[David “Passion Fruit” Flint]

During Thoreau’s extended stay living on Walden Pond, he found a way to live in seclusion to find the freedom to live the life of self-reliance and simplicity. His disapproval with society’s excessive wasting and superfluously extravagant lives is because of his philosophy that in order to gain the true knowledge of life, one must live with only the simple necessities. Being able to have the knowledge of life is key to be able to transcend, another goal of Thoreau’s. Anything more than basic necessities are blocking that knowledge from coming through, and therefore blocking him from transcending. Likewise, Thoreau states that if one follows what he believes in with confidence, “he will live with the license of a higher order of beings” (Thoreau 359), which is a fundamental basic of transcendentalism. Thoreau also placed a heavy emphasis of self-reliance on his five year stay in the woods, where he believed that by leading an individualistic lifestyle and living for himself, he was able to focus all thoughts to himself and transcending.

I found most of the viewpoints in this book to be quite agreeable, specifically the self-reliance ideal. I have always found that for one to lead a morally strong life, an individual must live life for himself, and his self only. Like Thoreau wrote in the beginning of Walden, people should have less worry over other people’s lives if it means sacrificing a portion of your own life. There is a virtue to selfishness, because the main moral goal in life is to achieve self-happiness. Walden displayed this excellently by his separation from others and focus on solely his own life goals, rather than sacrificing it for others.

[David “Passion Fruit” Flint]

In “Brute Neighbors,” Thoreau intently watches a battle between a collective group of red ants, and a group of black ants who were smaller in numbers yet were bigger in size. When Thoreau compares these ants as “the red republicans on one hand, and the black imperialists on the other” (Thoreau 287), he was referring back to the Revolutionary War. In this case, the red ants represented the Americans, who were less equipped than the British (black ants), but were better prepared and were more organized. Like the Revolutionary War, both sides of the ants were fighting for territory. Because of this, if humans lived as simply as Thoreau did, it would be impossible to turn into living like the ants. The ants are in a constant need of new land to acquire, but part of Thoreau’s philosophy is to not live with excess. This excess land that the ants yearn for would not correlate with Thoreau’s philosophy.

I find Katie’s perspective on how we would end up like the ants to be interesting. The fact that she connects the ant’s simplistic way of life to Thoreau’s philosophy of living with the basics to be an equally accurate viewpoint of how humans could end up living like the ants.

[David “Passion Fruit” Flint]

In “Higher Laws,” Thoreau explains how eating is simply a process of humans to keep them functioning, nothing more. If one takes satisfaction in their meal, or eats more than what they need to, it is considered to be ridiculous excess. In fact, Thoreau presents hunting for food to be a lowly task that one should only start life as, and then “has the seeds of a better life… and leaves the gun and fish-pole behind” (Thoreau 275). Thoreau truly believes that a task of this caliber is crude, and that hunting is a task wholly unnecessary.

Thoreau speaks about food like everything combined under the that title has the same value to it. He compares fish to potatoes and bread and holds them to the same value, and because of that, finds the effort to catch and prepare the fish “insignificant and unnecessary, and cost more than it came to” (Thoreau 276). This sort of statement was acceptable in the time it was written, but from a modern standpoint, it is foolish. We now know that different types of food provide a wide array of nutritional values, and that fish is certainly not equivalent in nutrition to bread or potatoes. So in this, I do not agree with Thoreau. However, for one to thrive rather than simply survive in life, he must eat more than the bare necessity, but it is not always required for one to gorge himself until the point of bursting. This is the one point in this chapter that Thoreau makes that I do agree with.

Max, I like your different perspective on the chapter on how Thoreau acted on instinct when he wanted to eat it upon first thought. The fact that civilization held him back is very reminiscent of Lord of the Flies, where the main theme of “nature versus nurture” is prevalent.

[David “Passion Fruit” Flint]

“The Ponds” enlightens upon the aspect of the simple and beautiful purity of Walden Pond. To Thoreau, the clean simplicity of the lake and “‘the glassy surface of [the] lake'” (Thoreau 255) allow life as a whole to become crystal clear and reveal that “the thrills of joy and thrills of pain are indistinguishable” (256). Thoreau believed that with this simplicity residing in the lake, that it would become a haven to him. This haven, like his home, would reflect his lifestyle of simplicity by allowing him to reflect upon life easily through its purity.

However, I feel as though Thoreau contradicts the purity symbol of the pond in the beginning of this chapter when he states that “Walden is blue at one time and green at another, even from the same point of view” (Thoreau 247). This feels like the pond is being described as a complex figure showing how life can’t be viewed through a tunnel, as there are many ways to go through life. In this point of view, this symbol contradicts the former, as complexity is the opposite of purity and simplicity. Whether or not this contradiction was intentional or not, however, is unclear.

Kheldhe, I love how you connected Thoreau with being an introvert. Relating the lake with Thoreau as his haven to escape to ties in with his want to remove himself from society as much as possible, being the introvert that he is, and with the lake as a purifier, it is the perfect place for him to get away from everything and merely reflect upon life.

