I live on Broadway and my first thought when I set out for this walk was, "Where do I go to get away from people?" I live literally in the middle of town. Eventually I decided to just start walking and to see where that gets me. I ended up walking down several random side streets. There were a lot of houses on these side streets and they were all very close together. Nothing at all like the places where I grew up. I grew up surrounded by trees. So many trees that I couldn't see the neighbor's house or my house if I was standing in among them even though it was only a short walk through them to the neighbor's house. This made me think about whether or not I agree with Thoreau. In many ways I do. Thoreau says, "Not long since I was present at the auction of a deacon's effects... As usual, a great portion was trumpery which had begun to accumulate in his father's day. Among the rest was a dried tapeworm. And now, after lying half a century in his garret and other dust holes, these things were not burned; instead of a bonfire, or purifying destruction of them, there was an auction, or increasing of them. The neighbors eagerly collected to view them, bought them all, and carefully transported them to their garrets and dust holes, to lie there till their estates are settled, when they will start again" (63). I have often wondered at the way humans do this. We collect all this stuff around us even though we know it is useless, even though we know we are going to eventually die and that stuff will no longer be ours. We have this inability to stop collecting stuff.
Thoreau makes a lot of good points also about how man could easily live less expensively and more simply. I agree. However, Thoreau describes the effort he goes to in order to live so simply. I think in many ways people would find that to difficult. People like convenience. They like to not have to think too hard about things but rather to have things be easily done. Why else would we have washers, dryers, dishwashers, running water, telephones, the Internet. He spends much of his time chastising his fellow many for not wanting to live in much the way he does. But I imagine that for many living in a log cabin in the woods would seem very lonely. Why else would the streets I walked on have houses that were so close together. All humans long for human contact. Even Thoreau himself does. He says, "To meet the objections of some inveterate cavillers, I may as well state, that if I dined out occasionally, as I always had done, and I trust shall have opportunities to do again, it was frequently to the detriment of my domestic arrangements" (56). If dining out is to the detriment of his domestic arrangements why else do it but for the comfort of other humans?
I agree with the introduction in that I believe we do have much to learn from Thoreau. However, I think Thoreau sometimes takes his statements too far. i think he forgets that all people, including himself, fall trap to a longing for human comfort.
I think you're right in the fact that Thoreau tends to overlook the realities of the contemporary human condition and way of living when writing this. He spends so much time detailing how it is he went about living on his own in a cabin beside a pond for two years... but while he appeals to the masses to drop everything and live in his example, it defies practicality.
ReplyDeleteI also agree with your point about Thoreau "taking his statements too far". Living alone in the woods might be possible, maybe even realistic and practical for someone, but it flies in the face of the human need for social interaction and contact. Sure, some select few can live in isolation and be completely happy, but the majority of humankind, myself included, long and depend upon human interaction and contact to make life at least bearable, perhaps even worth living.
And as you point out, Thoreau himself made a point of dining with friends in spite of the fact that it was not necessarily practical for his living condition at Walden Pond. While he does make excellent points about humans making luxury into necessity, the need to strip down to the bare minimum and live as man once did, organically and in harmony with the environment, I think it's important to note as you do that though Man lived in the wilderness with the bare necessities, he also had abundant company.
I think becoming defensive is a common reaction to Thoreau’s writings. Many people, including myself, are quick to “justify” their decisions regarding the details of their lives. For instance, I cannot simply build a cabin and reside in the woods, as there are a myriad of circumstances about my life that I cannot just will away. I have student loans. I have obligations. I have a family…
ReplyDeleteHowever, to think that this is what Thoreau is saying is to misinterpret his words. He does not wish that his readers live exactly as he, but rather, that his readers awaken to realize that their life decisions are to be made deliberately, consciously, with vigor and confidence, not passivity and compulsion. He writes, “The millions are awake enough for physical labor; but only one in a million is awake enough for effective intellectual exertion, only one in a hundred million to a poetic or divine life. To be awake is to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was quite awake. How could I have looked him in the face?” (59) This assertion, I believe, is true across time and space because societies produce workers who trudge through the everyday minutia in order to achieve some greater societal value. I think people tend to dislike some of Thoreau’s arguments because he is, at the end of the day, right. He forces us to examine our lives and what we see is not always the projections we like to cast out.
To summarize: it’s not what you do; it’s how you do it. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a teacher or a doctor or a politician. It doesn’t matter if you live in the thick of a city or the thick of the woods. What matters is how you feel at the end of the day…or as Thoreau would more likely ask, at the beginning of the day, when opportunity lies before you. I am discovering that ultimately Thoreau is urging us to adopt a different mindset, a fresh perspective, and a more positive attitude about the possibilities available to us.