What Action Looks Like, or Why We Don't Do Anything Anymore

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Let's talk about language. This necessarily requires a disclaimer: I'm not an English major, I studied engineering and climatology. However, it's not so much the intricacies and structural aspects of language that I'm after. Rather, I want to talk about the proliferation of our use of nouns as verbs, a process known as verbification. (And yes, I fully appreciate the irony of the word "verb" being turned into a verb.)

I'm not a Luddite of language. Language changes and evolves over time, often in helpful ways. Words come and go, get adapted to our changing needs, fall out of use to promote a more just society, and so forth.

But sometimes changes in our language indicate something else is going on. Language reflects culture at large, and in this current cultural moment, perhaps we are "verb-ifying" our language because we don't actually do anything anymore. The verbification of the word becomes a stand in for the action itself.

The cascade began with "texting" and "google-ing." These uses streamlined our language and made a fundamental sort of sense. It is much more fluid to say that you "googled" something, rather than to wade through the unwieldy construction of "I conducted a google search," or "I searched for it on google." (I am omitting capitalization to reflect the use of google to refer to online search in general, rather than the specific use of the Google platform. See how language reflects our larger culture?)

But the story now is changing. Adulting. A new way to Chipotle. Dialogued. Venmo me. Summer safely. This is how you money. For the most part, these new verbifications seem to fall into the realm of cheeky taglines, clever marketing, relatable phrases that will stand out in the ever-expanding competition for our attention. In fact, the first link of Google search (as of this writing) turns up an article citing the (dubious) claim that our attention spans are shrinking and the subsequent challenges that alleged phenomenon poses for marketers. I would argue instead that we are still able to sustain attention just fine, but that there are ever more competing claims being made on our scarce attention. 

Enter in the verbification of words. In a world where competition for attention is being ramped up, individuals seek ways to distinguish themselves from the crowd and companies seek ways to better engage with potential customers. It's done in the name of individualism, being a trend-setter, or being cute. But really, it's just sad.

Follow me. Ok, I get it. Follow is actually a verb. Jesus even exhorted people to follow him. But Jesus's invitation entailed actually doing something. Now? Just a click or a tap. And you've "done" it. And herein lies the problem for modernity. A search of verbified words turns up several webpages guiding one in the practice or explaining its history; other search results offer an indictment of the practice. I, however, want to examine instead what the practice says about us from a broader standpoint.

Much has been written about how much activity – and rest – was involved in a standard day for our ancient hunter-gatherer ancestors, notably by Yuval Noah Harari in Sapiens. Movement and action were indelible parts of the hunter-gatherer's day. If one didn't move, one didn't eat or survive. 

Contrast this with our modern day experience where one needn't leave the house for days on end. Food, groceries, gadgets and items from Amazon and the like, and all manner of things can be ordered and then delivered right to our doors with only a few keystrokes on our part. This is undoubtedly helpful when we're sick and need or ought to stay in; it is not my intention to demonize modern conveniences. 

But beyond those rare circumstances, it is simply a form of luxurious convenience that allows us to reap rewards without consideration for the true cost of our lack of action. Inaction is not quite the right term to describe this phenomenon since an outcome is actually being produced, so let's instead call it "un-action." Such un-action results in isolation from others, treats the underpaid people involved in the delivery industry with indifference at best and contempt at worst, has a negative impact on the environment, and requires no meaningful effort. There can be no sense of accomplishment when one has, in fact, not actually done anything. Even for those of us in white collar professions, most of our day is spent clicking, typing, and moving virtual objects about on a screen. 

There is a counterculture, however, that would have us take back our sense of accomplishment, and a long list of articles examining the joy and mental health benefits of the flow state that can be achieved while working at a self-determined physical task. From Shop Class as Soulcraft to the classic Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, we humans seem to know intuitively that joy awaits us when we are allowed self-determinacy and when we work with our hands. The human body evolved to move, and we are denying our bodies a core part of being when we cease to do physical things. 

I think that we sense – subconsciously, at least – that action is missing from our lives. So we create it with our language. We verbify words and allow ourselves to be sucked into the digital vortex and we convince ourselves that we are ok with it. Our capitalist system then embraces the trend and jumps on board with verbified advertising, as with the Chipotle example above (not to mention countless others). 

