Out of all the writers we have read this year, by far my favorite was Thoreau. Although Emerson had many intelligent ideas and a plethora of good points, his writing was just too difficult. It was hard for me to enjoy reading when it took me half an hour to understand a paragraph. Also, Whitman’s “Song of Myself” was fascinating and I loved it, but it was almost too formal. That is the main reason I loved Thoreau, the way he can ramble on, taking thoughts from wherever his mind wandered, while keeping them organized and logical at the same time. His ideas seemed to me the most “fresh”. The passages on owning the land in every sense besides paying for it was a new way to look at things that I really enjoyed. Although I have never liked the whole idea of owning land and blocking it with fences, after reading Thoreau I found a whole new sense of that ideology. I realized that you don’t have to pay money to say that land is yours; you only have to become a poet and enjoy the landscape to the fullest. My favorite quote of Thoreau’s was “As long as possible live free and uncommitted.” This really spoke to me and I will be sure to remind myself of this when the time comes for me to start making larger life choices. When I buy my first house or apartment, this passage is going to be taped on the door! YES! I’m really excited for that.
I also really liked the passage of Thoreau’s where he talks about the morning. Not being a morning person on ANY level, this left me with a fascination and a new way to look at those dreaded early hours. I can definitely relate to the feeling of being someone else in the morning, especially when I’m out in nature. He describes it as “ [at least some part of us awakes which slumbers all the rest of the day and night” It makes me thing of when I go camping and wake up just as the sun’s about to rise. I get just the most magical feeling of being so alive. However, waking up for school is a different story.
Anyway, the point is Thoreau’s writing was my favorite because of its “readability” and true points. I could relate it to my life without having to sit and think about it for five hours. Thoreau just seems like the kind of guy I would want to hang out with.
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Nina,
ReplyDeleteWhat a delightful post (thanks!). I can tell already that Thoreau will likely become the springboard for the essay we'll begin work in shortly. You're doing exactly what you need to--and that's identifying those passages that really resonate with you. In your essay, my hope is that you can take some of these ideas and transpose them onto a more contemporary context (real Estate here in Telluride, for example, or the bit you point out about waking up not to our Genius, but for school (ugh!).