Walden by Henry David Thoreau

"Let every one mind his own business ... 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."

In the summer of 1849, Henry David Thoreau decided to conduct an experiment: to see if a person could find contentment in a life lived simply, frugally and independently, disentangled from the requirements and expectations of friends, neighbours and the state.  To do this, he built a small cabin on some land by the shores of Walden Pond, a lake in Massachusetts.  Here he lived for some two years, growing his own food and selling his surplus to obtain other necessities of life.

Walden is an account of his experiences and observations in those years, telescoped into a narrative that spans the course of a year from spring, through summer and autumn, to winter.  Although he does not say so, he was influenced by the ideas of the Transcendentalist philosophers of New England, especially those contained in Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay "Self-Reliance"; and yet, Thoreau is explicit in his insistence that the individual must in accordance with his/her own nature, which he does fully during his time at Walden.

Thoreau explores many aspects of life: independence, literature, the natural world, human relationships, solitude and loneliness, food and farming, gossip, materialism and spirituality.

In the run-up to Christmas, we would do well to remember Dickens' Ebenezer Scrooge, a man who forgot his own humanity while he quested for material riches.  Thoreau's example in Walden is the antithesis of Scrooge's.  Renunciation of crass materialist acquisition is the first step on the path to personal wisdom and fulfillment.  He says:

Not till we are lost, in other words, not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realise where we are and the infinite extent of our relations.

Walden is Thoreau's challenge to us all:

I do not propose to write an ode to dejection, but to brag as lustily as chanticleer in the morning, standing on his roost, if only to wake my neighbors [sic] up.

But what are we to think of this challenge?  Is it a beacon of sanity in an insane world, or an impractical pipe-dream blowing smoke in the face of the pragmatic demands of life?  "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof," Jesus tells us.  And the Eastern philosophers say that everything we need is inside us.  On the other hand, we may like to consider the words of Joseph Conrad:

To fling away your daily bread so as to get your hands free for a grapple with a ghost may be an act of prosaic heroism ... and men who had eaten and meant to eat every day had applauded the creditable folly.

Irrespective of the conclusions we may draw about Walden on this point, it is undeniable that Thoreau makes his case calmly, thoughtfully and forcefully.  His prose ranges from the matter-of-fact to the lyrical and evocative.  Thoreau leaves the reader in no doubt about the love he feels for the natural world.  The more socially-orientated of us may find it hard to sympathise with his introverted disposition.  Nevertheless, Thoreau always speaks to the better side of one's self, and it is hard not to like someone who does so.