But what if we could push back? Set down the phone; walk to the store; interact with other people; cook at home; garden; make something; do art; go for a run; find rejuvenation for your body and mind through movement. It will take a conscious effort, but it just might be necessary. Better yet, it just might be an action worth taking.

Seek What Can Be

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The tagline "Seek what can be" adorns the top banner of this blog. I wanted to take some time to explain what I have in mind with that motto.

To "seek what can be" connotes a notion of possibilities and fulfilled potential, of reaching out and grasping at an idea and turning it into a reality. As noted on our About page, being Deliberately Aimless is about desiring that which cannot be and embracing life's contradictions. And so, with a motto imploring you to "Seek what can be," I present you with another contradiction: a blog rooted in the notion of grasping at unattainable things in life that is, surprisingly, defined by a motto of attainment.

Why the contradiction? Because while we want to take on life's big – and sometimes un-answerable – questions on this blog, we don't do so in a pointless or meaningless way. For instance, when asking the question What is the meaning of life?, it's not enough to just say that we don't know or that there are many interpretations. While this statement is true to a degree, we also want to examine all the different perspectives and practices that have been produced through the ages of our shared and collective human experience. Just because a question is difficult or even impossible doesn't mean that it isn't worth taking on. In fact, we view that difficulty as the very reason to engage with it.

To seek what can be involves looking beyond the mundanities of everyday life to see the bigger picture. Life is hard, but it does us no good to cower in fear or to run from it. We must instead meet it head on. Confront life and let it take your measure, and may it not find your measure wanting. 

But neither is this meant to be a rah-rah, puff out your chest anthem. There's a reason that I relate more strongly to Henry David Thoreau than to Theodore Roosevelt, though I greatly respect them both. And as I write this I am struck with the thought that perhaps there aren't such great differences between the two men as a cursory glance would suggest. 

When life dealt TR the worst of blows and took his wife and his mother from him in the span of a single day, he entered into his journal a somber and simple statement: "The light has gone out of my life." To deal with his grief and this great tribulation, Roosevelt sought solitude in the Dakota Territory where he became a rancher for a time and hunted and rode on the high plains. Roosevelt did not run from his trauma. He merely sought out a place of solitude wherein he could work through it. Solitude – as Jesus informs us numerous times through his actions – is a great teacher and can be a place of strength.

To seek what can be can also refer to this sort of seeking. The seeking of solitude, of re-centering, of greater understanding, or the realization that one simply cannot understand what has transpired but that it is possible to keep moving forward. That the light may have gone out, but that it can also be re-ignited.

As someone who deals with bouts of despair – and who doesn't these days? – I think it is this secondary definition that is the more important. Sure, by all means, seek what can be in the sense of following your dreams and making great things happen. I want to encourage that heartily, as well. But I think it is in the quiet moments, where we are unsure, downtrodden, beaten down by life, that seeking what can be can really be a mantra to carry us through. 

In the words of beloved author EB White, "I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day." To seek what can be is the hope that some day one need not choose between these desires, but that they would be one and the same.

Ocean Exploration via Biomimicry

 

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In a previous post, we examined the benefits of design inspired by the principles of biomimicry. As a reminder, biomimicry is the practice of observing and then mimicking nature as a way of finding innovative solutions to human problems. Nature has often optimized solutions through many millennia of natural selection at work. Our task, then, is to take these solutions that are readily available and find ways to tweak and apply them to human problems. One such example that I want to explore is that of deep sea exploration.

The deep sea and the sea floor are the last (macroscopic) frontiers on earth. By some accounts, more than 80% of the oceans and sea beds remain unexplored and unmapped. To gain an idea of the complexity of the issue, we should start with a little history of ocean exploration. 

In the United States, the first coastal survey was performed beginning in 1807 after the authorization of the Coast Survey by President Thomas Jefferson. It wasn't until 1840 that Sir James Clark Ross of England took the first deep sea sounding in the south Atlantic. The Gulf Stream, a key factor in the moderate temperatures of western Europe, was finally mapped in 1860 following a 15 year mapping project by the US Coast Survey. Ocean exploration and our understanding of climate goes hand in hand, as the oceans act as a great moderator of the climate that we experience due to the high heat capacity of water.

