As a Junior in High School, my AP Language and Composition teacher assigned us to read Henry David Thoreau's Walden. Yes, this would be the book that sold a grand total of seven (I think it was seven, at least) copies during Thoreau's lifetime, three of which to his own mother.
I despised Walden far more for Thoreau's literary personality that the dry quality of his speech. Thoreau's a literary snob. He finds it necessary to go off on a tangent in Latin, and then explain it in plain-man's English for those of us too dumb to understand his high-class level of speech. Thoreau is a self-proclaimed man who "marched to the beat of his own drummer." Or so he wished to believe. He lived in the wilderness for two years, two months, and two days, and in that time he lived his life-SUPPOSEDLY- vegetarian, alone, and nobly by-passing the prosperity of normal life and finding the true meaning.
In fact, Thoreau didn't do any of this. He preached it. He looked down on those who didn't follow this philosophy. But he was a hypocrite. He would cook only vegetables for himself, but if his mother cooked him all sorts of blood-infested yum-yums, that was quite all right. He lived alone, but would have parties of thirty of his old city friends in his hovel. And by-passing prosperity and living off the land? Hardly. He spent some thirty dollars while living at Walden Pond, for which this book was named. Probably less than he would have spent, but that is far from by-passing prosperity in the era of transcendentalism. \
Frankly, I couldn't stand Thoreau because I thought he was an ass.
And, recently, my English assigned us a project. We were to live as Thoreau lived. Think as he thought. Do as he would do. So we were to find a time to spend out in nature, do an act out of the norm, and just look at things through questioning eyes. Not too difficult, I found. I was already living that way, to an extent.
But now, I find myself thinking... How many people out there live as Thoreau lived? How many find themselves wandering in order to find themselves? So, my question to you is... What do you do to change the world? Do you find it absolutely necessary to build yourself a hut in the woods to find yourself and protest against society? Or do you do something different? I want to know. Tell me.
SAM
