Henry Thoreau

[Nerd]

Thoreau is such an amazing philosopher, I decided that some time --and space-- needs to be dedicated to his thoughts.

One of the reasons H. Thoreau wrote his Walden is that he wanted to lessen that "gulf of ignorance." His advice on education is strikingly pragmatic. But the entire book can be viewed as a great metaphor carrying its latent educational message like that contained in the "The Pond in Winter" chapter:


If we knew all the laws of Nature, we should need only one fact, or the description of one actual phenomenon, to infer all the particular results at that point. Now we know only a few laws, and our result is vitiated, not, of course, by any confusion or irregularity in Nature, but by our ignorance of essential elements in the calculation. Our notions of law and harmony are commonly confined to those instances which we detect; but the harmony which results from a far greater number of seemingly conflicting, but really concurring, laws, which we have not detected, is still more wonderful. The particular laws are as our points of view, as, to the traveler, a mountain outline varies with every step, and it has an infinite number of profiles, though absolutely one form".


Here Thoreau expresses his quite modern opinion that the goal of an education should be the development of critical thinking, which would allow man to perceive the interrelatedness of phenomena. Today that goal remains the same.


He persued a teaching career, but left the school because he refused to administer corporal punishment. He never quit teaching, though. (Don't you wish you'd met him?)

To further quote Walden (my favorite excerpt!),


I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan- like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.


It is clear that he, himself, believed that life was a pond to be jumped in. Oh, I really admire his philosophy. I hope this will inspire some thought.

[chispa]

Hello Nerd...I am an admirer of Thoreau too

I like this quote of him:
"If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away. "

[trismegistus]

Thoreau was a genius and "On the Duty of Civil Disobedience" speaks as powerfully now as it did in his own day, maybe more so. In a political climate where it is widely considered unpatriotic to second guess this administration's overseas aggression, Thoreau's thoughts on man's duty to himself and to his fellow man are utterly invaluable.

[mono]

I, too, cannot possibly express my strong affinity for Henry David Thoreau. I read a relatively thick book containing four of his works, Walden, Civil Disobedience, Concord, and A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, all of which I could read over and over again out of inspiration. One can easily perceive how he took part in the group of 'transcendentalists,' including Ralph Waldo Emerson, William Ellery Channing, and Margaret Fuller.
How inspiring that he carried his views sometimes at such extreme measures, such as, you said, Nerd, of his opposition to pursuing a career in teaching, his refusal of conformation to sociological pressures (such as, then, living the pre-American dream, so to speak), and actually getting arrested once for refusing to pay taxes (as he never condoned rewarding a country that supported slavery). Much of Thoreau's amazing philosophical thought would later highly influence another great mind, Mahatma Mohandes K. Gandhi, who carried Thoreau's idea of "civil disobedience" to another extreme.

[country doctor]

I, too, cannot possibly express my strong affinity for Henry David Thoreau. I read a relatively thick book containing four of his works, Walden, Civil Disobedience, Concord, and A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, all of which I could read over and over again out of inspiration. One can easily perceive how he took part in the group of 'transcendentalists,' including Ralph Waldo Emerson, William Ellery Channing, and Margaret Fuller.
How inspiring that he carried his views sometimes at such extreme measures, such as, you said, Nerd, of his opposition to pursuing a career in teaching, his refusal of conformation to sociological pressures (such as, then, living the pre-American dream, so to speak), and actually getting arrested once for refusing to pay taxes (as he never condoned rewarding a country that supported slavery). Much of Thoreau's amazing philosophical thought would later highly influence another great mind, Mahatma Mohandes K. Gandhi, who carried Thoreau's idea of "civil disobedience" to another extreme.

the doc is reading this book right now...finished 'a week...' and 'civil disobedience' already and am 40 pages plus into 'walden'...a guy who figured it out, folks...if you haven't read this book already, what are you waiting for?

[blackbird_9]

Q: What's one way to learn about the transcendentalists?
A: Do a Thoreau analysis!
Ba-dum-ching!
I made that one up myself.
An now back to your regularly scheduled discussion.

[Syd A]

(Don't you wish you'd met him?)

There's nothing I wouldn't give to have dinner with that man. His greatest work was not Walden; he shone most brightly in Civil Disobedience, Slavery in Massachusetts, and Life Without Principle.

[laymonite]

Q: What's one way to learn about the transcendentalists?
A: Do a Thoreau analysis!
Ba-dum-ching!
I made that one up myself.
An now back to your regularly scheduled discussion.

I'll admit: I like this joke and will reuse it, possibly claiming self-origination!

Each year since 2003, my wife and I spend the first weekend in October at her uncle's cabin (his name is not Tom), which is set in the woods off the Blue Ridge Parkway in Virginia. The cabin is surrounded by dense acreage (or, the Virginia equivalent; Mainers hold your laughter at the qualification of "dense") of silent woods and creeks and streams, etc. It is a tradition of mine to take one book along for the annual cabin-weekend getaway: Thoreau's Walden. Every time I read it, it seems to become more intense, passionate, and, well, relevant. It's that rare gem where the prose (call it aesthetic if need-be) and content are both operating on a high plane. Walking through the woods reading Thoreau--ever mindful of stumps of course--I am always elevated in my thinking and my perspective.