From 1872-1878, the first modern bathymetric map was created following soundings taken by the Coast Survey in the Gulf of Mexico. Fortunately for us in the modern world, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) now produces an online and interactive bathymetric data viewer. It allows a user to delineate and download a digital elevation model (DEM) of the ocean floor as measured by sonar and lidar (pulsed laser measurements).

Following the early creations of bathymetric maps from high-density soundings, ocean research in the following several decades continued primarily through depth soundings, dredging of the sea floor, and temperature measurements. It wasn't until the 1920s that radio acoustic ranging came on the scene and more modern methods were developed in subsequent decades, such as sonar and, in the past two decades, lidar. To underscore the difficulty of comprehensive ocean exploration, then, it has only been in the past century that we have been able to take electronic measurements and only for the past several decades that we have been able to do so at scale. This setup helps to explain the current paucity of knowledge regarding the oceans, particularly the vast space been the surface and the floor. 

The above methods all represent remote ways of measuring the ocean. Sending a craft, especially a manned craft, is far more difficult due to the immense pressures reached under even a couple thousand meters of water. From the 1930s, we have been sending humans to increasing depths in increasingly rigid and thick-bodied diving craft. In 1960, the manned Trieste bathyscaphe reached the bottom of the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean, a depth of over 10,900 meters (over 35,800 feet). In keeping with design principles of the time, the Trieste had a 5-inch steel wall around the pressure sphere, a small plexiglass observation window, and a thinner exterior steel wall to contain the float liquid used for buoyancy. 

Our design principles for deep sea diving may be changing, however, as a team of researchers from Zhejiang University in China demonstrated in a 2021 paper in the journal Nature. The team designed an un-manned diving craft using principles inspired by the soft-bodied hadal snailfish. This translates to a diving craft design with a silicone body and dispersed electronics, thus allowing the electronic components of the craft to be spread out in the silicone body and not require the pressure resistance that a centralized system would necessitate. 

This approach allows the robot to operate as a deep sea organism does, with its body flexing and responding to changes in pressure, but remaining pliant enough to not be crushed by the immense pressures. The robot is propelled by electrical signals that convert into mechanical energy and induce a flapping motion in the "fins" of the craft. Think along the lines of how the electrical current makes Batman's cloth cape rigid in Batman Begins.

The robot was subsequently tested in the South China Sea to a stated depth of 3,200 meters and was later tested in the Mariana Trench, though the final achieved depth was not stated. And while it is noted that the propulsion system needs some fine-tuning (ocean currents can pose a problem for the device's limited mobility), this is undoubtedly a step in the right direction, one inspired by simply observing and mimicking organisms in their natural environment. 

The potential advances we may discover lurking in the depths of the oceans provide more than enough motivation to continue this biomimicry-inspired research, whether we ultimately make breakthroughs of a medical, energy, or as yet unknown origin. This is research that allows us as humans to Seek what can be, something that we here at Deliberately Aimless certainly support (more on this in a future post).

For full details of the research, read the press release from Nature here.

Mount Timpanogos on the Horizon

 

Mount Timpanogos, Utah

As the winter season draws to a close here in Utah and we find ourselves firmly in mid-spring, I thought it would be fun to revisit a photo of Mount Timpanogos (11,749') that I took in early April 2018. I had trudged through the deep spring snow up to the top of White Baldy (11,321') in Little Cottonwood Canyon. Still relatively new to the area at the time, I knew that vast vistas awaited me at the top, but I didn't quite know what the views would hold. I was not disappointed.

Timpanogos, or Timp as it is affectionately known by locals, is the second tallest mountain in the Wasatch Range, second only to Mount Nebo (11,928'), which is just visible in the above photo in the distance on the right hand side. It wouldn't be until October 2019 that I would summit Timp itself – perhaps more on that in a future post.

The climb up White Baldy begins at the White Pine trailhead, the starting point for many of my favorite hikes in the central Wasatch. Eventually the trail diverges in the wood (I couldn't help myself), and the hiker can choose between the White Pine or Red Pine trails. I took the left-hand trail and continued up White Pine. (I know, that's a lot of Pines.) 

