A Slightly Hysterical Take on Thoreau's Walden

I read Thoreau's Walden with little to no boredom, finding it much more fitting to sit under the shade tree in my front yard with my girlfriend than to complicate my life reading about the life of a man who was never appreciated until this century. Of Walden Pond, I can say that it sounds as enchanting as one might wish a place to hide and live and write and observe nature in all of its splendor. Walden is but idealism clothed in the simplicity of its reality. Thoreau is trying to bring us to a new state of spiritual awareness without preaching or teaching - he simply relates to the world as he saw it. Thoreau begins to sound like Rousseau when he says "We observe cats and dogs acquiring the same second nature. By proper Shelter and Clothing we legitimately retain our own internal heat; but with an excess of these, or of Fuel, that is, may not cookery properly said to begin?" Jean-Jacques Rousseau said "Man no longer lives close to nature; he is forced by the artificial environment he finds himself in to be cruel, warlike, unjust, and inhumane." He also commented on private property, saying "Private property causes many, many problems, such as crime, war, social inequality, and degeneration of morals...luxury encourages people to be lazy."

Thoreau's move to Walden Pond is a symbolic and literal break with society. He does not want to pay taxes or settle his debts - "My accounts, which I can swear to have kept faithfully, I have, indeed, never got audited, still less accepted, still less paid and settled. However, I have not set my heart on that." Basically, Thoreau just got up one morning and did what neither you or I have the audacity to do - he just up and left, leaving no trace, no forwarding address, only a whole stack of bills that he philosophically did not believe were his responsibility to pay.

Thoreau dreamed of never owning any land - he just wanted to "tend" the land for a while, and he got more personal pleasure out of the area surrounding Walden Pond than his neighbors knew. He wanted people to make their affairs as few as possible, living off the land, eating only what they grew and growing only what they needed to eat. So I took his suggestion to heart, married a nun, and moved to Margaritaville (ala Jimmy Buffet) - "Nibbling' on sponge cake, watching' the sun bake, all of those tourists covered with oil... (1)" Of course, the IRS has warrants out for my all over the globe, so if I ever show my face in public again, I will be arrested on the spot, "But hey, what the hell, I get laid."(2) Why then, did Thoreau leave Walden Pond? Could it be that he realized that his spiritual life was enhanced by the pond, but that his carnal nature desired those things which he had sought to eliminate? He said of his trips into the village "...wherever a man goes, men will pursue him with their dirty institutions, and, if they can, constrain him to belong to their desperate odd-fellow society."

Thoreau's whole scheme was to abandon the "sleepers" - those people who do not use their minds for anything more complicated than perhaps reading the paper, if they can read at all. He also said that he had other lives to lead - perhaps he was a reincarnationist rather than a transcendentalist. Whatever the reason, the pond did not satisfy the longing in his soul. He learned things about himself and other people, and was able to write down his thoughts, but he really did not gain any ground by being there.

In order to purify the soul, and create a new life, sometimes one must "go to the woods" to find the peace and strength one needs to start over. Thoreau was experimenting philosophically and never really got what he wanted. If nature were truly the divine being that Thoreau indicates, then he should never have left Walden Pond. Why bother with mortal life when you can exist within an infinite life force? Thoreau does not go on a crusade or start a lecture series upon his return to society, so the spiritual refreshment he felt must have been forgotten when he left Walden Pond.

Here is where my nun and the hut down in Margaritaville come in handy. I let her worry about my spiritual health, and I concentrate on providing her with tequila and daiquiris. Now, if we were stranded on Gilligan's Island, then I would expect that Thoreau had saved some books to read, at least in the hope that we had time to read them. I believe that if Thoreau had made it to Gilligan's Island, he would not have left. The utter isolation from the web of society, the beauty of nature, the peacefulness of the island - I do not think he could have given such things up as easily as he did Walden Pond. On the island, Thoreau would have learned that Nature is superior to Man, rather than Man being superior to Nature. Thoreau enjoyed his relationship with the woodcutter, but then could not stand him because Thoreau wanted to be something beyond what he was, while the woodcutter did not. As mentioned earlier, Thoreau was conducting a philosophical experiment. It is difficult to determine whether he actually learned anything that changed his life, but in his writing one can sense the smug superiority of someone who feels that he knows the best way for all of us lesser people to live.

No, Thoreau would not have changed the island - the island would have changed him. It is possible that after such an extended period without social interaction, taxes, stress, or confusing reality, that Thoreau might have incorporated the natural communal philosophy into his own soul, and we would have chosen to remain until "The Return to Gilligan's Island" came along. I think, then, the idea of the peaceful island becoming a luxury resort would force Thoreau to leave to avoid a fight with his own conscience over the morals of such opulence.

"I went to the woods 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 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..."

It is entirely possible to this very thing without having to go to Walden Pond or some desert isle. Thoreau is looking for is for people to open their eyes and see the world around them, to revel in it, to laugh at the small things of life. Don't get twenty, or even five credit cards. Do something nice for someone each day. Look at the life that surrounds you, and live in peace with it. As for me, I'll have another oyster and a margarita, please. Won't you join me?