Another tidbit: A friend of mine, who is a long time reader of nonfiction (mostly history, theology, and technoculture) told me that he decided to start branching out into literature, as in, I assume, the academia humanities brand of Literature that we all, here, celebrate. And, I suppose, since he grew up in the South, Faulkner was what he chose. That is to say, what was readily available in his mind as a literary author. So, this guy chooses As I Lay Dying as his first venture into literary fiction. He was disgusted, frustrated, etc. ad infinitum. I tried to explain some things to him; to setup his up with some "key terms/devices" if you will, e.g. stream of consciousness, perspective shifts, imagism/symbolism, etc. No dice. He felt as if his intelligence had been insulted by Mr. Faulkner. We hashed over it and other options for days, but nothing would take. Finally, it clicked. Henry Thoreau. Suffice it to say, this friend is reading it for the second time and is anxious for more "real literature" (his words) like it.

And now for the words that get me every October:

"The rays which stream through the shutter will no longer be remembered when the shutter is wholly removed."

One personal interpretation: We only understand Nature through the filter of man-made technology.

[country doctor]

the doc has spent his past four summers w/o a car and five and a half miles from 'town', out in the pines near a lake...he hikes and bikes into town when he needs to get his supplies...takes his baths in the lake and 'roughs it' ala thoreau...close enough to civilization, but still out in the peace and quiet of the woods...

some of the best living you can do, in the doc's opinion...

[The Comedian]

I've read nearly all of Thoreau's works: Walden, Cape Cod, The Maine Woods, A Week. . ., all of his essays, and selections from his journals. I read Walden every spring, each re-read is a spiritual re-alignment for me. It's also some of the finest nature writing ever written -- as is most of Thoreau's work.

If you want to read more Thoreau, I heartily recommend The Maine Woods as a rival to Walden -- Walden is better, no doubt, but The Maine Woods is a wonderful work in which we see Thoreau revisit a place three separate times over a span of about 20 years (don't quote me on the time span). I posted a review of The Maine Woods on this forum a while ago.

Also, you might enjoy the first several chapters of Cape Cod -- my least favorite overall work, but the first few chapters are great: Thoreau walks along the Cape just as a ship (the St. John, I believe) is wrecked and the flotsam and jetsam start to wash ashore. He also observes the various people there to "clean up" (aka steal) the valuable materials left by the wreck.

[laymonite]

the doc has spent his past four summers w/o a car and five and a half miles from 'town', out in the pines near a lake...he hikes and bikes into town when he needs to get his supplies...takes his baths in the lake and 'roughs it' ala thoreau...close enough to civilization, but still out in the peace and quiet of the woods...

some of the best living you can do, in the doc's opinion...

Hello, my name is Chris, and I am jealous of you!

[country doctor]

well the doc feels that he's been pretty much living along thoreau's precepts for awhile now...but it was just a couple of weeks ago, that he had the privilege of actually reading the thoughts of the man himself...while perusing a used book store, he came across the copy of the book for 3 bucks...couldn't have made a better buy that day...

enjoying walden right now...but the idea of simplify, simplify, simplify has found fertile ground in the doc's soil for years now...

feel bad that HDT only lived to 44 years of age...wonder what he would have come up with if he had lived even 10 more years...the doc is gonna turn 48 in february and he feels that this decade he has learned more than all the previous ones put together...

for thoreau to put it together so early in life is great...it took the doc a while longer to get to where he wants to be...

great to have someone come to the same conclusions as you have yourself about so many things in an independent manner so to speak...there's validation in that thought process even though you're still going against the grain of society...

a very important book for the doc to put into his collection...from that validation standpoint, especially...

this speaks to the doc, general lit posters...probably not too many of you attune yourselves to the beat of this drum, but the doc does...

I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude...

well the doc has finally meandered his way through the thoreau book...lots of things to comment on, but what the doc takes most from it is the enjoyment that both he and thoreau get from solitude...

and there aint nothing wrong w/ that, either...

the doc is back amongst the pines and lakes in the heart of lake culture again...putting the precepts of thoreau together in the doc's own inimitable style...

up every morning between six and seven a.m. and go out and collect the wood and stoke up a nice fire in the fire pit...

head back inside to put on a pot of water on the stove for the tea and then head back outdoors w/ a collection of books...right now, nietzsche, 'the idiot' and a henry a. wallace bio...

later the tea kettle will whistle and let the doc know it's time to fix that magical elixer of life...

the next couple of hours the doc spends reading in front of the fire...

here in the heartland right now it gets below freezing on these clear nites this early in the season, and the doc has chosen not to use the heater...

so after getting out of bed, he needs to warm up and the fire wood gathering and sawing a few logs does the trick...the fire keeps the warmth going until the sun does the trick by about nine a.m...

magestic blue skies, birds clattering and nary a vehicle to disturb the doc...

splendid isolation...the doc thinks that mr. thoreau would approve...

ROAR!

[virgo27]

Man, where do you live? I think Thoreau would approve.

[country doctor]

up here in the upper midwest...closer to canada then the iowa border...lake country...

this morning was the first that the doc's been up here that it wasn't reading 20 degrees on his deck...although the temperature reads a little low, when it reads 20 that means about 30 degrees fahrenheit...so, anyways, he was able to do his reading outside w/o the fire...warm enough to just wear a sweater and be very comfortable...afternoons are warming up nicely now and the doc wears t-shirts and shorts...

besides reading, the doc does lots of bike riding...no car and the closest town is 13 miles roundtrip...

over two hours of exercise each and every day unless on those rare occasions when it literally rains the whole day...and sometimes that doesn't stop the doc from his exercise fix...very rare day that he doesn't get out and about in the land of lakes and pines...

saw his first deer of the season yesterday...

ROAR!

[Buh4Bee]

Yup, Thoreau would approve!