The snow was still deep, but soft. It was early spring and the snow was beginning to melt in the afternoons. I had begun in the early morning, but would find myself post-holing a route through the waist deep snow at certain points later in the climb. My thighs screamed bloody murder, and I had to scramble on all fours to reach the ridge that would carry me to the summit, but it was worth it just for the sheer beauty. (Make sure to take proper gear, precautions, and safety measures. Snow can be finnicky and is not to be underestimated on steep slopes.)

Nothing quite prepares you for the stillness and silence that can be experienced in a snow-covered forest. And as I made my way above the tree line and the sun made its way over the ridge to touch the north slope, the entire landscape before me began to sparkle with a brilliance unmatched by man-made displays. In those moments, nothing else mattered but the next step that I took. The serenity even silenced the typically incessant thoughts in my head. 

Then I reached the top. And the view that awaited me is what you see at the top of this post. Shimmering, sparkling, brilliance.

As for the descent, steep as it was, I reminded myself of the line from Jack Kerouac's The Dharma Bums, "It's impossible to fall off mountains, you fool." And so I made my way back down, brisk and lively across the snow.

→Haiku

Bluebird sky above,

Untrammeled snow at my feet,

Mountaintops beckon.

The Nature of Justice

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Social justice. Environmental justice. Distributive justice. Procedural justice. The list goes on. Justice is a term that we hear often, but that many of us probably don't often enough take the time to ponder. What exactly is justice and, more importantly, what does it mean in practical terms for each of us as people and as citizens?

When you hear the term "social justice," undoubtedly your mind goes to social issues. For instance, the Black Lives Matter movement or ensuring equality of opportunity and equal treatment in the workplace. The term "environmental justice" likely conjures up notions of protecting the environment from human degradation, but also of recognizing that the route of a highway corridor through a city, inconsistent zoning laws, and unequal access to outdoor spaces can represent matters of justice. "Distributive justice" refers to the distribution of resources, which in modern times typically concerns issues such as determining what amounts to fair taxation, to what purpose tax money should be allocated, and how to treat corporations relative to the individual. The term "procedural justice" refers to equal treatment under our officially codified operating procedures, including in legal matters, but also in the perceived fairness of the system as a whole.

This is hardly an exhaustive list of the applications of justice, but it at least provides a starting point for our examination. Matters of justice are difficult to adjudicate because the persons or entities involved rarely share the same perspective. For example, should there be hard and fast rules, such as the justice of the many taking precedence over the justice of the individual? Or should we evaluate scenarios on a case by case basis? This approach may seem ideal, but in a society of many millions of individuals all with distinct interests, it is certainly impractical. Likely, as with so many things in life, the answer lies somewhere in between.

To seek out that (admittedly incomplete and elusive) answer, we will examine three common schools of thought which have developed to provide guidance in determining what constitutes justice. For a more thorough and in-depth treatment of this topic, I recommend checking out Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do? by Michael Sandel. Ideas from Mr. Sandel's book will act as our guide.

1. Utilitarian Justice
   
   We begin with the notion of utility, first popularized by Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. Utility maintains that humans, and human societies, should approach justice in a calculating manner. Whatever decision or action results in the greatest good (or least harm) for the greatest number of people should be the logical choice. At the individual level, we are no longer concerned with the greatest number of people, but rather with the greatest amount of pleasure derived from a decision or activity.
   
   This approach is generally straightforward, provided one knows what one wants, or whether the greatest amount of good for society can be reasonably estimated. These assumptions are rarely the case, however, and the result is conundrums that the concept of utility is ill-prepared to deal with. For instance, the utilitarian notion of choosing that which will result in the greatest pleasure for ourselves does not distinguish between levels of choices or activities, which is to say, the virtue of the thing in question. Furthermore, utilitarianism concerns itself with deserts rather than the experience. If two people do the same job and make the same money, proponents of utilitarianism are satisfied. Never mind that the second person is miserable doing the job while the first loves it. And never mind whether one of them is more satisfied by their income than the other.
   
