Thoreau believes that society needs to forgo all of the cumbersome details of life and live in a much simpler life. He believes we, humans, must be independent and self-reliant and not adhere to public opinion and tradition and we also must attempt to understand or at least acknowledge the beauty and simplicity of nature. Thoreaus beliefs have a greater relevance in the modern day than even in his own time yet in modern day society most of the public scoffs at his suggestions.
Thoreau asserts that humans must be self-reliant and hold their own positions in higher esteem than those of others. He advises us to step to the music which [we] hear and make our own decisions and our own route to wherever we desire. Because we are individual beings naturally our drummer will not be exactly the same as anothers so instead of attempting to conform to the other person we should find our own beat. In the modern day we like to believe that we can make our own decisions free from bias yet in our minds we know that to be false. Whatever we choose to do we always tend to look for approval of some other person. For example, think of the new Twilight series. This series of four books have been embraced by an endless amount of young readers worldwide and became so popular through a sort of domino effect: one person read it and recommended it and so on. Many of those readers happen to be women who want to believe in what the book offers but they do not understand that what they read in mindless garbage that remains popular only because the readers insecurity about themselves causes them to fantasize themselves in the characters shoes. The series are a good read for little kids who do not know any better but regarding the older folk: what happened to confidence in oneself? Why do we rely so much on fictionalized accounts to believe that we may find our own happiness? Society of our day cares much more of what others think of them and depends too much on a good impression without care for their personality and their personal beliefs.
If humans can become self-reliant and truly be individuals who are not so easily swayed by majority opinion maybe we can succeed in Thoreaus idea of simple living. Thoreau suggests that we live like ants. We live our lives keeping ourselves busy with endless work to continue collecting our items and so called materialistic desires; this is similar to ants continuing to collect food for so long. Throughout all of these dealings, what we call daily life, we have no time to simply relax, look at what we have, and just enjoy. We do not stop as often as we should to savor the fruits of our labor; instead we continue to cultivate more items hoping that somewhere along the line we might find the happiness and satisfaction we search for. In todays society a human cannot live simply unless they literally drop everything and run away to the woods. We rely on objects such as cell phone, ipods or music players, computers, TVs and such that we cannot live without these items. In our time and our societies we are raised with these items around us that they no longer seem like a luxury but more a necessity but Thoreau argues that these items are completely unnecessary. Those people who cannot afford those luxuries can still live. Thoreau tells us that we should shed our materialistic beliefs and embrace the simple life, one that consists of simple pleasures and minimum worries. He implies that we should only do so much so that we survive and can enjoy the work we do. He states that we concern ourselves too much with detail and our life is consumed by it and also coveys that humans believe happiness and fulfillment lies with wealth and luxury.
Thoreau further declares that if we are individuals and self-reliant then we can live a simple life in the natural world. He declares that we should find pleasure in nature: the wind, the trees, the water but not in material items that will not last long. These days the majority of the public does not think or even notice the beauty of nature. When we were children we would see a flower or a butterfly and would just be so amazed by it. A child would express their curiosity and would want to learn more about whatever they saw. However, as humans, we do not even notice such things. As we grow up we are expected to become mature but in that process we lose that innocent curiosity we possess as children. We can no longer look with wonder and amazement at the sunrise or the waves of a pond. Furthermore, most people in our society live in urban places like the city where countless buildings surround us. We place ourselves deliberately in a society where we cannot become close to nature. One of the simplest examples is that when we look up at the sky in the city we see just a black canvas but if it were a rural area we would see the stars. Our society influences us to search for more wealth and more luxuries but we ignore the riches of the natural world, which are priceless. Many humans complain that nature only tries to kill us off but why shouldnt it? We do not really express that we care for nature when we continue to burn down forests and clear paths just to construct malls, factories, buildings without a damn about the valuable elegance we lose.
Self-reliance, simplicity and nature. Thoreau declares that life is more beautiful in your own mind, with simple pleasures, and natural splendor. In modern day society has just become more materialistic and more ignorant of what remains around us. One day we will realize all that we lost in our endless journey full of greed and want of wealth.
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