Thoreau moved to the woods of Walden Pond to learn to live
deliberately. He desired to learn what life had to teach him. He moved to the woods to
experience a purposeful life. He did not want to have lived his whole life and not truly
have lived:
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.
While living in the
woods, Thoreau desired to simplify his life. He claims that too many people's lives are
"frittered away by details." No doubt, Thoreau enjoyed his simplistic life, claiming
that all men need to simplify their lives:
readability="11">Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let
your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million
count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your
thumb-nail.Specifically,
Thoreau did learn that one meal a day would suffice. He learned that a few plates are
better than "a hundred dishes." Simple living is the key to a fulfilled
life.Thoreau wrote Walden to share
his experiences gained while living in the woods. He desired to help others understand
that a simplified life is a meaningful life. No doubt, he learned to live intentionally
while keeping a record for posterity. He wrote a detailed
account:readability="7">Walden (1854), is an
eloquent account of his experiment in near-solitary living in close harmony with nature;
it is also an expression of his transcendentalist
philosophy.At the very heart
of Walden is one man's ability to move away from materialistic
living and experience living off the natural land. Today, we have his masterpiece which
gives us a idealistic view of living life in a simple
manner:In
solitude, simplicity, and living close to nature, Thoreau had found what he believed to
be a better life.
No comments:
Post a Comment