   It is my sense that utilitarianism seeks to remove morality from the question and distill decision making at the individual and societal levels to an equation of that which results in the greatest pleasure or good. Mind you, that's good with a lowercase "g" and not capital "G" Good. It is good in that it provides pleasure or does not harm, but it is not necessarily (though is not exclusive from) Good that promotes virtue or values. 
   
   
2. Freedom of Choice
   
   A second notion of justice is that of freedom of choice, which has gained adherents in the modern political sphere. In his book, Sandel uses as an example of freedom of choice the modern arguments put forth by (often political) proponents of marriage equality (abortion is another such example provided). In essence, justice in this case is represented by the freedom of the individuals to marry whom they choose, and neither society nor individuals should be allowed to interfere.
   
   Sandel notes that this approach, like that of utilitarianism, sometimes results in the removal of the morality of the question and simply makes it a matter of personal liberty. It is appealing because it allows for a certain detachment: society does not have to grapple with matters of collectively-defined virtue, we simply make our own choices freely insofar as they do not encroach on the rights of others. Leave well enough alone, as it were.
   
   Often times, however, this approach fails precisely because it does not engage individuals on an emotional level. It is my sense that we do not want a society where people merely tolerate the choices of others, while maintaining a bitter resentment regarding said choices. Instead, it seems worth striving for a society in which people can understand and respect one another's choices alongside the act of tolerance. 
   
   
3. Purpose
   
   The third notion of justice that we will examine here is that of purpose, which is to say, the idea of promoting virtue while reasoning about the common good. This injects notions of morality and emotion back into the question. It is necessarily messier than the prior two ideas, but the result is also more satisfying.
   
   At the heart of this notion of justice is Aristotle's idea of telos, or the purpose of a thing, individual, society, or instrument. For instance, according to the idea of telos, the best violins in the world should go to the best violin players, rather than to the nobility, those who can afford the highest price, those who know the right people, etc. In order for the violin to fulfill its purpose, it must be played by the best violinists.
   
   Telos forces us to grapple with what it is that we want justice to represent and promote. Under this ideology, justice is not merely an abstract or indifferent concept. Justice becomes a system of behavior and results whereby we promote behaviors in individuals and societies that we collectively desire. This borders on the notion of justice as fairness expounded by John Rawls, which posits that society should be fair and the individual free, thus "resolving the tensions between the ideas of freedom and equality." In this sense, we must provide justification for our notions of justice, which forces us to think long and hard about why one choice outweighs another.

In Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do?, Sandel presents the third notion of justice as his preferred method, and I must agree. To remove notions of fairness, however difficult to define for a given case, is to distill out the human element of justice. Justice cannot be an equation, as with utilitarianism, nor can it be wholly impartial and indifferent, as with freedom of choice. In order to promote virtue in individuals and society, we must grapple with difficult questions of fairness, what it is that makes for a just society, and what it is to live a good life.

Thoreau #3, or The Perennial Source of Our Life

 

We continue our series on Thoreau with an examination of space. In Thoreau's mind, as we shall see, space is about so much more than just the physical distance that separates us.

"This whole earth which we inhabit is but a point in space; How far apart, think you, dwell the two most distant inhabitants of yonder star, the breadth of whose disk cannot be appreciated by our instruments? Why should I feel lonely? Is not our planet in the Milky Way? This which you put seems to me not to be the most important question. What sort of space is that which separates a man from his fellows and makes him solitary? I have found that no exertion of the legs can bring two minds nearer to one another. What do we want most to dwell near to?... to the perennial source of our life, whence in all our experience we have found that to issue, as the willow stands near the water and sends its roots out in that direction."

A point in space, and we are but the merest of dots upon that point. Feeling insignificant? Good, you well should. The notion of this series would not be appropriate if I made this all about you or me. Take heart, though, for while every single one of us is insignificant, that is hardly to say that we lack purpose. Let’s begin, however, with said insignificance. 

Before the time of the Greek astronomer Aristarchus, it was widely accepted that the Earth was at the center of the Universe. Even after Aristarchus formulated his theory which placed the Sun at the center of the Universe, it seems evident that few chose to fall in line with his thinking. The theory would not gain a wider audience until the 16th century, nearly 1800 years later, when Copernicus published his heliocentric theory. This is just as well, as he, too, turned out to be incorrect. 

