Thoreau moved to
the woods ofPond to learn to live deliberately. He desired to learn what life had to teach him.
He moved to the woods to experience a purposeful life. He did not want to have lived his whole
life and not truly have lived:
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.
While living in the woods, Thoreau desired to
simplify his life. He claims that too many people's lives are "frittered away by
details." No doubt, Thoreau enjoyed his simplistic life, claiming that all men need to
simplify their lives:
Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!
I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a
million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail.
Specifically, Thoreau did learn that one meal a day would suffice.
He learned that a few plates are better than "a hundred dishes." Simple living is the
key to a fulfilled life.
Thoreau wrote Walden to share
his experiences gained while living in the woods. He desired to help others understand that a
simplified life is a meaningful life. No doubt, he learned to live intentionally while keeping a
record for posterity. He wrote a detailed account:
Walden (1854), is an eloquent account of his experiment in
near-solitary living in close harmony with nature; it is also an expression of his
transcendentalist philosophy.
At the very heart of
Walden is one man's ability to move away from materialistic living and
experience living off the natural land. Today, we have his masterpiece which gives us a
idealistic view of living life in a simple manner:
In
solitude, simplicity, and living close to nature, Thoreau had found what he believed to be a
better life.
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