“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately…” Henry David Thoreau moved to Walden to approach and embrace what he wanted life to be. He wished to pay attention to “what [life] had to teach” and “to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life.”
To Thoreau, this meant being intentional with his thoughts, and to live every moment in a purposeful, deliberate way. He noted that so many “live what [is] not life,” meaning that they just let moments and experiences pass them by, allowing time and indifference to take over instead of subjecting time to their own human experience.
“Simplify, simplify, simplify!” Thoreau was sure he had found the answer. He compared humans to ants, writing “still we live meanly,” paying such close attention to trivial details, and way too many of them at that. Although Walden was published almost 170 years ago, the sentiment remains eerily similar to the current human experience. “The nation itself, with all its so-called internal improvements, which, by the way, are all external and superficial, is just an unwieldy and overgrown establishment.” This sentence could just as well have been written in 2020. Only now, society has infinitely more to leach onto— imagine if Thoreau and his desire for minimalism had to compete with the industry, electronics, social media, and business of today! It would be overwhelming to him just as it often is to people of today, to desire so wholeheartedly to live simply and to find the beauty in having less, but to feel the pull of life being “frittered away in detail.”
Thoreau mentioned the railroads in the same paragraph. He wrote, “We do not ride upon the railroad; it rides upon us.” Here, Thoreau exposes the core of industry and how society moves forward. People use the railroads, of course, but the railroads use the people as well. While people are able to move from one place to another quickly, so often they do not pay attention to how hard others had to labor to manufacture the rails on which they ride. On another level, such railroads are only able to expand because of the demand of people who suddenly have more places they want to go.
“Let us spend one day as deliberately as Nature.” In other words, let things happen as they will, without getting distracted by all the extras. Ignore the things which are created and established to push people along, and allow reality—what is truly reality, not what has been advertised as such—to be life’s guide. Nature has a perfect order already, without the bells and whistles of society, and there is much to be learned from that.
“I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there.” Thoreau went to his cabin in the woods to escape the day-to-day realities of society and all the peripheral worries that had previously entrapped him. He wished to simplify his life, and to connect more with his own life as it related to nature and the natural progression of things. He left, however, with a sense that both are meaningful, and both serve their purpose.
He remarked how “easily and insensibly we fall into a particular route, and make a beaten track for ourselves.” He had come to Walden to discover himself, and that he did—only he discovered that, even in nature itself, he would form habits. Even in his quest for a fresh experience, life is comprised of conformity and habits like the path he cited, and that is to be expected. Railroads and roads in general are there because they are regularly traveled! “How deep the ruts of tradition and conformity!” Instead of following others’ paths this time, he wore his own… but even then, it still became a “beaten track.” He imagined that others would have eventually followed that path he had made as well, and that conformity, no matter how hard people try to avoid it, is just a part of life.
Although he learned to simplify, Thoreau also learned that “if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.” Instead of the “either/or” life he had anticipated, he realized life is a series of balances. He concludes this thought process with a poignant statement: “If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.” How incredible! He learned that all he had previously worked for was not in vain, but that he could accomplish the development of his dreams even more fully by appreciating both ingenuity, and natural orders of life.
It seems Thoreau made the move to Walden because he was overwhelmed with his own contemporaries and the standards by which he himself felt he was pushed to live. Perhaps he was his own example of the man who “hears a different drummer.” As he remembers forging his own path in those woods, he seems to appreciate conformity in a certain sense, that is, if it is an extension of one’s own habits and needs as opposed to others’.
Thoreau goes on to highlight the beauty of a simple life without worrying about keeping up with anyone else’s wealth or possessions. He goes even further to point out that “the town’s poor… live the most independent lives of any.” He is saying that possessions and the need for more of them often do more to cloud the minds and ideals of people than they help. “If you are restricted in your range by poverty… you are but confined to the most significant and vital experiences.” All the material possessions and expensive travels, he is saying, are not only useless, but actually have the propensity to subtract from the human experience. “Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts” – who cares what you have, if your mind is in the right place! The most poignant line of the paragraph is “it is life near the bone where it is sweetest.” In other words, the bones are needed, and the muscles that move them are worthy, but the farther from the “bone” of life one gets, the more the “fat” and useless things get in the way of life’s true flavor.
The world constantly evolves, and often changes happen without consent. Still, purpose is sown and can still be found even after those circumstances change! The egg, containing the bug, that was placed in the apple tree, was laid with the assumption that it would be hatched in nature in an ideal condition. However, that egg, with potential for life, got transported within the fallen tree and bound by the human creation of a table. The story concludes with that egg still hatching within the table and “gnawing out.” The tree drastically changed form and value by human standards, but through it all, nature prevailed- the bug still hatched! Even so, people, their dreams, and their aspirations may be placed, yet seemingly entombed by life’s changes. Those changes do not mean certain death, however; they are simply kept safe for a time, until the right condition presents itself.
The dawn of a new day in one’s life does not have to have anything to do with the actual sun rising in the morning; it is the inner awakening. There is no point or value in waiting for a perfect situation, as it may never come. As the bug did, one must hatch and repurpose his life within the circumstances offered to him. At any time, one can rediscover life’s trivialities as new and fresh, if he only chooses to awaken.