[David “Passion Fruit” Flint]

Like the saying goes, if a man chooses a job he loves, he won’t work a day in his life. Thoreau displays this mindset in “The Bean-Field” when he compares one working for the joy of it versus working for a profit. Thoreau displays disdain for the latter because of how it drains upon the life of man, for when one despises the work that he does, it puts strain on the simple quality of life that Thoreau believes man was supposed to live. To Thoreau, when he began to enjoy the planting and hoeing of the beans, he became “much more intimate with [the] beans” (Thoreau 232) which in turn led to “a constant and imperishable moral” (232). When someone doesn’t enjoy their work, and simply does it to gain profits, it doesn’t improve their life or give them good morals as one would if they worked a job that they enjoyed.

I think Kheldhe has a great point as to how when someone works solely for profit, they are never truly satisfied because they are always in need of more. This relates to the short story “How Much Land Does a Man Need” where the main character greedily buys more and more land because he is never truly satisfied by what he has already. In the end of the story, he dies because of his greed in marking how much land he wanted. Like Thoreau stated, if the main character wasn’t working for profit, it would have done him better in the end.

[David “Passion Fruit” Flint]

As Thoreau was searching for a house in “Where I Lived, and What I Lived For,” the qualities of the house that he wanted reflected the morals of how he lived his life. What Thoreau truly wanted in his house was solitude, and simplicity. When he came across the Hollowell Farm, it had exactly what he was looking for, “separated from the highway… the gray color… of the house and barn” (Thoreau 175-6). These qualities are not of what most society would think of as beautiful or logical, but that was precisely Thoreau’s point. Society was the norm that Thoreau was attempting to escape, so naturally he wouldn’t want the same qualities in a house as others would. This is because society doesn’t follow life by the basic necessities that Thoreau described in “Economy.” This house represents those qualities, and is why it appealed to Thoreau so much.

Muriel, I agree with you that Walden more wanted the house as a shelter to live and “gain more insight.” Thoreau stated that he “wished to live deliberately” (Thoreau 182), or rather with a purpose in life, and having a constantly driving force keeping him going. This is why living in the woods was pertinent, because in order for him to live with a purpose, his house, and its surroundings, must be plain and simple, with no outside distractions.

[David “Passion Fruit” Flint]

Walden’s disdain for material possessions is clear in “Where I Lived, and What I Lived For,” where he criticizes those who favor adding needless accessories to their lives rather than finding spiritual reality. He finds that when people are “cluttered with furniture” (Thoreau 183), it tends to over-complicate life and moves far away from living life with just its necessities. In doing this, people end up becoming selfish and greedy, with no care for what Walden considers to be truly important, living a life of simplicity. In addition, with society becoming spoiled with material possessions that they want, but do not need, the “now” generation was formed. This is a generation that is so used to being spoiled with unneeded items, that it has become expected that when someone wants something, they get it instantly.

We do see a perfect parallel to this in today’s society, with the “now” generation being adolescents. With technology ever-rapidly advancing, children of an steadily earlier age have gotten what seems to be better and better technology. Therefore, they are then accustomed to the lifestyle of having a material possession handed over to them, so they come to always expect it. Because of this, it is extremely common that people favor material accessories over spiritual reality.

Sammy, I think your point of America not being as bothered as Walden was being so attached to material possessions because of those materials becoming the norm is spot on. For example, if a student from a middle school fifteen years ago had a state-of-the-art cell phone, it would be viewed as an outrage, because of their rarity in their time period. However, today in 2014 where cell phones have become the norm, seeing a child of that age owning a cell phone wouldn’t make someone bat an eye.

[David “Passion Fruit” Flint]

In Thoreau’s “Economy,” it is stated that the four basic necessities of life are food, shelter, clothing, and fuel. In turn, all four of these necessities fall under the main category of warmth. This warmth, however, is what Thoreau believes is the gateway to the frivolous luxuries that impede upon what is true, raw living. A key example of this is when Thoreau recollects Darwin and his story of comparing Tierra del Fuego inhabitants versus New Hollanders. The European inhabitants, who have been spoiled with the unnecessary luxuries of warm coats, are shivering from the cold even though they are sitting right next to the fire. On the other hand, the New Hollanders, who are close to naked yet sitting further from the fire, were “‘streaming with perspiration at undergoing such a roasting'” (Thoreau 121). The fact that the minds of the Europeans had been weakened from being spoiled with luxuries proves Thoreau’s point precisely. This also relates to Ben Franklin’s “Autobiography,” where one of the first correct moral behaviors on his list is “temperance.” The fortitude of mind which Franklin holds so high in his regards to right morals is parallel to the importance of maintaining the four basic necessities of life that Thoreau describes in this chapter. When one has temperance of mind, that person will not stray from the four necessities of life which allows one to live. By not straying, that person will not become weaker in their life by adding luxuries to it.

Hunter, I agree with your reasoning that Thoreau scoffs at luxuries because they get in the way of evolution. As Darwin has said himself, it is the “survival of the fittest,” and the fittest in the end will be those who have lived without luxuries in their life. Therefore, according to Thoreau, only those who live with the core necessities in life will continue in evolution.

-David Flint

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