Where can we find solace in today’s fast-paced world? Can modernity offer meaning to our fretting souls?
Concord and the Walden Pond
Thoreau moved to Concord because he wanted to explore life’s most essential elements: “a taste for the beautiful is most cultivated out of doors, where there is no house and no housekeeper.” His philosophical interests motivated his search for seclusion. As a proponent of Transcendentalism, Thoreau emphasized the importance of the natural world as both a source of beauty and a medium to understand the cosmos. Social and political institutions smothered the beautiful beneath layers of superfluous needs. Pristine nature was thus the only space to reclaim beauty and nourish the spirit.On Self-Reliance
In “Self-Reliance,” Emerson spoke of the need to extricate ourselves from the shackling influences of conformity: “Insist on yourself; never imitate.” Pursue life independently—live unencumbered and free of distractions.This emphasis on self-reliance was most evident in the Transcendentalists’ appreciation for manual labor. Following Emerson, Thoreau proudly reported that he “did not read books the first summer; I hoed beans.” Tilling land unified work and life. Hands-on care for his winter supplies gave Thoreau a direct glimpse into the creation of food, which turned from a mindless need to a conscious, meaningful activity. Labor has “a constant and imperishable moral”: It demands direct agency and affirms our human dignity.
On Simplicity and Progress
We may think that material abundance is directly correlated to prosperity. The more we make and have, the happier and more fulfilled we’ll be. Yet Thoreau would ask: Is material progress necessarily beneficial?
Thoreau offers a cyclical conception of history: “The life in us is like the water in the river. It may rise this year higher than man has ever known it, and flood the parched uplands. […] It was not always dry land where we dwell.” What is needed now may become obsolete tomorrow. Progress isn’t a linear trajectory where more is always better. It’s a dynamic metric that should predilect essential needs over nonessential wants.
Thoreau wasn’t suggesting that we shouldn’t strive for conventional progress. He was reminding us that an obsession with quantity and abundance precludes the happiness we assume they could provide. “I am convinced, both by faith and experience, that to maintain one’s self on this earth is not a hardship but a pastime, if we will live simply and wisely,” he tells us in his first chapter titled “Economy.”
On Reading as Living
Thoreau believed that life was incomplete without literature. He kept Homer’s “Iliad” on his table through the summer, though he opened it only occasionally. Despite toiling to finish his house and grow his bean garden, Thoreau sustained himself “by the prospect of such reading in future.” He even confessed, ashamedly, to “reading one or two shallow books of travel in the intervals of my work.” Only a book like the “Iliad” could kindle his spirit. All else was distraction.For Thoreau, reading was more than an intellectual exercise. How we read mirrors how we live. Reading for the sake of leisure or distraction might be better than not reading at all, but it could never sustain the profound relationship to art our spirit craves. For that, we need sustained attention to great literature, which nature’s quiet can encourage.
On Science and Beauty
“Walden” is rightly characterized as great literature. Its style ranges from passionate descriptions of landscapes to nuanced philosophical reflections on nature and humanity. Thoreau uses metaphors, personification, and other sophisticated literary devices to weave disparate topics into a cohesive whole.In addition to its literary powers, “Walden” is an excellent model for scientific inquiry. In the mid-1800s, “science” was in its infancy. Scientific discoveries were often the brainchildren of educated amateurs with the time and resources to explore the natural world. Although Thoreau didn’t write for scientific purposes, his attention to detail and precise language set a high standard for dabbling natural scientists. For example, he described the “bottomless” Walden Pond as “a clear and deep green well, half a mile long and a mile and three quarters in circumference” that “contains about sixty-one and a half acres; a perennial spring in the midst of pine and oak woods, without any visible inlet or outlet except by the clouds and evaporation.” This account continues for three long paragraphs, where Thoreau mentions everything from “ascetic fish” and “Adam and Eve” to water features that “fit studies for a Michael Angelo [sic].”
Thoreau’s Invitation
Thoreau didn’t want us to emulate everything he did. His lifestyle was unusual then, and it would be even more unusual today. Rather, he invited us to pursue a life of contemplation, devotion to spiritual wellbeing, and careful contact with nature: “Let us first be as simple and well as Nature ourselves, dispel the clouds which hang over our own brows, and take up a little life into our pores.”Why should we strive to commune with nature? Why bother seeking peace and living mindfully as if every moment were our last? Because “Men esteem truth remote, in the outskirts of the system, behind the farthest star, before Adam and after the last man. In eternity there is indeed something true and sublime. But all these times and places and occasions are now and here. God himself culminates in the present moment, and will never be more divine in the lapse of all the ages.”
