried on this existence, having built a humble but sufficient cabin by lake Walden, fruit of his own labor, and striving to provide as many necessaries as possible from his very own hands. The result of this undertaking is a 200-plus page manifesto on the existential journey required of any person fit to call themselves a member of the human race.
Thoreau’s separation from society was of course as much a mental exercise as it was physical. Though the remoteness of his cabin may be questionable, his self-distancing from the customs and obligations of the quotidian New England lifestyle offered the ideal environment in which to ponder the trivialities of the common citizen’s existence, and proselytize on the foundations of a righteous and self-fulfilling life. Thoreau takes aim at the places of residence and the division of labor that defines the lives of his fellow Concord townsmen, asking
“Who knows but if men constructed their dwellings with their own hands, and provided food for themselves and families simply and honestly enough, the poetic faculty would be universally developed, as birds universally sing when they are so engaged?”
He offers an age-old recipe for bread-making, originally inscribed by Cato, tallies the cost and materials used in his home-building, his farming inputs and outputs (he manages to make a small profit after his work is done and his meals satisfied), the tools necessary to a hermit-like existence, and even seemingly-trivial housekeeping details–did you know that sand and water, applied with a broom, much like sandpaper, make a great mixture for wood-floor scrubbing and cleaning? Most importantly, though, Thoreau emphasizes the accessibility of his humble lifestyle, and even attempts to convince a poor Irish family squatting in a run-down home outside of Concord. In his own words,
“If my house had been burned or my crops had failed, I should have been nearly as well off as before.”
But despite Thoreau’s conviction that a just way of life is attainable, even for the poorest amongst us, he was quick to note that it’s not his that others should model, much less a philosopher’s. Says he that,
“I would not have any one adopt my mode of living … but I would have each one be very careful to find out and pursue his own way, and not his father’s or his mother’s or his neighbor’s instead.”
Still, he hoped to inspire in others the volition necessary for a contented life of quiet reflection. This is what most attracted him to one of his visitors while living in the forest, a Canadian wood-chopper:
“He interested me because he was so quiet and solitary and so happy withal; a well of good humor and contentment which overflowed at his eyes.”
But most importantly, Thoreau was enthused by discovering in this man, if ever so fleetingly, a certain degree of real individuality, the glimmers of a skeptic mind:
“There was a certain positive originality … in him, and I occasionally observed that he was thinking for himself and expressing his own opinion … and it amounted to the reorigination of the institutions of society.”
It is this disposition to question without bound or restraint the life that is given to us by our antecedents that Thoreau most valued. His aim, above all, was for all men to take hold of the reins to their own lives, as if to drive a cleaver through the thick of our quotidian existence and discern, somewhere in the intervening space the beginnings of a life that we may eventually call our own. And it is during the waking hours of our daily lives that Thoreau hoped we might find the most fertile terrain for the origination of that timeless, enduring journey:
“Every man has to learn the points of compass again as often as he awakes … Not till we are lost … do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations.”
All in all, I must remark, Walden makes for quite the arousing read. So much so that, aye, this humble reader may yet course those same waters. Who knows? With that, I leave you with a poem, a quote, and a question, for your rumination.
A poem:
While looking into a fire, Thoreau quotes his contemporary, the poet Ellen Sturgis Hooper,
“Never, bright flame, may be denied to me
Thy dear, life-imaging, close sympathy.
What but my hopes shot upward e’er so bright?
What but my fortunes sunk so low in night?
Why art thou banished from our hearth and hall,
Thou who art welcomed and beloved by all?
Was thy existence then too fanciful
For our life’s common light, who are so dull?
Did thy bright gleam mysterious converse hold
With our congenial souls? secrets too bold?
Well, we are safe and strong, for now we sit
Beside a hearth where no dim shadows flit,
Where nothing cheers nor saddens, but a fire
Warms feet and hands—nor does to more aspire;
By whose compact, utilitarian heap
The present may sit down and go to sleep,
Nor fear the ghosts who from the dim past walked,
And with us by the unequal light of the old wood-fire talked.”
(Italics are my own.)
A quote:
“If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.”
A question:
Given a humble, contented life with only the barest of animal necessities and human comforts, would man choose to look inward in his “idle” hours, or would he, rather, relinquish himself to that source of all life, great and small, only to commune with our animal brethren in careless abandon? I suspect that all of us, like Thoreau’s wood-chopping acquaintance, would more easily and resolutely choose peace and quietude over the more abstracting, assuming qualities of our human nature.
Tags: auto-biography, henry david thoreau, hermetism, nature, waldenTags: auto-biography, henry david thoreau, hermetism, nature, walden