I don't think I could do it to the extent he did - even though he was within walking distance of other people's homes, he was still on his own and vulnerable.DWill wrote:How does Thoreau (or Thoreau's words) affect me personally? Here are the five I come up with right now:
1. I always like to start with the artistry of his prose and the magnificent descriptions. To me, this is the best thing about Walden and the most important reason that it has endured as a classic book.
Are you inspired in your own writing (whatever kind of writing you do) by this work? Do his words and the way he puts them together inspire poems in you? Articles . . . essays? Maybe even some fiction/
2. He tells us that if we have within ourselves a leading or prompting that would take us in a direction different from that of our peers, we need to not ignore it but nurture it. If we are not so led, we at least need to respect, value, and encourage that quality in others. This helps me not to worry so much about staying in step or about being seen as eccentric.
That's good, Will - I think people are often shy of presenting their art, or ideas for fear people might think them as 'wierd', or see them as 'eccentric'.
If you worried about it, I'm glad Thoreau's helped you in this.
3. I think that in fitting ourselves to nature, as he did, we become more fully human. This is not different from becoming the animal we are. We are still bent on fitting nature to us.
And do you 'fit yourself to nature' . . . do you follow your instincts? Sometimes when we have back pain, we tend to want to sit in a way that's different, but more comfortable . . . that, to me, would be following your instinct.
Sometimes, we throw something into a stew pot - peanut butter, banana or some other item we think might give the meal just that little bit of a lift . . . if it tastes good, why not?
4. He showed us how material things get in the way of our becoming the humans and animals we should be. While I have never duplicated his experiment in living, his example does make me see the futility and waste of working for a superabundance. (Though in his eyes I would have a superabundance.) "A man is rich in proportion to the things which he can do without."
I like that particular line . . . he would probably agree with an old saying I know - skid row is a state of mind.
5. He let his whole being loose in his identification with nature. He didn't merely observe nature as a scientist would, but joined his own feeling to feeling he felt was also present in it. He claimed to be not a naturalist but a transcendentalist. (Something else admirable and inspiring about him--not anything I claim to be able to do.)
DWill
I'm the kind that's afraid of bears, things that go bump in the night, manhole covers that might come loose and cause me to fall in - ha ha!