Walden and Thoreau

Being a book about more than two years’ natural and primitive life of a particular person in the woods and calling people to live fully and be true to themselves, Walden demands peaceful hearts to read it. We should not turn the pages when being annoyed by all the noises and trivia of civilization, because even though we do so, we cannot taste the connotation residing between lines and the book may simply seem to be no more than a disorder combination of scenes and stories and monologues, which was the feeling I got when first reading Walden.
Yet soon I was persuaded by that mode of life --- simple but rich, primitive but wise, and independent but not lonely. Even reading the waste book which listed all the miscellaneous expenses, including molasses, pumpkin, hinges and screws, chalks, and many other things that we might easily omitted in our daily life, I feel like reading a poem, a poem that showed the composer’s keen observation and sensitivity towards life. It was amazing that the protagonist could earn the living cost for a whole year within six weeks, and do what he liked for the rest of time. Thus the curiosity about the author, David Henry Thoreau, arose in me: what kind of person was he so as to choose such a reclusive life?
Firstly he appeared to be a nonconformist. In the middle of 19th century in the America, when Thoreau moved to the Walden Pond, the Industrial Revolution was at the swing and colonialism reached its climax. Whereas many exploiters, adventurers and colonists set out to search for new lands and colonies, Thoreau chose to step back to the country life to venture on the paths by mind travels. This action was against the trend of the western civilization, but it indeed showed his sagacity and keen eyesight into the history and society. He thought that “to know ourselves” was what human beings had long emphasized but never done well, and this was expressed in his concept of “pursue our own way” and the famous metaphor of drummer in Walden. He went to the woods, as he explained in the book himself, because he “wished to live desperately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could learn what it had to teach” and “did not wish to live want was not life”, which implied that what he lived in the real society was not a desperate one. And the expression of “How worn and dusty, then, must be the highways of the world, and how deep the ruts of traditions and conformity!” fully conveyed the author’s criticism towards the civilized life.
His reclusion was different from that of Chinese traditional scholars. The latter retired usually because they could not realize their thoughts and theories, so they wanted to appear in a more graceful way. It was a reluctant choice and they actually did not feel as free and pleasant as illustrated in poems. But Thoreau initiated his reclusion. He used to a cynical fighter-- performing against the American slavery and the invasion to Mexico, being put into jail because of refusing to pay the tax, and his remarkable thesis, Civil Disobedience, whose concepts influenced Gandhi, Martin Luther King and other big potatoes --- but the serene Walden Pond calmed him down. There he routed out all the endless lies and encumbrances of the earthliness, and found the life style that suited him the best: desperate, simple and independent. He quite enjoyed his life there and showed his love towards nature as well.
As this was concerned, Thoreau became a hermit and a naturalist. The scenes and life he described in the book were vivid and personated, showing his longing and deep love towards the natural life. But then he left the woods. He graduated from the Hartford University, but he led a life like a “Spartan”; he innovated a new kind of pencil, but when it began to bring profits to him he stopped. The success of experiments meant the end of the deal. To make money was not what he wanted. He just wanted to try something new, and that was also the reason for him to leave the woods.
People always try their best to obtain as many things as possible, and Thoreau adopted a special way to acquire what he wanted, and also a special way to purchase. He told us that if you like something, it is not quite necessary to buy it with cash; it is just like the relations between a viewer and a beautiful farm. He can go to visit it as much as he likes, and the more frequently he goes there he absorbs more marrows of the scenes and thus becomes more reasonable to be regarded as its “host”, while form the actual host’s point of view the visitor might only picks up several flowers. This kind of purchase is not paid by money, but something more precious -- a heart that loves nature, together with the physical strength -- and thus it can be returned with more precious things.
Many people also call for “returning to the nature”, but few act like Thoreau to bind his thinking and practice together. The Walden Pond, in such degree, belongs to Thoreau only. He always stressed the word “live”, showing that he did not go there only to have a temporary holiday or visit; he went to set up his own way of living and thinking. He stands for a living style that holds great love and belief to nature and magnanimous life.
Each of us may have a land, which may not be the one we are crawling on now, that belongs to ourselves, yet not everyone will search for it. Bear in mind Thoreau’s reminding “it is remarkable how easily and insensibly that we fall into a particular route, and make a beaten track for ourselves”. Try to find our own track but not the one others tell us. Then life may become more enjoyable and free.