Julia Schwartz
June 5, 2003
Thoreau’s Walden is a book replete with inspiration and insight, and a book that perhaps is able to serve as the definition of timelessness, for it is a book that knows no era but that of self-discovery and the quest to find the world. I understand Walden – it is indeed one of, if not the, “most quotable” books I have ever read – and next year, it will reach its 150th anniversary. How is it that something so distant to us can remain so close? It is, I think, because Thoreau has unraveled some of the mysteries of life. He has found his “necessities,” and while others may perhaps need more to live happy lives, Thoreau has proven that, even though it might eventually be left behind, we all have the power to find eternity – to find reality – or whichever way it goes, for I don’t think it truly matters. Reality is the home of eternity – reality is the present moment alone, “stand[ing] on the meeting of two eternities, the past and the future, which is precisely the present moment.”
In finding his reality – his joy, his promise – in making the earth say “beans,” Thoreau has accomplished his goal of living simply: he has found his calling, found earth, found the true beauty of nature, and in this, he finds the beauty in everything that lives. Perhaps a lesson of seeing the splendor of a glistening lake or the intrigue in the bubbles in a pane of ice is not to appreciate Nature alone, but to appreciate ourselves – to appreciate ourselves, and to find the truth in the idea that we do not need to change ourselves: we do not need to continually find an “improved means” – for all we will find is an “unimproved end.”
Thoreau has yielded the timeless lesson of self and being true to one’s spirit, which can indeed be reinforced by his faith in the individual floating among the pages of Walden: “follow your genius closely enough and it will not fail to show you a new prospect every hour.” – “A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will.” – “The man who goes alone can start to-day; but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready, and it may be a long time before they get off.” …And thus Walden unlocks the secret to self, a being who is the canvas for any imagination and the best friend and soul mate anyone might ever have. This is only one of the ways by which one could prove Thoreau’s timelessness; only one of the many themes and images one could cite to argue that Thoreau’s words really do transcend time, for Thoreau is not timeless for the words he says, because while inspiring, they alone do not incite us to go out and change the world and ourselves. No, the magic of Walden is in the world it opens to us – Walden, the eye through which we see the world, says Thoreau, and O, how true this is…!
Thoreau is an inspiration, the stepping stone to unlocking “genius” and love for all which we seek to find, for all which we dare to achieve. Thoreau dares us to build our castles in the sky, and grants us the courage and confidence to put the foundations under them. He is able to separate reality from illusion, but points out that they are all the same. “Zero to infinity, or nonsense” – and it seems Thoreau has found a bit of Arcadia hidden in the woods, lost in a shrine to natural beauty, captured in eternity, a place where time does not matter – all that matters is the task on hand – all that matters is the bean field. Arcadia, the land we seek. Arcadia…
Yes, I think I have stepped into that world myself before. Buoyed by self-discovery and inspiration, Arcadia is found in a sea of grass, in a whirlwind of snow – or in the calm rustle of the breezes rippling a delicate mirror at a place called Walden. A place sounding so much like “walled-in,” but a place where there could be no greater lack of restraint: “Sky water: it needs no fence.” Walden: the epitome of disorder, for man can inflict no boundaries there; he cannot change the way Nature has built herself. Yet at the same time, it is the most order there can be – everything is in its proper place, just as it is when all the molecules of the world seen through the eyes of a rice pudding and some red jam swirl together and lose their individual haughtiness in pursuit of a common whole.
I lie here in the middle of the night, and I hold the key to the universe. I know no bounds; my heart, spirit, and mind are as one, soaring above time, soaring above exhaustion, soaring above everything, and I realize, this is what we have lost. This is what we seek, what we nearly always forget. This is what Thoreau found. This is life – this is partaking in the “eternal dance” as Maude might say – this is the river of my life; this is reality, but a moment where time has stopped except for the whirring of mind and spirit; this is the most wonderful feeling I ever feel; this is nothing I haven’t feeling before and something I have faith I will feel again; this is “paradise in the age of reason” – this is Arcadia.
Thoreau never told anyone what to do; he never promised Enlightenment by following as he; he never even offered proof that he was able to effect a permanent change in himself after leaving his tiny cabin upon the shores of Walden. Yet like so much else, he offered the key to it all, waving is across the air, right there for us, so easy to breathe in. It was a chance; it was indeed a risk. But such an easy one to take if the time is right! I feel myself latched fully upon the wheels of change and I say to myself again – “Olympus is but the outside of the earth everywhere.” The hard part is realizing it.