As it turns out, it is impossible to know where the center of the Universe is. Because of the great distances involved, it takes light an immense amount of time to travel to an observer on Earth from the edges of space, many millions and billions of years, in fact. The Universe is widely thought to be 13.8 billion years old, which is to say, we have been able to observe light coming from a distance of 13.8 billion light years away. This is the observable Universe. 

Ironically, to an observer on Earth, Earth will always appear to be at or near the center of the observable Universe, due to the fact that light will be traveling to said observer from all directions at relatively the same speed, thus illuminating a comparable distance. The Universe is constantly expanding; according to some theories it is expanding faster than the speed of light in places, breaking the widely accepted cosmic speed limit. If this is true, there is light from some parts of the Universe that will never reach us here on Earth, no matter how long the Universe remains in existence. How’s that for insignificance? There are parts of the Universe that will never even be revealed to us here on this point in space.

Despite the immense scales of the Universe, both time and space, Thoreau’s question of human separation is still a valid one. In fact, the separation Thoreau speaks of has nothing to do with distance. For indeed, there should be nothing that can truly separate two hearts or minds set upon each other. As clichéd as it may be, Thoreau is not just talking about physical proximity or intellectual interaction here; he is also talking about love. “The perennial source of our life,” as Thoreau puts it, is referring to faith in something greater than ourselves. A higher power, if you will.

Whether Thoreau was referring to faith in what we call God, or something else, is unclear. He was, after all, a transcendentalist, believing more in ascertaining the truth of the world around him than in divining it from a preacher’s sermon or a deity. It seems more likely that Thoreau was loosely a Deist, in the vein of Thomas Jefferson, believing in the existence of some Creative Being, but rejecting some central tenets of Christianity, including the notion of the Holy Trinity or interventions in our world by said Being. Whatever greater Being Thoreau did believe in, for it seems evident that he believed in something greater than himself, he felt a strong desire to draw closer to his god. For simplicity, I will refer to this something greater as God for the remainder of this post.

What does drawing closer to God look like? For Thoreau, to draw closer to God meant to immerse himself more fully in God’s creation, that is, the natural world.  This is the notion that Thoreau is speaking to in his opening lines of Walden when he talks of “front[ing] only the essential facts of life.” The essential facts of life are spiritual.

People these days will often espouse how they would rather spend money on experiences than on material goods. If faced with a limited budget, for instance, a couple planning to be married may skimp on the cost of an engagement ring and the wedding in order to honeymoon in a better location or for a longer period of time. Or, at least, that’s the going narrative. Whether or not these same people follow through on these claims when faced with the decision is unknown and difficult to quantify. Society, after all, has expectations, and a ring or wedding ceremony is a very visible way for a couple to assert their place in society. 

Goods purchased, or even experiences had, when undertaken in order to produce the most visibility rather than for the experiences themselves, are of the world, and for that reason Thoreau would have been less taken with them. When I say “of this world,” I am speaking of those things that are impressed upon us as things which we should pursue by society, our cultures, the media, et cetera. While I don’t think that Thoreau would necessarily condemn anyone who pursues those things set before us by the world, such as wealth, colloquial success, or status, he would nevertheless caution individuals against setting their sights on these things at the expense of appreciating the true purpose of existence.

And that true purpose, in short, is to experience life to its fullest. Purpose is found in developing and nurturing relationships with other people; in rising early to watch the sun rise, your dog of ten years, grey in the muzzle, taking it more slowly, yet still reaching the hilltop in time to watch that orange orb crest over the distant mist; in staying up late to watch the constellations chase each other across the indigo night sky, assuming you’ve found a sky of sufficient darkness these days; in making somebody’s day by smiling or saying hello as you pass, offering a glint of hope in what might otherwise be a tough go of it. 

I could go on, but I think the picture is clear. These are the experiences, the human versions of the tree sending its roots in search of water. We seek God when we seek to live out our purpose, and subsequently find a deeper relationship with all of existence. We find the "perennial source of our life" when we live amidst and in harmony with Nature, as well as with our fellow man. Distance, then, occurs only as we allow it.

