Walden Pond
Among the forerunners of Transcendentalism, a philosophical movement and way of life according to which the divine pervades all of humanity and nature alike, nineteenth century philosopher-poet and woodsman-ecologist Henry David Thoreau left behind a vital legacy of contemplative reflections.
With the help of his friend and fellow Transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson who owned a section of the nearby woodland, Thoreau opted to retreat into a cabin he built in the forest surrounding Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts for a period of two years, two months, and two days - beginning shortly before his 28th birthday and concluding at age 30.
During this time, Thoreau amassed a voluminous collection of philosophical material in his journal reflections, composed around civilian themes and everyday observations, both those pertaining to society at large and in seclusion surrounded by nature.
Although a prolific author of several essays and other collections of writing, Thoreau's contributions to the Transcendentalist movement and contemplative ecology in particular are most saliently felt through his reflections in Walden, named after the pond-side locale of his extended retreat.
Despite his early death at age 44, Thoreau's work in the realm of Transcendentalism, including his Walden Pond reflections on the self-reliance, simplicity, and spiritual fulfillment to be found in nature, left its mark on authors, artists, activists and various others who drew inspiration from his legacy - casting ripples far into the future.
We therefore engage a central set of excerpts from Thoreau's collection of reflections in Walden with the intention to highlight several key features of his process.
Most Delicate Handling
One particularly telling section of Walden describes the seemingly lifeless ways of life - indentured lifestyles and serf-like livelihoods - that Thoreau observed around him in everyday society, perhaps prompting his retreat into the wilderness. Probing the foundations, he peels away the layers of absurdity that have accumulated around humanity's relationship to the earth. What emerges is a critique of mainstream values pertaining to objects abstracted from nature.
I see young men, my townsmen, whose misfortune it is to have inherited farms, houses, barns, cattle, and farming tools; for these are more easily acquired than got rid of. Better if they had been born in the open pasture and suckled by a wolf, that they might have seen with clearer eyes what field they were called to labor in. Who made them serfs of the soil? Why should they eat their sixty acres, when man is condemned to eat only his peck of dirt? Why should they begin digging their graves as soon as they are born? ... But men labor under a mistake. The better part of the man is soon ploughed into the soil for compost.
While of utilitarian value for the work they enable, the various possessions we accumulate - the likes of which include farms, houses, barns, cattle, and farming tools - can nonetheless become burdens, encumbering our freedom. When inherited through familial line, not chosen freely by one's own hand and heart, reflects Thoreau, they function to shackle us, tying the bearer down to a way of life not of their own making or design. In cases where one's plot of land has been pre-parceled out, with fixed yet arbitrary dimensions, then there seems no room for growth.
Under such conditions, creativity is stunted and stifled. A life that revolves entirely around unchosen work, rote tasks and assigned duties, rather than heartfelt engagement on one's own terms makes for an unfulfilling existence. One is then bound, not free.
By a seeming fate, commonly called necessity, they are employed, as it says in an old book, laying up treasures which moth and rust will corrupt and thieves break through and steal. It is a fool’s life, as they will find when they get to the end of it, if not before... The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling. Yet we do not treat ourselves nor one another thus tenderly. We are always on the limits, trying to get into business and trying to get out of debt; always promising to pay, tomorrow, and dying today, insolvent; seeking to curry favor... you are a slave-driver to yourself.
Too often, we deplete ourselves through futile efforts to amass wealth and status, which come at the expense of the rest of the community and environment at large. Thoreau observes that all that we accumulate will eventually dissipate. Whether by its own decay (via moth and rust) or loss to others (thieves), we will lose everything.
By recognizing the artificiality of the conditions under which we are employed, dictated by greed beyond need and a baseless assumption of separateness in well-being, we may reroute our efforts toward harmony with the whole, the world around us, given our nature's inescapable entanglement with that of nature itself.
Indeed, Thoreau's lines, "The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling. Yet we do not treat ourselves nor one another thus tenderly," point to the importance of care for the whole of which we are part.
