Nature and the Art of Conversation

First off, I must start off by saying that I had another satisfying stroll the other night. This time instead of walking through court street, I decided to explore Abbott Park -- at night. I'm not entirely sure why that was a smart idea, because simply put, it wasn't. Perhaps at the time I thought it was wise to go out at night, because similar to Thoreau's rants in his chapter The Village -- where he goes on to make fun of people being afraid of the woods in the dark (bottom of page 161-162) -- I thought it would have been fun to challenge Thoreau's curmudgeon-like ideals.

The bottom line of trying to prove to Thoreau that I wasn't afraid of the woods in the dark was that I should not do it. I ran into a raccoon and a skunk within five minutes.

Regardless of failing the challenge, the portion of the reading the stood out for me the most was from the section Visitor; in which he goes into great length about how society views etiquette, conversation and the nature of loneliness. On page 132-133 he states that "One inconvenience I sometimes experienced in so small a house, the difficulty of getting to a sufficient distance from my guest when we begin to utter the big thoughts in big words. You want room for your thoughts to run a course or two before they make their port. The bullet of your thought must have overcome its lateral and ricochet motion and fallen into its last and steady course before it reaches the ear of the hearer, else it may plough out again through the side of the head."

This quote strikes me as a very candid view of how our society is run by getting things done quickly (as Thoreau also make note of in the section The Bean-Field) and not taking the time to properly formulate big ideas so that they can stick with us. This to Thoreau seems very unnatural. Nature is something that takes it's time and works at its own pace. It waits for no one nor does it rush for anybody. This idea strikes me as a true absolute.

I believe if we actually take the time to formulate, not just our thoughts and ideas; but our desires and drives, we'd be able to fully reach the full capacity of our well-being. We often take this truth for granted and ignore it as a mark of Nature, for when we think of Nature, we only think of a setting. Perhaps, under the preachy direction of Henry David Thoreau Nature should start of a careful mental construction of our trifectoral (I made that word up) modes of living, before we can make any sort of opinions about our environment and "nature".