Thoreau's Art of Living
In Thoreau's Walden, he explores the art of living by presenting a dichotomy of sojourning in nature. The life of participating with nature considers living simply and wisely while cooperating with both its lowest and highest elements. Thoreau calls for a change in life by changing the conventional ideas of standard societal views and its participation with the torpor of the material mass. Throughout Walden, Thoreau delves into his surroundings, the very specifics of nature while trying to live the ideal life. Perhaps the main theme and overbearing concept that Thoreau wishes to convey to the reader both in the conclusion and throughout Walden, is that we must recognize the great power and potential for new discovery and enjoyment in our minds. Thus, Thoreau calls for an "ideological revolution to simplification" in our lives and conveys a paradoxical view that the highest point of living is the leading of a simple life of a balance between change and solitude. This life is the art of activity within the art of structural living- a non-instrumental way of enhancing one's life through spiritual development and the cultivation of the mind and body. The purpose for this enhancement is fostering
the spirit in its progress and not marred by material products or social structures. The spirit involves activity with nature and must not be hindered by material necessities This action must be done individually and by one's own efforts and exertions in order to experience the art of living. Thoreau's emphasis on solitude and independence conveys the notion that one should become detached from the worldly unfruitful life for one to become lost to oneself in order to find his soul. The importance placed on the individual's act of living reveals the dependency that one has to nature. Thoreau suggests a life matching and synergetic with nature while learning to absolve and bless oneself with nature. By losing oneself to nature and shedding detail, one's lenses of perception of life becomes purified and faced with truth. He also hints at an issue much deeper than just whether what one says is true or not. Thoreau deals with not only truth or falsity, but with the dichotomy between real value and superficial pedantry. Associated with the art of living reveals living one's life engaging and searching nature without worrying of limitations. The search of perfection results in a perfect art so unimpeded by external events. The artist uses pure materials of nature that are not tainted by the materialistic focus of the world. By employing these pure elements, the true artist of life brings a new system to take the place of old aged societies and brings forth a "world with full and fair proportions" (211). This new world constructed by innocence and purified nature does not age or dies but rather transcends beyond the torpor and mundane life. By describing the nature around him, Thoreau grips the life by living the deliberate and "fronting only the essential facts" (59). Such facts arise from nature and living is the experience one has while dealing with the earth and the atmosphere. Even in one's poverty, Thoreau suggests that "you are but confined to the most significant and vital experience" - a life compelled to deal with nature and its elements. It is the love to "weigh, to settle, to gravitate" (211) life that produces a life not the search for "luxury which enervates and destroys nations" (9). Thoreau prefers a simplistic life resembling poverty and detachment from the dependency of luxury and the massive aspirations for particular things. The severance from worldly commodities will bring forth a "life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust" (9). and habits as well as the "gross necessaries of life" that only temporarily satisfies the body and impurifies rather than purifies (7).
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Approximate Word count = 1938
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)
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