Henry David Thoreau, one of the most famous transcendentalists. Who was he, why do we know him today, and what can we learn from him?
David Henry Thoreau was born July 12th 1817, in Concord Masachusetts. He lived there most of his life, although he did travel within the United States.
Being routinely addressed by his middle name Henry, he changed his name to Henry David, even though this change was never officialised.
He attended Harvard and at the age of 20 returned back home, but was not interested in the available careers to college graduates. He briefly started teaching at the local school, but didn't continue for long: he quit rather than administering corporal punishment.
It was during this time that he met Ralph Waldo Emmerson, another concordian, who would become a mentor, friend and guide.
It was Emmerson who counselled Thoreau to keep a diary, which over the course of his life turned into a huge work spanning a couple millions of words.
Thoreau liked to be alone, so that he could read, and perform his studies of nature. A few days before his 27th birthday, he took an axe and went into the nearby Walden woods, where he built himself a shack on land which he had borrowed from Emmerson.
He lived in this shack for 2 years, 2 months and 2 days while he made an experiment in independent living. He had a nearby beanfield where he worked and reared a crop, and most of all, he walked the area of Walden, and investigated nature, showing a deep interest in the Walden pond and it's surrounding wildlife.
Whereas many would describe him as a hermit, this is incorrect, since he lived in proximity of his ancestral town, and visited often, and had visitors, he just preferred the remoteness of his shack to the crowdedness of the town.
Years later he would write a book on this experience, the now very well known: "Walden, or life in the woods." Despite this book being considered a classic now, and being an inspiration to the adventurous everywhere (the book was found amongst the pile of books Chris Mccandless carried into the Alaskan wilderness). it was a commercial failure.
He would write many books and essays during his life, and sometimes he would make some money of it, but for the most part he lived of his proceeds as a surveyor, and he also helped out in his fathers pencil factory, which he also took over after his fathers demise.
Thoreau however, viewed work as something which should be spent as little time as possible on. The quote: "Everything costs the amount of life which one exchanged for it" very well describes his views. His duties as a surveyor enabeled him to work in the open, amidst the fields and the animals, and she streams which he loved. He would distill his observations into many essays, some of which he would lecture in COncord, and sometimes he would also be invited to lecture in different towns, to likeminded groups.
His two years living at Walden pond had thought Thoreau that materialism wasn't the path to being happy. He preferred to live as frugal as possible, thereby limiting his dependence upon work in order to get by.
Thoreau was a lifelong abolitionist, helping a fugitive slave escape to Canada during his walden years, and writing very strong essays after the capture and execution of John Brown after his Raid on Harpers Ferry.
He also wrote "Civil disobedience", after he had been jailed for refusing to pay a tax. His reasons where that he opposed many of the governments actions, including the Mexican war which was at that time being conducted, and that he would rather be locked up than see his money be spent on bullets and rifles.
In the end an aunt payed the tax, and he was released.
Early on in his life (at the age of 18) Thoreau got tuberculosis, but he managed to get by with the disease, living a healthy life with lots of outside air and exercise. (Thoreau was known for his long walks, often he would walk many miles each day, to various sites of natural beauty in his vicinity.)
Throughout his life we can read in his diaries the happenings of nature, what birds he encountered, what floweres opened on what day, and what trees had been cut down. But in the midst of these factual observations we discover his deeper feelings, observations on deeper human nature, and on the futility of many human occupations, that stike one with great force. "Our lives are frittered away on details, simplify, simplify" is another quote by him.
Spending many hours outside, he was subjected to the elements, and at the age of 44, he caught a bad cold while out in the rain, counting tree rings. This cough exacerbated the tuberculosis, leading to his death on May 6th 1862, a couple of months after general hostilities during the American civil war had broken out.
Dus to his sickness, he didn't write a lot anymore during his final months, so that it is not very clear how he felt about this war.
On reading his diary, and on reading Walden, one gets the idea that Thoreau was a very private person, who didn't value human contact, however, the letters which he wrote to his family and friends (which have been gathered and published as "familiar letters of Henry David Thoreau") reveal a Thoreau which felt very warmly about these people, and who was generally interested in their lives.
When we look at our society through his eyes, we can't help but feeling that indeed people in our society are frittering their lives away on a hundred unimportant details, rather than following that which they rally want to do.
The art of simplification (in diet, in clothing, in habits, in work) is something which everybody can learn from him. The art of frugality, even when not taken to Thoreau's extremes, will put everybody a couple of steps closer to an early retirement, or working less.
But the most important thing which a person can learn from this genius is the deep pleasure which he derived from doing what he wanted, how he wanted it, when he wanted it and for the reasons he wanted it, regardless of how society felt about it.
Thoreau was an individualist in the true sense of the word, without any of the negative connotations which surround individualism today. He was a man who knew what he wanted from life, and who spent every second of his life in digging that well as deep as he could.
If there is one thing we can all learn: it is that. DO WHAT YOU FEEL WILL MAKE YOU HAPPY, and do it with all your zeal, enthusiasm, and dedication