Thoreau

It was the time I was forming my own opinions about everything – from books to movies to music to life. It was tough to see that my taste differed a lot from the popular mood. I did not like movies my friends liked. I did not play sports as was expected of my age. I was not into dance and dramas. Instead, I developed a liking for books & loved nature. Nature made my life meaningful. I preferred to be in a garden than in a playground. I was different from my peers. I didn’t know if it was ok to be different. That was when in one of the English classes, I came to know about this man, who loved simplicity, who wanted all to go back to nature. His search for meaning for his life in nature closely reflected my intention. He was a man after my own heart. He took the road less travelled. I was hooked. From him, I derived the confidence to be ‘me’. Time and again I’ve looked upto his words for wisdom and guidance. His book ‘Walden’ became my bible; and the man was ‘Henry David Thoreau’.

Time passed by and I grew from a boy to a youth. I did not care about the world. I did not follow newspapers, no knowledge on current affairs. I submerged myself into the world of books. I simply lost touch with all that was not important to me. I would walk into a forest one day to front only the essential facts of life, just like Thoreau did, I used to say to myself. It was my dreamland. I ignored reality. Then came a very rough patch in my life. Circumstances crash landed me back to reality. I realized to survive in todays world, I needed to be connected to it – atleast arbitrarily. I thought Thoreau’s ‘return to nature, to simplicity’ ideology lost its value in todays global village. Suddenly I felt, I was following the wrong prophet. I abandoned him. I educated myself in the ways of the world; and in two years time, I was back again – a new me, with enough confidence to take on life once again. But, Life had changed. It became complex. Too many wants, too many desires, too much to see and enjoy; too many trees being felled, too much of pollution, too much of violence; changes in personal lifestyles & new global trends. But, me being me, I couldn’t shake him out of my system. I went back to his writings. There was truth in what he believed. Then how come they didn’t hold value today? ’came out with questions. Was there a scope for a much simpler life? Could we still live close to nature? Could we give up the ‘rat race’? Could we remain true to ourselves, no matter the mounting pressure from society to toe the line? – I needed answers.

In the mean time, I piled up a lot of stuff. I always wanted to have a library/closet of everything I liked: books, movies, music, clothes, electronic gear, etc. By the time, I realized, it was not in my best interest to do so, I was exhausted financially. As things that grabbed my attention became more, time stared becoming scarce. I realized there was no peace or happiness in more. Add to this the information overload all around us. I wanted out. I wanted less. I needed a simpler life. “A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.” That became the starting point.

I started simplifying. Started to take on less, committed less. Stopped buying stuff I couldn’t do justice to. When we concentrate on the essentials, everything else is surplus – Focus became important. I started finding peace in less. I became a fan of minimalism (read simplicity). Started de-cluttering my life.

I realized my idea of success was different from what society dictates. My goals became very personalized. Most of them, not in vogue. “Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away”. I decided to live life at my own pace. It’s not going to be easy. People judge all the time – including family. But, I realized that by giving into that pressure ‘to follow the herd’, I was not being true to myself. It always boiled down to choosing between myself and others & I chose myself.

Today man and nature seem to be at loggerheads – at a Mexican standoff. Unfortunately, the choice we face is man or nature and not man and nature. Man can’t live without nature. Not just from a resources standpoint, but, he as a part of natural life. Two quotes convey this point well. One from Charles Lindbergh and one an old Indian’: “How long can men thrive between walls of brick, walking on asphalt pavements, breathing the fumes of coal and of oil, growing, working, dying, with hardly a thought of wind, and sky, and fields of grain, seeing only machine-made beauty, the mineral-like quality of life?” “The old Lakota was wise. He knew that man’s heart away from nature becomes hard; he knew that lack of respect for growing, living things soon led to lack of respect for humans too”. We need nature. It completes us. Meaning in human life ceases to exist without nature. I’d love to move close to nature (woods); but, given the massive industrialization, globalization and interconnectedness required today, I don’t see how I can do that. But, I can always make my place a little greener. A small garden patch, a bowl on the window sill with water for birds will have to do for now. I’m hopeful though that someday, I’ll live close to nature or bring nature close to me.

When I look back, I see Thoreau’s ideology more relevant today than any time in the past. And, though I abandoned him once, I could never actually leave him, because he spoke the truth. Without proper focus (read simplicity) in our lives; and respect to nature, humanity is a lost cause. The more I read his words, the more I appreciate the man. E.B. White once said of Thoreau:

“ In our uneasy season, when all men unconsciously seek a retreat from a world that has got almost completely out of hand, his house in the Concord woods is a haven. In our culture of gadgetry and the multiplicity of convenience, his cry, ‘Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!’ has the insistence of a fire alarm. In the brooding atmosphere of war and the gathering radioactive storm, the innocence and serenity of his summer afternoons are enough to burst the remembering heart, and one gazes back upon that pleasing interlude — its confidence, its purity, its deliberateness — with awe and wonder, as one would look upon the face of a child asleep”.

He truly belongs to the ages.