Another Wild Weekend

If Thoreau were alive today, he'd be incredibly old. He'd have to remove thick-witted comments from On Walden Pond like, "The old have no very important advice to give the young . . . They have told me nothing, and probably cannot tell me anything to the purpose." Of course, he published his most famous work when he was approaching 40, and probably thought he was still a young pioneer, inventing the world from scratch as he went along.

The fact is, none of us invent much of anything, unless we're named Gates or Allen. The rest of us are either doing what our ancestors did, but with new stuff, or recombining old materials into novel ways of doing business. While our grandparents drove to town once a week behind a horse or ox to sell produce or eggs, we drive a Honda to town daily to earn money so we can buy produce or eggs. The rent or mortgage on the farm or condo must be paid, whether then or now. It's all the same letters, just in a different order.

Anyway, good old Thoreau and I are spending the weekend together, tying his experiment to Transcendentalism, 19th century religious expression, and Kant's Categorical Imperative. Thoreau might be upset if he knew a single woman was devoting all her arts to him! At least in his early pages, he seems to be a judgemental prig, with nothing good to say about anyone except the very poor and the Indians. Nonetheless, he has inspired generations of young, middle-class adults to go back to the land, whether they knew anything about farming, shelter, plumbing, or animal husbandry. A close reading of the first chapter of Walden should be enough warning that going back to the land is not all Starbucks and video games, but perhaps that's what the author intended.

The editor of the edition I'm reading says that Thoreau had a wicked, veiled sense of humor. Perhaps the "back to the land" folks figured that out. I hope for at least some of them, it was sooner, rather than later.