Thoreau's Walden

 

In the October 19th 2015 issue of The New Yorker,  Kathryn Schulz wrote an article on Henry David Thoreau (http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/10/19/pond-scum) with which I wholeheartedly disagree.

I have long been an admirer of the man and his ideas and felt moved to write an essay in his defence and which reflects what he says to me.

 

From 1845 to 1847, Henry David Thoreau lived alone in the woods on the banks of Walden Pond in Concord, Massachesetts, a mile from his nearest neighbours.  Because of this sojourn in the woods and his stated need for solitude, he has been and continues to be viewed by some as a man who ran away from life.  Nothing could be further from the truth, for above all else Thoreau loved life and was determined to make the most of his time on this earth.  From his own experiences of living a conventional life as a school-teacher, and observing his neighbours, he concluded that “the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”  He saw that people were trapped in a cycle of endless routine and habit and despite using entertainment as a means of escape “an unconscious despair is concealed under what are called games and amusements.”  Wanting to avoid this fate, and in search of a different way of living, he set off to live in the woods because  he says, “I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary… 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…”  He chose that place because the land belonged to his friend and mentor Ralph Waldo Emerson and he needed somewhere quiet where he could be alone to conduct his ‘experiment,’ (a word he uses several times in relation to his time at Walden Pond) and discover how to get the most out of his life.  

As a writer, naturalist and philosopher, he took pencil and paper with him to Walden Pond but his book ‘Walden’ was not written while he was there or immediately on his return to his family home, but several years later, and only in response to people’s curiosity about his time living in the woods, otherwise, he says “I would not obtrude my affairs on the notice of my readers if very particular inquiries had not been made by my townsmen concerning my mode of life…”  In it, he recounts his practical experiences of building his cabin, keeping his garden, walks, observations of the natural world and his thoughts and ideas on life, death and many other aspects of living.  It has been said on occasions that his ideas are impractical and not relevant to modern life but he did not advocate that other people should live in cabins in the woods and is emphatic about this saying, “ I would not have any one adopt my mode of living on any account; for, beside that before he has fairly learned it I may have found out another for myself, I desire that there may be as many different persons in the world as possible; but I would have each one be very careful to find out and pursue his own way…”  Thoreau believed strongly in individual freedom and had no wish to dictate to others.  He discusses his ideas and experiences so that we can examine and reflect on our own lives and he presents alternative, higher values by which to live. But it is up to the reader to take or leave what he has to say.  If taken, ‘Walden’ is not to be used as a rigid step-by-step plan for living but for the reader to  “accept such portions as apply to them,” adapt them to the circumstances that best suits them as individuals.  Thoreau’s way of living in general and his decision to live in the woods were viewed with suspicion by many around him who could not understand him.  But equally, he could not understand them.

Thoreau had given up his job and wanted to find out if it was possible to live a simple life on a small amount of money, earned by occasional employment and growing some of his own food.  He tells us the reason for this course of action was because, “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”  For him, spending the major part of each day engaged in working and spending was not living, so he arranged his affairs in such a way that he worked intermittently and the remainder of the time he pursued the things he enjoyed and which nourished him mentally and spiritually; reading, thinking, walking, observing the natural world, and writing.  He believed we should only do enough work to provide ourselves with food, shelter, clothing and warmth so that the free time can be used  “to adventure on life.” He believed that people complicate their lives and create problems for themselves by wanting luxuries that cost money which must be earned and then become enmeshed in the cycle of working and consuming with which we ourselves are only too familiar.  As a result, most “men have become the tools of their toil…by a seeming fate, commonly called necessity, they are employed, as it says in an old book, laying up treasures which moth and rust will corrupt and thieves break through and steal. It is a fool's life, as they will find when they get to the end of it, if not before… "  We need money to live but Thoreau considered that “most of the luxuries, and many of the so called comforts of life, are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.”
  
Influenced by Buddhist, Taoist and Hindu writings and their central idea of the negative effect of desire, he saw how we confuse our needs with our wants and enslave ourselves with long working hours, property ownership and material possessions and have “no time to be anything but a machine.”  This is not living and he saw the solution to be in living a less materialistic, simpler life. He believed that life was out of kilter and although money can secure material requirements, it cannot buy "one necessary of the soul… “Shall we always study to obtain more of these things, and not sometimes be content with less…Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify.” If we simplify our lives, curbs our wants and desires we will need less money and have more time for leisure which is the key to freedom.  Unfortunately, too often, many people on hearing the mention of simplicity or frugality immediately jump to the wrong conclusion; a less materialistic way of living does not mean a life of puritanical living and deprivation of any pleasure.  We are so accustomed and brain-washed into thinking we must always be doing, striving, and acquiring possessions and status that we have narrowed down the meaning of life.  Thoreau points out that there are other things in life and we can chose to have less and instead be rich in other ways, and “to adventure on life now” instead of deferring living to the future which is not guaranteed. 

