Thoughts on a Plane.

Complexity.

The root rejects its host - it longs for the uncertainty

married to the bride that is freedom.

The host's piercing energy unravels involuntarily--

instinctively attempting to capture the renegade parasite which now seeks flight.

Roots are destined for stagnancy,

entrenched in the darkness of the cold, coarse ground.

Why flee the warmth of the sun? The radiance it promises?

The irrational allure of freedom is the answer.

Life: a linear spectrum of gray matter: rarely black and white.

Life and death, sun and shade - an omnipresent fusion of extremes.

Absolutes make it too easy.

We must live the questions.

Life: A dizzying array of colors, a precise inventory of formulas--

intricacy battles simplicity.

In the end, majesty won.

Re-Examining My Biggest Inspiration

Delving into Walden four years after I first read it has been a refreshing experience. While reading the first chapter, Economy, I couldn't help but relfect upon what is perhaps Thoreau's most profound statement: "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." It is so true; so many people feel like they are in a state of stagnancy and do not know how to move forward. Too often, people look for the solutions to their problems in all the wrong places and seek palliatives rather than real answers. Thoreau asserts that the best solution to any ailment is to genuinely simplify one's life. He claims that a "stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are the games and amusements of mankind;" I acknowledge that it is temporarily easier to deflect one's problems and engage in activities that assist in distracting oneself but it is far less meaningful than delving into our minds and introspecting. A thorough analysis of the path on which one treads has no substitute, and this practice has significantly enhanced the meaning of my own life. I admire someone who makes the effort to live such a pure life.

I sometimes look back on my time when I lived in New York for two years as my equivalent to Thoreau's time at Walden because I had to learn to apply sublimation to my distress and enjoy the time I spent alone. I was incredibly lonely, and was unable to form solid connections with anyone around me. I had to try and see the beauty in independence and had no option but to stop relying on others for happiness. Thoreau accomplished this, for he stresses on so many occasions that "the so-called comforts of life, are not only not indispensable, but positive hinderances to the elevation of mankind." I remember when I first read this exact line four years ago, and in retrospect, I think I retained it so well because this sentiment was one of the few ideas that got me through difficult times while attending my first high school in Manhattan; I tried to reiterate to myself that the superficiality by which I was surrounded was not going to get my peers anywhere, and it would not bring them long term peace. Only a lifestyle which Thoreau experienced where all superfluous and corrupt entities are weeded out of one's life will result in true contentment.

The portion of Walden entitled "Economy" dissects how Thoreau observes human nature to have entered a mind-numbing stupor. I see so many correlations between Thoreau's perception from the 1800s and my perception of the world now. Thoreau's critique in "Economy" in which he poses the question "Why should [men] eat their sixty acres, when man is condemned to eat only his peck of dirt?" is a reflection on how people fail to see the limits on what they can acquire. The same question was asked, in a more modern fashion (with references more pertinent to our culture in the 21st century) in a 2009 TIME magazine article entitled "The End of Excess". Thoreau mentions a concept he affectionately dubs "the divinity of man," making an allusion to the fact that human beings seem to put themselves up on pedestals -- as if we can infinitely consume and revel in delusions of false progress. He says that "there are so many keen and subtle masters that enslave both north and south" after discussing the issue of slavery and how frivolous an "amenity" it is to possess an enslaved person. These "subtle masters" of which Thoreau speaks are undoubtedly social conventions that people have this fervent need to buy into: social conventions, of any sort, that when embraced, hinder one's own sense of personal aspiration and individual pursuit of happiness.

I remember reading Thoreau when I was still at prep school in New York. His words helped me crawl out of the intense depression I had entered because his literature was able to remind me that going against the grain is healthy. I was miserable at my school because I felt as if there was something wrong with me due to my inability to relate to others. It was lines like "Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate" which helped me (and still helps me) understand the power of introspection and the importance of feeling comfortable with one's sense of self, for it reiterates that public opinion or popular fashion doesn't equal divine mandate or truth.

Broadening.

"To the sick the doctors wisely recommend a change of air and scenery." This sentiment at the very end of Walden carries such gravity to me personally because there was nothing I thought of more while I was living in New York. No matter how hard we try and think positively, sometimes uplifting ourselves is out of our control when we are in an environment we deem suffocating and unfit for us. Thoreau felt a similar sense of disgust for his environment and the over indulgence and blind acceptance he witnessed so prevalently around him. This is why he retreated to an atmosphere where it is absolutely essential to get to know your surroundings and think critically about everything in order to live adequately.

Thoreau exclaims, "Thank Heaven, here is not all the world. The buckeye does not grow in New England, and the mocking-bird is rarely heard here." It's truly ridiculous when people assume that the rest of the world is like the small cocoon in which they live. I admire the fact that Thoreau receives such excitement from the very prospect of exploration, let alone, physically going out to expand his horizons in unknown environments. He explains how we subconsciously set up boundaries in which we confine ourselves within our minds which are physically manifested through stone walls guarding our farms and rail-fences against our property. He maintains that this is the most pervasive tragedy. He says that "the universe is wider than our views of it," and therefore it is up to us to allow ourselves to continually expand our views. It is the only way to view the world holistically and not narrowly. Lines like these make me think of my seventh grade year during which I wrote a speech on introspection. My closing line was, "if you don't introspect you will still survive, but if you do introspect you will truly thrive."