Did Thoreau “rout out all that was not life”? Did he find out what life essentially is? No, he didn’t. Like the long line of life-lookers before and after him, Thoreau identified vanity parasites that suck so much time and energy and resources out of people’s lives, but did not discover the essential essence or meaning of life. Thoreau’s experience would have made him agree with the writer of Ecclesiastes that “the wise person has his eyes in his head, but the fool walks in darkness,” but he also “perceived that [death] happens to all of them” (Ecclesiastes 2:14).

In the summer of 1845, Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) moved into a small, spartan cabin he had built on the wooded edge of Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts. He lived there, as simply as he felt he could, for two years, two months, and two days. In his own words, here’s why:

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear. (Walden, 31)

“Living is so dear.” Thoreau felt this deeply. He didn’t want to discover too late that he had missed life’s essential preciousness. And he knew this was a real danger. As he looked around, he saw lots of shallow living.

Looking for Real Life

He saw that the vast majority of people, both religious and non, were absorbed by trivialities like fashion and social status and fancy food and the best wines and bigger houses and wealth accumulation and all the life-consuming labor it required to attain and maintain these possessions. People just assumed that what everybody else seemed to value must be valuable, and very few stopped to reflect on whether or not that was true. It disturbed Thoreau that

shams and delusions are esteemed for soundest truths, while reality is fabulous. If men would steadily observe realities only, and not allow themselves to be deluded, life, to compare it with such things as we know, would be like a fairy tale and the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments. (32)

Thoreau believed that in chasing shams and delusions, “the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation” (4). He determined not to live this way.

I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion. (31)

He published his account in 1854, in the book that became his most famous: Walden, or Life in the Woods.

Long Line of Lookers

Did Thoreau find what he was looking for? Did he suck the marrow out of life — not wasting even life’s bones for nourishment?

He did well in unmasking the delusionary nature of the daily pursuits that waste many lives — pursuits that have only multiplied since Thoreau’s day. For that reason alone, reading Walden is beneficial. He did well in simplifying his life in order to enjoy deeply the deep wonders of creation — wonders that are all around us. This too is a benefit of reading Walden, if we will actually strive to do the same in our contexts.

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