why...

[thoreau]

I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings. In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.

- From Conclusion, from Walden by Henry David Thoreau

I re-read this tonight and it made me tear up in it's simplicity. That somehow I got distracted from my dreams - and am just now finding that refocusing of my energy - just now finding that I'm living the life I imagined. Back in January 2006 I announced that I was moving to San Francisco after spending a long holiday with the likes of Fish and Robbie, Paully, and Morgan and Tommy. I announced to the universe I was moving here - even before I met Mr. Distraction.^tm

I only feel now like I've actually arrived - just a few days shy of my first year in San Francisco. I have put some things behind - AND know I've passed an invisible boundary - where my experience is expanding - and things are starting to become less complex rather than more - solitude is feeling like freedom - and things and money mean much less. I have gone from a place of weakness and emotional upheaval to a place where I understand that all that has made me stronger - and that weakness is NOT weakness. I have dreamed very high in the air - and now I'm at a place where foundation building can finally take place.

Last fall, I had a friend query on me about my Thoreau-isms and my fascination with Thoreau. He wanted to know why Thoreau is featured so prominently in my online presence and day-to-day life.

I talked about my trip to Walden Pond in 1998 and how upon returning from that trip - I reread Walden and Civil Disobedience - and discovered something I hadn't realized when reading Thoreau in high school and college. When re-reading these works while handling cancer treatments and a rather difficult period in my life - I realized that Thoreau was talking directly to me, the mythic Thoreau, the hermit of Walden Pond, the echo of Emerson, the isolated and lonely figure from America's rural past vanished from view. In his place stood a writer of immense humanity, vitality and humor.

I realized that all my life I'd been told I had great (if not sometimes, overwhelming) intensity. You can't experience Thoreau without revealing a historic man of terrific intensity. I became aware of this through his passionate insistence on seeing — a "habit of attention" he once said he possessed to such a degree that it fatigued his senses. We all look at the same things, but some see more than others. "A single gentle rain," Thoreau observes in his chapter on spring, "makes the grass many shades greener."

In his writings, and in Walden above all, Thoreau forged a thought-out way of life, a philosophy that insists that the individual turn not to the state, not to the gods, not to society, or even to history for a guide to life, but to nature and the self. But this turn to nature and the self should not be confused with selfishness. It is not the final destination but only the starting point of the examined life. Thoreau's social side is everywhere in Walden. "I had more visitors while I lived in the woods," he says in the chapter "Visitors," "than at any other period of my life."

In reflecting and meditating on Thoreau's place in my life - as I begin yet another life transition into my forties - I realize that there isn't a part of my personality or life direction that this 1998 epiphany hasn't altered or in some cases heightened or focused.

Thoreau's Walden speaks to our modern condition because it is mostly right about the big things. Open the book anywhere: One should beware of all enterprises that require new clothes. A person is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone. Morning does bring back the heroic ages. The Universe is wider than our views of it. Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads. The sun is but a morning star.

One hundred fifty years after its publication, Walden also remains a practical, usable manual on how to lead a good, just life. It offers readers an ethical view of life that begins in self-rule and ends in public and social commitment to the next generation. Gandhi picked this idea up from Thoreau, among others, and he put it with admirable pith and sinew. "[Real home rule] is self-rule or self-control.... If man will only realize that it is unmanly to obey laws that are unjust, no man's tyranny will enslave him," Gandhi wrote in Indian Home Rule. At its core, Walden is about the project of personal freedom, self-emancipation, which is where all pursuits of freedom must start.

It occurs to me that Thoreau and Walden sent me off on my own project of personal freedom. and that project is still evolving, growing and sending out. One of my favorite thought circles in Thoreau is in the conclusion of Walden. He talks about Sir John Franklin - - the ill fated explorer. Franklin not only never found the Northwest Passage, he never returned to England. His wife sent out expedition after expedition to find him.

"Is Franklin the only man who is lost, that his wife should be so earnest to find him?" Thoreau asks in the conclusion of Walden. Then he gives us his final bit of advice. "Be rather the Mungo Park, the Lewis and Clark and Frobisher, of your own streams and oceans. Explore your own higher latitudes." That task is just as hard now as it was in 1854, and Henry Thoreau is still one of the best guides around.

I was looking into 2007 to find the next latitude - to find the next red clay path to walk down. I had some pretty firm ideas - and have to watch them realized as directionless and without forward momentum.

I had to face that - because now that I'm back on the path with a sense of brushing hot ash from my shoulders and making a step forward. These new ideas - these new dreams - are completely mine, don't require "someone else" to complete - and once I stare into them - they may never let me go.

Comments

[sunbeam-bears.livejournal.com]

Good for you. I am living the life I only dreamed of years ago. It seemed hard at first to decide if I should take the path presented to me. I had some input on the building of that path, and it was a no brainer, that I explore it, with an open mind.

[low-fat-muffin.livejournal.com]

precisely :) the weight loss, the great job, the wonderful home - - all of it is lining up. Despite the struggle of the last year - my life has moved into an entirely new phase and place. and once I relax and stop struggling (as much) - I think things will come into view.

[notdefined.livejournal.com]

Our move to San Francisco was driven my searching for purpose. I felt that for more reasons than my desire to be in this area, I needed, almost passionately, to be here, that there was some reason I had yet to discover. I was talking with a very wise native American woman shortly before we had decided to move, at one point in the conversation she was holding my hands, looked up and told me "you are about to start a journey and your answer will find you." That was the key, I was not the hunter, but the hunted. Once I began to let go of the reigns, things began to fall into place. Let's face it, a control freak would have gone insane during the time frame that we moved here in '99. But, we survived and the reason for me being here has not been fully revealed to me as of yet. I'm patient, and I know everything will happen at its prescribed time and place. Open yourself to the possibilities Robert, take the "me" out of the equation and let the adventure take you where it will.

[cuyahogarvr.livejournal.com]

I have always teasingly told people that I was born in the wrong part of this country. My entire life has been spent in Ohio but now, suddenly, and for very many reasons, I'm about to embark on one of the biggest journeys of my life to another part of the country, TO LIVE, not just visit. But, it feels right. I've never been so sure of anything else in my life before. There are still many unanswered questions, and I know that obsessing over them would drive me insane (it nearly has at times already), but I know it will all be revealed to me as time goes on and I settle in. "Explore your own higher latitudes." says it all right now.

[low-fat-muffin.livejournal.com]

just make sure they are your own. and that you move for YOUR reasons - and let others be simply the icing on the bigger cake. I know you know what I mean - but it bares repeating. Even when we are ABSOLUTELY sure - a tad bit of obsession is healthy. (wink)

[low-fat-muffin.livejournal.com]

selfless - un-'me'-ness - is a great goal to try and achieve. thanks for the insight, Tommybear.

[notdefined.livejournal.com]

That is not quite what I meant, although I suppose I should have worded it better. By taking the 'me' out of the decision process, you are letting go of the wheel, so to speak. You cannot control the future no matter how it may seem that you can. You can protect yourself from variables that may hurt you, but your destiny must find its own way. If you listen for the clues and then take them, you will discover what the future holds for you.