S M Mamunur Rahman-
On July 4, 1845, the writer we’re talking about decided to take a break from civilization.
So he did.
He built himself a tiny cabin on the bank of Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts, and started living there alone.
Not for one or two weeks, but for the next two years, two months, and two days.
He lived there in the woods, grew and forage his own food, and eventually realized how little we would actually need to live a peaceful life.
He lived there in the harmony with nature and in the tune with himself.
Later on, he penned down his experiences in his great work, Walden, which is still regarded as one of the greatest non-fiction books ever. However, his most influential writing, Civil Disobedience, was also the product of his time of simple living in the woods.
I hope you’ve already got it.
Yes — we are talking about the great American writer Henry David Thoreau, whose work inspired influential figures like Mahatma Gandhi, Leo Tolstoy, and Martin Luther King Jr.
But wait!
Why on earth Thoreau had a change of mind? What are the reasons behind his decision to take a break from civilization and live in the woods?
Thoreau went to the woods because he wanted to live deliberately. In his book, Walden, Thoreau writes:
“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.”
He didn’t want to die with regrets of not knowing what a simple life in the woods would unfold before him. He also wanted to liberate himself from the burdens of civilization.
So, he said goodbye to the fast-paced modern life and took a resort to nature to see what it would teach him about life and living — and what finer fruits it would give him in return.
Thoreau had already witnessed hundreds of men who are living through mere ignorance and mistakes in a civilized society. Understandably, he wanted to avoid those same mistakes of living an ordinary unexperimented life.
As Thoreau writes:
“Most men, even in this comparatively free country, through mere ignorance and mistake, are so occupied with the factitious cares and superfluously coarse labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be plucked by them.”
Being isolated from all the distractions (and comforts) civilization offers, Thoreau wanted to have complete control of his time to do what he really wanted to do.
He said that he wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life.
Thoreau wanted to handle himself tenderly as he believed that only the most delicate handling can preserve the finest qualities of our nature.
In his words:
“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.”
Sadly, the modern world where he lived had become so focused on material possession and external appearances that it was quite impossible for him to treat himself or others tenderly.
Taking a break from the so-called civilized life was inevitable for him. And for that, he ignored people’s opinions of himself as well.
He wrote, “Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate.”
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According to David Ward, a historian who described Thoreau’s sabbatical from society as the most famous vacation in American history, — “Emerson and Thoreau had a kind of relationship where Emerson took him under his wing and guided him.”
It is also believed that Thoreau was inspired by Emerson’s essay, Nature, which ultimately motivated him to do the experimental-living in the woods.
Nature is a wonderful essay everyone should read and repeat. Well, I cannot resist myself from quoting a few lines here from Nature.
In the first chapter, Emerson writes:
“To go into solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society. I am not solitary whilst I read and write, though nobody is with me. But if a man would be alone, let him look at the stars. The rays that come from those heavenly worlds, will separate between him and what he touches. One might think the atmosphere was made transparent with this design, to give man, in the heavenly bodies, the perpetual presence of the sublime. Seen in the streets of cities, how great they are! If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile.
The stars awaken a certain reverence, because though always present, they are inaccessible; but all natural objects make a kindred impression, when the mind is open to their influence. Nature never wears a mean appearance. Neither does the wisest man extort her secret, and lose his curiosity by finding out all her perfection. Nature never became a toy to a wise spirit. The flowers, the animals, the mountains, reflected the wisdom of his best hour, as much as they had delighted the simplicity of his childhood.”
How beautiful, right?
No wonder Emerson’s writing inspired Thoreau to be alone in the woods from the morally bankrupt society and experience the magic of nature. As nature never wears a mean appearance and never became a toy to a wise spirit.
Thoreau spent most of his time in the woods contemplating the natural world as he believed that it was essential for the growth of his mind. Ward writes that the point for Thoreau was to cultivate himself, not cultivate some sort of alternative to America.
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If you are wondering about Thoreau’s life in the woods, here are a few lines from Walden that you might find fascinating:
“Sometimes, when I compare myself with other men, it seems as if I were more favored by the gods than they, beyond any deserts that I am conscious of; as if I had a warrant and surety at their hands which my fellows have not, and were especially guided and guarded. I do not flatter myself, but if it be possible they flatter me. I have never felt lonesome, or in the least oppressed by a sense of solitude, but once, and that was a few weeks after I came to the woods, when, for an hour, I doubted if the near neighborhood of man was not essential to a serene and healthy life. To be alone was something unpleasant. But I was at the same time conscious of a slight insanity in my mood, and seemed to foresee my recovery. In the midst of a gentle rain while these thoughts prevailed, I was suddenly sensible of such sweet and beneficent society in Nature, in the very pattering of the drops, and in every sound and sight around my house, an infinite and unaccountable friendliness all at once like an atmosphere sustaining me, as made the fancied advantages of human neighborhood insignificant, and I have never thought of them since. Every little pine needle expanded and swelled with sympathy and befriended me. I was so distinctly made aware of the presence of something kindred to me, even in scenes which we are accustomed to call wild and dreary, and also that the nearest of blood to me and humanest was not a person nor a villager, that I thought no place could ever be strange to me again.”
About solitude, Thoreau wrote:
“Men frequently say to me, ‘I should think you would feel lonesome down there, and want to be nearer to folks, rainy and snowy days and nights especially.’ I am tempted to reply to such — This whole earth which we inhabit is but a point in space. How far apart, think you, dwell the two most distant inhabitants of yonder star, the breadth of whose disk cannot be appreciated by our instruments? Why should I feel lonely? is not our planet in the Milky Way? This which you put seems to me not to be the most important question. What sort of space is that which separates a man from his fellows and makes him solitary? I have found that no exertion of the legs can bring two minds much nearer to one another. What do we want most to dwell near to? Not to many men surely, the depot, the post–office, the bar–room, the meeting–house, the school–house, the grocery, Beacon Hill, or the Five Points, where men most congregate, but to the perennial source of our life, whence in all our experience we have found that to issue, as the willow stands near the water and sends out its roots in that direction.”
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Undoubtedly, living in the woods for more than two years was Thoreau’s deliberate attempt to understand and reinvent himself and his relationship with nature.
It also gave him invaluable lessons in self-reliance, spirituality, and personal growth.
However, the authentic life he lived in the woods later inspired him to produce his great works including Walden and Civil Disobedience.
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Don’t you think — like Thoreau, we also need to take a sabbatical from this always busy so-called civilized world and submit ourselves to nature in order to reinvent ourselves?
I think we need to stare at the night sky and do the apparently meaningless act of counting the stars. We need to experience the incredibly pleasing sounds and sights of a heavy downpour sitting on the shore of a pond. And we definitely need to walk through the woods and listen to songs of silence.
Like Thoreau, we all need a break. We deserve it.
Yes, I know, we cannot afford to take a two-year break like Thoreau. But how about two days or two weeks?
Take a break and enjoy the beauty and simplicity of living in the midst of nature. Take the time to heal your soul.
The writer is the Founder & Editor of The Masterpiece, a digital publication on Medium. You can reach him through email: mamun.ofcl@gmail.com.
