Posted on 05/06/2012 8:36:45 AM PDT by Borges
I can see it clearly: the American literature textbook from my sophomore year in high school, complete with faded red cover, frayed spine, and a list of students who had rifled through its pages in years past.
In it I discovered a kindred spirit, soul mate and best friend. His name was Henry David Thoreau, and he died 150 years ago today, at the age of 44.
I remember his first words to me:
"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."
They were powerful words to introduce to a teenager, words that spoke to the long-standing vocation of teens everywhere: to question, to challenge, to rebel!
Thoreau went on:
"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."
More teenage validation. I was hooked.
To me, Thoreau, who was born in 1817 in Concord, Mass., is one of the most important figures in American history.
Some folks change how people do things. Henry Ford and Steve Jobs come to mind. Others change how people think. Thoreau falls into this latter category, and his influence goes far beyond how quickly we travel (Thoreau was a passionate walker and perfected the "art of sauntering") or how easily our smartphones can map the route (Thoreau was an accomplished surveyor, too).
Thoreau's influence can be found in the inspiration his life and his writings provide to the world.
In 1845, at the age of 27, Thoreau set out on one of man's greatest experiments.
Building a small cabin in the woods by Walden Pond, on property owned by his mentor Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thoreau spent two years and two months living in nature and chronicling his observations. The resulting text, "Walden, or Life in the Woods," continues to inspire people and is considered by many the bible of the environmental movement.
Likewise, Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience," written after he spent a night in jail for refusing to pay taxes to a government that supported slavery, has inspired world-changers such as Leo Tolstoy, Mahatma Gandhi, John F. Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
Thoreau was many things to many people, and sometimes he is too easily placed into bumper-sticker purgatory, his evocative and biting one-liners used to advance a particular cause or agenda. Thoreau the Environmentalist. Thoreau the Naturalist. Thoreau the Conscientious Objector. Thoreau the Transcendentalist. Thoreau the Abolitionist.
Thoreau was all these things, but he was much more, and to put labels on him is to limit his legacy. Above all, Thoreau was an uncompromising individual who valued life to such an extent that he spent his entire existence examining that life. In other words, he was a truth-seeker.
Truth-seeking comes easily to teenagers, and there is no better time to discover Thoreau. Somewhere along the line, though, that teenager too often stops seeking the truth, and by the time adulthood rolls around, conformity takes hold and truth-seeking becomes a less noble and more challenging endeavor.
It is then that the frayed American lit textbook needs to be opened one more time. Thoreau calls out from the pages, reminding the "grown-up" of the directive that so inspired many years before:
"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."
Thoreau never let go of that urge to discover that there is indeed more than the pursuit of fame, fortune and the material possessions that often enslave us. Examine yourself, and follow the dreams found therein.
To the extent that we often spend our lives like hamsters spinning the wheel, traveling so far on the treadmill of life and yet discovering so little, Thoreau is the chanticleer calling us to wake up and discover the essence of life.
"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation," he told me many years ago, providing a grace note to Socrates' famed admonition: "The unexamined life is not worth living."
Thoreau may be 150 years gone, but he continues to speak to the buried teenager in all of us. As we celebrate his life today, let us not forget to examine our own.
And he was less than honorable!
I certainly appreciate your scholarly and well thought essay. Quite the event to have such time and care over my rather hastily put together post.
Your observations do present the paradox of some of those strange species in our midst. This could be the activists who go one worse than the yuppies, who wallow in purchasing "stuff". They seek to destroy and create havoc by demonstrations and some violence. Then, no doubt sneak off to a comfortable residence. Expect to then access heat, water and light. Reminds me of a certain academic in Chicago. Lives in a small mansion with every modern convenience. Calls the police if harassed.
Originally tried to blow things and people up. Still talking about the value of what he did. "America, what a country!" quoth he.
I’ve heard that when Mrs. Ralph Waldo Emerson rang the dinner bell, Thoreau was the first one at the table.
when i was a teener i once told my dad that I did not wish to show up after school and help him in the family business...further i informed him that indeed my time was private and i found more fun and fullfillment layin on the bed listenin to my elvis collection whilst maintainng a journal of my important thoughts...also i told him i preferred my meals delivered to this, my work site, in order to facilitate the continuation of my chosen pursuits, uninteruptedly you see. He informed me that i, indeed HAD no private time and that if i did not show up to work on time, every time...i would not get ANY meals at ALL let alone DELIVERED meals....BWAHhaahaahaha dad Thoreauly unThoreaued me in no time atoll...atoll....thank GOD!
While Henry might have inspired LEO my dad inspired me....he taught me lessons that transformed a rudderless kid into an astoundingly successful adult.. I did better than either HENRY OR LEO..so...there’s that...
He was protesting against the expansion of slavery.
I speak to the buried teen in my back yard.
Bookmark
A lot of Americans protested against slavery. I did not know that Thoreau did, but this would not be surprising.
Thoreau to me is like Plutarch and James Boswell. Men who had enough free time on their hands to over analyze the world. Plutarch was certain that utopia was the simple life of the noble barbarian, and James Boswell thought himself quite the man for being able to make his allowance last out the month (though he rarely did).
I'm glad you like Thoreau's humor. I prefer Churchill and Kipling for their dark, yet humorous, commentary on human nature.
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