Thoreau: His Beliefs and Transcendentalism's Tenets

Henry David Thoreau writes Walden as one prescription for living. He emphasizes many things including the need for self-contemplation and the importance of nature. However, what he most strongly emphasizes in order to live the best life are simplifying, self-reliance, and truth.

Thoreau believes in simplifying one's life. One of his most famous quotes says it all. "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. In the midst of this chopping sea of civilized life, such are the clouds and storms and quick-sands and thousand-one items to be allowed for, that a man has to live, if he would not founder and go to the bottom and not make his port at all, by dead reckoning, and he must be a great calculator indeed who succeeds. Simplify, simplify. Instead of three meals a day, if it be necessary eat but one; instead of a hundred dishes, five; and reduce other things in proportion" (Thoreau 56). He believes that we spend too much time running around and accumulating "stuff" that doesn't make us happy but seems to fill up our houses and our lives.

There is still a movement today toward that simple lifestyle of examination that Thoreau promoted. Duane Elgin, author of Voluntary Simplicity defines simple living today. "Simple living is not about living in poverty or self-inflicted deprivation. Rather, it is about living an examined life - one in which you have determined what is important, or "enough," for you, discarding the rest." (Elgin). People today who advocate simplicity live by this. According to another website dedicate to simple living, "Voluntary simplicity is a growing movement of people who have realized that happiness and fulfillment do not lie in having more money, or new and bigger things, but rather in the time with loved ones and connection with community.

They are questioning the consumer society's insistence that possessions, especially of the newest design and color, are the means of fulfillment, or that any material possession can possibly be "to die for" (greattriv.org). The idea of what is "normal" in society is still questioned, just as Thoreau did. According to columnist Ellen Goodman, also on greattriv.org "Normal' is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work, driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for, in order to get to the job that you need so you can pay for the clothes, car, and the house that you leave empty all day in order to afford to live in it" (greattriv.org). Thoreau's philosophy seems to make more sense as time goes on.

Prices have skyrocketed; the housing industry has expanded exponentially, and people need to work more and more just to make ends meet, much less "have anything." In addition to this, voluntary simplicity today would mean less pollution, less negative environmental impact, more community cohesiveness meaning less crime and more local culture. Thoreau's words maintain their lasting impact today. "The nation itself, with all of its so-called internal improvements, which, by the way, are all external and superficial, is just such an unwieldy and overgrown establishment, cluttered with furniture and tripped up by its own traps, ruined by luxury and heedless expense, by want of calculation and a worthy aim, as the million households in the land; and the only cure for it, as for them, is in a rigid" (Thoreau 26).

Thoreau also believes that we should be self-reliant. He went to the woods to live alone and contemplate life. He grew his own food detailing growing beans and gaining the "seeds of virtue" from this experience. He built his own sparse house detailing what it cost down to the cent "The exact cost of my house, paying the usual price for such materials as I used, but not counting the work, all of which was done by myself, was twenty-eight dollars and twelve cents" (Thoreau 12). He advocates being self reliant in only working as much as you need to. "For more than five years I maintained myself thus solely by the labor of my hands, and I found that, by working about six weeks in a year, I could meet all the expenses of living (Thoreau 27). Maybe this idea is tougher today because of all that we own and must maintain, but the idea of simplicity ties back into self reliance. In "Resistance to Civil Government," Thoreau outlines a strong need for our self-reliance and separation from our government. In our increasingly global society, most of us are not self-reliant at all. Again, there is a movement going on to become more self reliant again, to return to our roots so to speak.

Thoreau addresses the idea of truth relating to self exploration. He advocates each of us finding our truths. We all have the capacity to find our own truths in life. We must decide whether to be either "curious passengers" or "stupid sailors" on the "craft" of life. He tells us to He exhorts readers to discover "your own streams and oceans