Rather than expend one's inner resources in hopes of materializing rewards in the field of outer conditions, placing further strain on the social and ecological spheres, perhaps one may instead reclaim agency over one's contributions and, in so doing, reintegrate the parts that have become fragmented from the whole.
Selflessly Employed
Reclaiming agency entails unshackling oneself from otherwise unquestioned ways of being. For Thoreau, the major source of bondage seemed to stem from society's obsession with consumerism. When one returns to nature, one no longer works under or above others in order to acquire and exploit things, but with and for others, human and non-human, out of mutual reciprocity, never to the point of subjugation, never with expectation, but via a constant balancing act that aims for equalization of all members.
One who is "selflessly employed" in this sense is better equipped to preserve and secure vital energy. Otherwise, such energies go to waste, stolen by thieves who exploit one's labor for their own material gain at the expense of others. Unprotected, we as well as the earth itself are depleted.
In reclaiming such energy, however, one does not hoard it. One willingly pours one's vital energy into ecologies that in turn provide sustainable nourishment instead of merely superficial gains. Thus are all tended-to and accounted-for, none relegated to lower status or neglected out of hierarchical disadvantage, there being no hierarchy remaining.
Thoreau aptly notes that we neglect our own nature as well as all that surrounds us through self-enslavement, mindlessly pursuing perpetual worries of our own invention via the endless quest for material progress. Only by the most delicate handling can our full potential thrive. Let such potential remain free from corruption by reconnecting with our natural state, surrounded by nature, suggests Thoreau through his reflections.
Quiet Desperation
Filling in the social backdrop from which he derives his reflections, Thoreau provides further detail on the quality of life among those he observes in mainstream society. Filled with unmet desires as well as an abundance of fully met desires which nonetheless provide no lasting satisfaction, only the burden of ownership, a quiet desperation overtakes them.
The mass of men live lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation... A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.
Despite all the luxuries and comforts we amass, our desires continue to rage to no end. There remains a psychologically unfulfilled void even when all desires are materially met. We may continue to live in inner despair even while basking in outer luxury and comfort because such luxurious, comfortable lifestyles hold only material worth, nothing spiritual, pulling the wool over our eyes, fooling us into complacency, and thereby obstructing our contemplative growth.
To Live Deep
In light of this critique of comfort and luxury as obstacles, Thoreau clarifies his reasons for living in seclusion among nature along the shores of Walden Pond.
My purpose in going to Walden Pond was not to live cheaply nor to live dearly there, but to transact some private business with the fewest obstacles; to be hindered from accomplishing which for want of a little common sense, a little enterprise and business talent appeared not so sad as foolish.
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. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to me mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it.
According to his own reasoning, Thoreau's retreat into nature was far from an escapist move to avoid responsibility. Instead, he sought seclusion for the purpose of reconnection, a return to the roots of life, the very soil in which they are inextricably embedded. Unencumbered by layers of abstraction and distraction, Thoreau intended to immerse himself fully in the present and to live truthfully, to live with purpose and meaning, to live deliberately, to living with rootedness. Only then could he say he truly lived.
Retreat and Realignment
What can we take away from Thoreau's reflections in Walden? Perhaps that we need not take away anything, but rather return to the infinite wellspring that lies right before us, accessible to all at all times, without exception. Inspired by Thoreau, we may ask ourselves why we live as we do. Do our values align with the mode of life we've undertaken? If not, we have a choice.
That choice may be to retreat, not out of fear or avoidance, but in order to re-align what has been thrown out of balance. Recognizing the misalignment, we may consciously re-orient our relationships to so-called "objects" - whether other beings, nature, or otherwise - understanding them not in terms of how we may use them, not how they are believed to serve (and are thereby subservient) to us, but by recognizing their incalculable worth and value outside the mode of objectification.
Such realignment may re-enliven us as much as it did Thoreau. Re-enlivened, we may then harness our vital energy in ways conducive to holistic well-being, not merely for ourselves, not merely for our immediate circles, but for the all-encompassing sphere of intersecting ecosystems without end. To be continued.
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