Restricting our desires and ownership of material possessions can be achieved anywhere. A simple life is not synonymous with living in a cabin in the woods but can be implemented by a family living in a conventional house in the heart of a city.  It is a state of mind, a way of thinking, an attitude to life that is reflected in daily living.  His ideas on simple living have influenced many in the ‘slow’ movement and those who have promoted simple living such as Dwain Elgin and John Lane.  Of course, to live differently, to go against the tide takes courage for when we act differently we often feel the effects of peer pressure, the norms and values of our society and our own fear and concern about what other people think about us.  As Emerson said “for nonconformity the world will whip you with its displeasure.”  Thoreau knew the penalties for living differently and observed that “if a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer; but if he spends his whole day as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is esteemed an industrious and enterprising citizen.”  He wasn’t a lazy man but someone who walked a minimum of four miles a day, observed and recorded the world around him, studied botany, read extensively including in Greek and Latin, wrote articles for magazines and sought publication of his books, and worked in paid employment intermittently as a land surveyor and lecturer, and worked in the family pencil business.  He was not against work in itself but took issue with the nature of work in industrial America - boring, exploitative, repetitive work that does not satisfy the worker. Where most people weigh things in terms of money, Thoreau’s currency was time and  “the cost of a thing is the amount of what I call life, which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.”  He noted that “a man may be very industrious, and yet not spend his time well. There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of life getting his living.”  

Believing everyday living was out of kilter, he strived to balance his material and spiritual life and encourages us to try and balance ours.  He recognised that many people are “…unaware of their surroundings and immobile in combating the chains of routine and tradition” and conform too easily, worshipping “… not the Graces, nor the Parcae, but Fashion. She spins and weaves and cuts with full authority. The head monkey at Paris puts on a traveller's cap, and all the monkeys in America do the same.”  Rather than merely conforming to society’s norms and values, it is necessary to wake up and see things as they are and recognise that there is more to life than working and consuming for “is not wisdom to do desperate things.”  What mattered to him was the freedom of the individual and for each to determine how to live their life.  Emerson said “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment” and it was this, authenticity, living a real life, that was so important to Thoreau. To do this, requires time for “ free time, especially when spent alone, affords the individual the opportunity to think, to listen to their intuition and inner voice, know themselves and find peace.” and “… step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away... Solitude was important to Thoreau and he stresses its importance for “when we are unhurried and wise, we perceive that only great and worthy things have any permanent and absolute existence, that petty fears and petty pleasures are but the shadow of the reality.” 

   
His statement that “ I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude ” has led to many assertions that he did not like people but in a world that idolizes the ‘social,’ it might be that we find it difficult to conceive of the notion of solitude, and are quick to label those who need time alone as being ‘anti-social’ or ‘odd’, terms some of his townspeople also applied to him. When he went to the woods, he was not running away from the world to live the life of a hermit and tells us, “I am naturally no hermit, but might possibly sit out the sturdiest frequenter of the bar- room, if my business called me thither…I think that I love society as much as most…”  While living at Walden Pond he maintained ties with family and friends, going home every Saturday for dinner and dining with neighbours on several occasions.  He was welcoming to those who called at the cabin he built for himself on land owned by and entertained numerous visitors there.  He explains how he coped with the many visitors in such a small space;  “I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society…When visitors came in larger and unexpected numbers there was but the third chair for them all, but they generally economized the room by standing up. It is surprising how many great men and women a small house will contain. I have had twenty-five or thirty souls, with their bodies, at once under my roof…”  Dotted across ‘Walden’ are references to his long and frequent solitary walks during which he met local farmers and townspeople as they went about their business and far from avoiding them, he engaged in conversations which he vividly recounts. Thoreau, like each one of us, had different facets to his personality and in addition to an apparent sociability he also had a strong need for time alone.

Far from dismissing people, he frequently turned and reached out to help them either in person or through his writing and lecturing; he spoke against slavery in an abolitionist lecture, Slavery in Massachusetts, wrote A Plea for Captain John Brown and an essay on  "Civil Disobedience," which influenced Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.  In 1846, disagreeing with the spending of public money on war and the spreading of slavery, he refused to pay his taxes and was jailed and released when his family  friends and family paid his taxes for him.  Thoreau believed that we must act as individuals when we see injustice or wrongs and not simply go along with the consensus or unquestionably obeying government.  Each individual has an obligation to exercise their conscience, determine right from wrong and “if the law is of such a nature that it requires you to be an agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law…   Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislation? Why has every man a conscience, then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right.”  

