2003-12-02
Thinking About Thoreau
How I wish that Soren Kierkegaard and Thoreau were still alive to this day! How I envy those lucky individuals who had the privilege to engage in some sort of heigtened conversation with them!
I have finished the works of Thoreau, and I feel that I must give a book review.
The language is classic and figurative. He adds poetry to breathe life into nature, and reading his words are like drinking a fine wine. He expresses himself, not only in exhaustive depth, but he does so eloquently and beautifully as well. There are a plethora of points of discussions, and all of his works are his contemplations. It feels almost as if his mind had a squire who was dictating every single detail of his thoughts. The meticulouslness for his detail is unique and even characteristic of him.
I am absolutely fascinated by this man, mainly because he reminds me of me in some odd and strange way. He moved to Walden Pond for a year, he built his log cabin, cultivated beans, wrote poetry in the woods, took long walks, never got married, etc. That's actually how I wanted to be a few years back. Truly, it is happiness, its the happiness that comes from your personal assurance that you are your own keeper. Some say that he made no sense, but I understand him. Thoreau was liberated from all of these earthly complexities, and he achieved true happiness from simplicity and intellectual elevation.
"Time is but a stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains. I would drink deeper; fish in the sky, whose bottom is pebbly with stars. I cannot count one."--Henry David thoreau