Henry David Thoreau: Transcendentalist Essay

Henry David Thoreau spent much time studying character and applying those studies to the human condition. His Transcendentalist ideas sh ane through in his writings and his life. In Economy he asks, Why has man rooted himself thus firmly in the earth, just now that he may rise in the same proportion into the empyrean above (Thoreau 58). He asks this question in response to mans ever increasing need to have more than the basic necessities of life. In other words, if we have warmth, food, water, and clothing what manipulation does added luxury serve.Thoreau reinforces this later when he writes, When I have met an immigrant tottering under a bundle which contained his each(prenominal) looking like an enormous wen which had grown out of the nape of his neck I have pitied him, not because that was his all in all, but because he had all that to carry (Thoreau 110). In Thoreaus opinion these things altogether hamper ones ability to rise above a mundane existence. piteous to the po nd and living off what it supplied helped him in that quest.Reading on into Where I Lived he says, I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front whole the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, encounter that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is dear, nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary (Thoreau 135). This is an super telling state custodyt. Thoreau is speaking of his dedication to finding truth in nature. The solid travesty, for him, would be to neglect this fortune to learn what nature has to teach him or die never the wiser.He honestly believed nature to be the highest somatogenetic reality on Earth and only by understanding it could a person understand oneself. Living in harmony with nature was the source and best way to realize the truths of human nature. He furthers these ideas later in Sounds by asking what is gained by earnestly listening to what is around you The rays which workforcestruation through the shut will be no longer remembered when the shutter is wholly removed. No method nor discipline can supersede the fatality of being forever on the alert.What is a course of history or philosophy, or poetry, no matter how swell up selected, or the best society, or the most admirable routine of life, compared with the discipline of looking always at what is to be seen? Will you be a reader, a student merely, or a seer? (Thoreau 156). He had not read each books everywhere his first summer at Walden in favor of working his wreak and keeping other practical matters in order. The sounds of the natural world, as well as the opportunities he afforded himself to sit in the sun, offered a unique opportunity to for inner reflection.While he mustiness have gotten much rapture from reading and learning he unders excessivelyd that true understanding could only come from observing what nature offer ed. He continued, I was reminded of the lapse of time. I grew in those seasons like corn in the night, and they were far purify than any work of the hands would have been. They were not time subtracted from my life, but so much over and above my usual allowance (Thoreau 157). How beautiful it must have been for him to have this time to search within himself through nature.well-educated and understanding that nature provides an environment to grow spiritually allowed Mr. Thoreau to learn his deposit in the world and accept it happily. This utilization of his natural surroundings helped him center on inwardly. Looking at his isolation as a gift he wrote, Some of my pleasantest hours were during the long rain-storms in the spring or fall, which confined me to the hearth for the afternoon as well as the forenoon, soothed by their ceaseless skag and pelting when an early twilight ushered in a long eve in which many thoughts had time to take root and unfold themselves (Thoreau 177). The purdah he found at Walden, on a dreary rainy day that may have found others in different down(p) states, he used to ponder the idea of loneliness and how it had such a small effect on him. To Thoreau, loneliness was only possible for those who had to be contented by spending time with others in endeavors that did nothing to summation the human spirit or give way to a heightened light of ones self. It seems that, above all, Thoreau felt that mankind devoted too much of itself to trying to compete, impress, and just generally keep up with itself. The rowdiness of the government in Thoreaus time did not serve to better this opinion.This was the time of the Mexican war and slavery was a growing fuck in the United States. Thoreau had come to a point that his faith in government was lost as well as his faith in those that followed it. The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines with their bodies (Thoreau 388). He felt all those employed by the state had lost the ability to make rational moral judgments and the citizens were deprived of a true say in government. He argues that by doing this, they dress themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well.Such command no more respect than men of straw or a lump of dirt (Thoreau 388). To Thoreau, people of the time were blindly following a government that put its interest forwards of the peoples. What was even worse was that the people could see the truth if only they would look. The answers to these problems at the time did not necessarily have to be revolution. In Thoreaus mind a man could make a dramatic dictation by washing his hands of the whole mess and therefore make a powerful statement to others.