It is apparent to me that as Thoreau spends more time away from modern civilization, he is becoming increasingly passionate (if not somewhat neurotic) in his determination and exploration into living a sustainable life. Perhaps his most obvious and dramatic attempt to live an eco-friendly life was to move to Walden’s pond and immerse himself into nature. While it is understood that he is not entirely alone or away from civilization as he mentions numerous people who visit with him, his simplistic lifestyle does seem to exclude intimate relationships with others. For example, he states that it is important to be alone in order to think and study. Also, it is clear that he believes intimate relationships to be a waste of his time and intellect. In many ways, Thoreau appears to be a misogynist due to his consistent remarks towards what he believes the poor behavior of women. Thoreau makes it clear that he believes that most women are shallow, unintelligent and gossipers. Thoreau sways in many areas within his book, but on this idea he appears to be unwavering. He mentions that to surrender to the human weakness of sex and dependency on another person causes one to lead an impure life. I do not think that he means this perception to relate to chastity, but to the idea that a dependency on sexual relationships causes one to lose focus on nature. Thoreau’s determination to erase any form of sexual gratification illustrates what I believe to be a strong focus in the later chapters of his book-that there is a weakness in enjoying life. Thoreau appears to believe that not only does a sustainable lifestyle require that one reduce physical pleasure, but also that one reduces mental pleasure through only reading academic novels. Also, it is evident in the way that he restricts his diet to the extent that he eats only healthy, organic, vegetarian foods, and even limits the amount of food he intakes, that purity derives from one’s diet as well. Essentially, Thoreau believes that without total physical and mental health, a person can not live a pure or sustainable life.
While I essentially agree with his belief that more people need to eat healthily, become more knowledgeable, and take the time to experience nature, I do not think that because many people fail to do so that their life will be somehow “impure.” Thoreau’s view of purity and its relation to sustainability seem a bit extreme to me. However, perhaps that was Thoreau’s intention. Perhaps he illustrating these depictions of human fallacy so that his readers will be shocked into reality and see how there futures could change if they would recognize how he or she can benefit from a more simplistic lifestyle, such as Thoreau clearly does. One can enjoy life without succumbing to what Thoreau deems the impure aspects of life. It may be seen that Thoreau’s view of sustainable living is in living a life with fewer impurities and a greater focus on nature.
Sustainable Living in relation to Self-deprivation September 17, 2010
Economy: Becoming self-sufficient to understand value September 10, 2010
In the chapter “Economy,” Thoreau is interested in identifying the purpose of an individual’s life. He does this by illustrating how few people appreciate the beauty and life and what it can offer them. He believes that people are overly dependent on the material aspects of life; hence, he devotes his time at Walden pond to illustrate how the items that people believe that they can’t live without actually further complicates their lives. At one point he states that, “A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to leave alone.” Here he emphasizes his believe that people would be happier (and certainly less stressed) if they could value the more important areas of life. While Walden essentially leaves his family and friends in order to embark on his journey, it is apparent in his discussion of how business men spend far too much time earning money for material objects than spending time with their families, that he believes that family and other relationships are very important. Thoreau claims that “It would be some advantage to live a primitive and frontier life…if only to learn what are the gross necessaries of life…” In this statement he emphasizes this idea of people being over-dependent on things as well as how people may lead better lives if they take the opportunity to understand the true value of a simple life. He compares his work as a “trade.” In doing so he insinuates that not only is he working to better his own life and identify himself with a more simplistic lifestyle, but also to help others comprehend the true beauty in nature and how society is depleting this nature through its dependency on material objects and societal advancement. I identified with Thoreau’s belief that clothing style is one societal advancement that is just a scam to get money from people. Particularly in the younger generations, people are becoming more and more obsessed with the style of clothing verses its actual function of covering a person and keeping him or her warm. Thoreau uses this idea to discuss “character vs. attire” by questioning “If there is not a new man, how can the clothes be made to fit?” He expresses a similar belief that people are obsessed with style and flashiness as he reviews his expenses to illustrate that he is able to build himself a home for a reasonable price with every necessity that he needs. In a way, he believes that a person is smothering his or her soul by building superfluous property and by spending money frivolously making one entirely insufficient. By emphasizing the need to be self-sufficient, Thoreau makes the point that consumerism is taking over our lives and preventing us from understanding the true value in our lives and the importance of appreciating life.
The Bigger Picture September 3, 2010
Our first essay topic asks us to write about the vision or meaning behind one of Thoreau’s chapters in Walden. Having read Walden last year, I can remember quite well his illustrations of the land and what it produces for us in his chapter on beans (I cannot remember the exact name of the chapter). The short summary of this chapter is that Thoreau speaks of what the land can give to us provided we nourish it to the best of our abilities. Wendell Berry uses a different approach than Thoreau; however, his motive or vision behind writing “Solving for Pattern” is quite similar to Thoreau’s vision. They both emphasize that people need to cherish their land in order to solve the ever-increasing economic problems.
Berry discusses the need to look beyond the evident problems of our environment in order to see the underlying connective patterns. This idea relates to Burrough’s idea that people are looking to much at the surface detail and that they need to focus on seeing what is surrounding them. This idea was evident as we took the time to journal outside in class. Instead of only seeing the pesky fly buzzing in my face, I was able to see the ant colony beneath the bench and become aware of how they avoided my shadow on their quest for sustenance.
Thoreau immerses himself entirely in his environment in order to prove a point, similar to how Burroughs strives to become a part of his environment in order to truly see his surroundings. They both are searching for harmony and balance in the entirety of nature. They view the larger picture and how we can solve the issues in our economy versus just fixing a singular problem which will only make the other problems more evident. I saw the importance of this concept in Berry’s example of farming and how farmer’s are using up all of the nutrients in the soil by over-farming certain crops. I personally have seen a deterioration in the quality of the hay that my family buys for our animals due to this exact problem. Crops are becoming less nutritious because there are fewer of the necessary nutrients in the soil. Farmers believe that they can sow artificial nutrients into their land in order to solve this problem, but it is not effective in the long run. The idea of solving the larger problem to restore biological order is important in solving this issue of over-farming as well as in solving other ecological problems. People need to spend more time looking at the overall picture verses singular problems. Berry illustrates this in the farming scenario, Burroughs illustrates this idea in the need to truly see what is occurring in nature, and Thoreau illustrates this idea in how he chooses to immerse himself fully into his environment.
