Thoreau on Life

Today is the first day of semester, and I’m reminded of a quote I love from Henry David Thoreau. The quote comes from Walden, a book he wrote over a two year period while living a life of simplicity, reflection, stillness, natural education and isolation in a little cabin on the shores of Walden Pond, Massachusetts (picture above). On explaining why he did this, he writes:

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 that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear to me; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck 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 to 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.  — Henry David Thoreau, Walden (1854)

I love that Thoreau has a clear vision of what his life is about; I love his determination to resist that which he thinks is damaging to life; I love his determination to resist the trivial and unimportant, and his courageous aim to come face to face with reality in it’s most basic and pure form and discover whether it be mean or sublime; I love his chest-beating about the sheer importance of all this; and I love his resoluteness to never live that which is not life, since life is so dear to him.

The title of this post is somewhat tongue-in-cheek, alluding to the caricature of philosophers being on a quest for the meaning of life. Most philosophers get slightly embarrassed when a friend at a party asks them whether they have discovered the meaning of life yet, and proceed to explain what philosophers actually do with their time. But I think Thoreau would have embraced this audacious aspiration, and perhaps remarked that in the woods near Walden Pond he had discovered the meaning of life for himself.

I find his quote to be inspiring when thinking about goal setting, new beginnings and the possibilities of a fresh semester. So at the risk of making philosophers around the world groan – read this quote and ask yourself: What do I live for?