Thoreau Response

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover I had not lived. I do not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.""Where I Lived and What I Live For" in Walden

This passage is somewhat hard to follow when reading it for the first time. It has actually required me to read it multiple times and to take my time so that I could really understand the meaning. I'm still not quite sure of the writers intention but what I can glean from the passage is that he is speaking of some sort of self-discovery experiment. He writes about his desire to "live deliberately" and how he "[does] not wish to live what was not life." With regards to these two quotes, I can infer that there is a deep desire for him to find out the true meaning life and also to find out how to live the most abundant life. The writer also seems to portray some doubt as to whether this experiment will work or not because he also mentions that if this experiment does not result in discovering a truly abundant life, but one of meanness, then he will "publish its meanness to the world."  So, there seems to be a desire to not only search for something greater, but to also find and publish to the world any findings no matter the course his trials take.

I have somewhat luke warm feelings toward this passage. There isn't much in it for me to grasp onto and relate except for the underlying desire that he shares to "live deliberately" in the beginning. I myself have that desire and I myself have a desire to simplify my life so as to leave out all of the things that are unnecessary. Other than that, it looks like he wants to take his little experiment to an extreme that I myself would be unwilling to go. Reading into some of his statements it looks like he wants to reduce himself to the lowest possible form and that is something that does not seem very appealing to me. Who would want to reduce their life to the lowest form? I personally do not know anybody that would, in fact, everyone I know is looking for something that they can add to their life to make it better and also to improve themselves in such a way as to grow to the highest possible form of life.  Which route sounds more appealing to you?

As for this applying to my life, I would have to say that it has some of the elements but lacks the greater reasons behind my will to live.  As stated earlier, his life experiment describes him breaking himself down to the lowest form whereas I am interested in building up my life to the highest possible form.  These are two opposites that contradict each other and cannot be combined so I would have to say that I will not be able to apply that way of thinking into my life.  I am also not looking for the meanness in life as he is.  I do not even subscribe to the idea that at the base of all life there is a genuine meanness that exists.  On the other hand, I belong to the idea that at the base of all life there is a genuine goodness that motivates all living creatures.  To put my idea into perspective, you simply have to observe a newborn child.  Is there any meanness in a being that is essentially stripped down to its lowest form?  There certainly isn’t any evidence that a newborn child exhibits any meanness in its nature at all.  So with this in mind I will have to disregard this man’s idea and focus on growing instead of debasing my faculties.