 

His social conscience extended to questioning some of the technological changes that were occurring and he took nothing at face value.  He wondered if  “perhaps we are led oftener by the love of novelty, and a regard for the opinions of men, in procuring it, than by a true utility…” and  if “our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end…” In relation to clothes, he believed  that fashion exists “not that mankind may be well and honestly clad, but unquestionably that the corporations may be enriched.” He did not follow trends and fashions and had little time for superficialities.  He saw how people are concerned about the way others dress but for him  “no man ever stood the lower in my estimation for having a patch in his clothes: yet I am sure that there is greater anxiety, commonly, to have fashionable, or at least clean and unpatched clothes, than to have a sound conscience.”  What was important to him, was not the clothing , the outer covering, but the human being inside the clothes.  He has been accused of being contradictory at times in ‘Walden,’ and there are instances of inconsistency such as when he refers to trade as  “a curse” but later says, “what recommends commerce to me is the enterprise and bravery.”  Perhaps this is contradiction or perhaps he is seeing the positive and negative in the thing, balancing it all out in his mind.  He does amend and even change some of his thinking but this would appear inevitable for such is the nature of experiments and the associated weighing up and revisions of ideas and as Emerson said ““A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds” and Thoreau’s was no little mind.  He is sometimes viewed as a dour, self-obsessed  eccentric but his concern about the quality of life was not restricted to his own.  His world view was a wide one.

Thoreau observed the natural world, documented what he saw and understood that nature is made up of interrelated parts and that humans are not separate but part of the natural world “ ..the universe is wider than our views of it.”  He reflected on the impact the  major technological, economic and social changes were having  on people’s lives and on the natural world. He saw how man was controlling and exploiting nature for profit by means of technology and where this destruction would lead,“…nor need we trouble ourselves to speculate how the human race may be at last destroyed.  It would be easy to cut the threads any time with a little sharper blast from the north…a little colder Friday or greater snow would put a period to man’s existence on the globe.”  He poses a very pertinent question that has deep significance today in the face of the environmental crises facing us, “What is the good of having a nice house without a decent planet to put it on?”  He also considered the use of resources and recalls an instance when “one farmer says to me, 'You cannot live on vegetable food solely, (Thoreau himself ate very little meat)  for it furnishes nothing to make bones with;' and so he religiously devotes a part of his day to supplying his system with the raw material of bones; walking all the while he talks behind his oxen, which, with vegetable-made bones, jerk him and his lumbering plough along in spite of every obstacle.” This is similar to the argument held by many environmentalists today in relation to land use for pasture rather than for arable crops, the latter making better use of available land, contributing less to pollution and water shortage, and eliminating cruel animal husbandry practices.  His deep love and affinity with nature and his close observation and understanding of the natural world made him acutely aware of its importance and ready to fight on her behalf and his environmental ideas greatly influenced  many people including Edward Abbey and John Muir.  He wondered at the mystery and complexity of nature  “I stand in awe of my body” and saw that nature has much to teach us, if only we would stop to look.  In ‘Walden,’ Thoreau takes us into the realm of his ideas about how to live but he also takes us out into the natural world, into those woods where we stoop down with him to pick up a twig or look closer at a flower, where we hear the waters of Walden Pond or the squirrels chattering in the pine trees.  His writing brings the place alive.  But then that was what Thoreau was about – life.

Do we need him today, are his ideas relevant?  In a world where "shams and delusions are esteemed for soundest truths..." and when “we see there being only one way to live and deny the possibility of change” then yes we do need him.  We live in uncertain times and it is becoming more and more obvious that we must change and live in a different way.  We cannot wait for change to happen -  but where to begin?  Thoreau’s answer is with ourselves.  We must aspire to higher values than greed and acquisition and see the damage that a materialistic lifestyle does to us and to the natural world.  We strive, work, battle on many fronts and have forgotten that  “the finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling. Yet we do not treat ourselves nor one another thus tenderly.”  Thoreau has much to tell us about living fully.  What he left us may not be perfect but ‘Walden’ is filled with insights and wisdom for living.  It is a book of many layers and profound thoughts that requires several readings to understand the true essence of the message.  Thoreau is often misunderstood but as Emerson pointed out “Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.”