Thoreau #2, or Respecting What is Inevitable

For those who don’t know, shame on you. Also, for those who don’t know, I will give Mr. Thoreau a brief introduction before launching into his grand insights into the meaning of life.

Henry David Thoreau was born in 1817 and died in 1862, both having occurred in Concord, Massachusetts. It seems only fitting, then, that his foray into the wilderness should have taken him no more than a few miles from home to the shores of Walden Pond, a glaciated kettle lake with no waterway flowing into or out of the lake. Though he constructed his own cabin in the woods surrounding Walden Pond in 1845 and lived alone whilst he remained there, he was by no means friendless or a hermit. For Thoreau, "wilderness" was more a state of mind than it was a physical location. 

The very land on which he planted his roots was owned by his good friend and mentor Ralph Waldo Emerson. This is commemorated in the modern-day park by the Emerson-Thoreau Amble which can be hiked around the western side of the park, near where Thoreau’s cabin once stood. As an aside, for those wishing to learn more about Thoreau’s influences, take a gander at Self-Reliance by the inimitable Mr. Emerson.

Thoreau would end up spending two years, two months, and two days living on the shores of Walden Pond, after which he produced that most famous work of his, Walden; or, Life in the Woods. In the post below and in the posts that follow, I will take you through the quotes from said book that resonated most with me; quotes that reveal not only the fruits of self-discovery that Thoreau enjoyed living in the woods, but also his insights into humanity and why life is worth living.

**********

"If we respected only what is inevitable and has a right to be, music and poetry would resound along the streets. When we are unhurried and wise, we perceive that only great and worthy things have any permanent and absolute existence, that petty fears and petty pleasures are but the shadow of the reality."

I forewent reprinting Thoreau’s opening lines here for two reasons: firstly, because we have already examined them lightly in the introduction; secondly, because they are merely a mission statement, though an eloquently crafted one. Those opening sentences merely inform us of why Thoreau did what he did. The quote above and the quotes to follow will deal more with what he found once he was in the woods.

So, where to begin? Before moving into discussion of music and poetry – yes, I know, everyone loves poetry – I want to unpack what Thoreau means by those things that are "inevitable" in life. And while they, too, seem inevitable, he is not talking about taxes. I cannot rule out that he may be talking about death, though, if only tangentially. But I’ll come back to that.

He is, first and foremost, addressing those things that demand our respect. Things that are beautiful, lasting, moving, and profound. As the character Sean O’Connell says in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, adapted from the short story by James Thurber, “Beautiful things don’t ask for attention.”  And yet we give them our attention anyway, precisely because of their beauty. In the film, Sean is talking about the magnificently graceful, powerful snow leopard while on location to try to photograph one. This is not the superficial, surface level beauty of a glamor model; rather, it is the beauty of Venus, shining pale yellow in the night sky, a true model of beauty. This is the beauty recognized in a well-crafted sentence, or the beauty of a fine painting. Not a painting that is priceless because some famous artist of the past happened to have painted it; rather, a painting that bores into your soul when you look upon it, that causes you to ask questions about life, that draws forth your emotions and makes you ask “Why?” 

When you break it all down, things that are "inevitable" – in the sense that Thoreau is talking about – are the things that matter. And what truly matters to humanity is surprisingly constant through the ages. True, we must satisfy our physical needs through proper sustenance, hydration, and care; this is unchanging. These are practical matters driven by practical needs. Things that matter to us, those that are driven by our values and morals, are similarly unchanging. 

Humans value our relationships with other humans. This is inevitable. It is also beautiful. Short of artificially constructing a setup in which you live in complete isolation, a feat in which the practical act of survival would be difficult enough, every person on this planet will have consistent interactions with other human beings at varying levels. Thoreau would have known this fact better than most. While he managed to make a go of it largely living off the work of his own hands for a couple of years in the countryside, by his own account he made semi-regular trips to town to socialize and also received frequent visitors to his humble cabin. 

While Thoreau certainly may have been familiar with loneliness and boredom (the man dedicates several pages of his memoir to describing the working habits of ants), isolation would have remained a foreign concept to him, and as I said before, to any of us. To get a better picture of isolation, one would have to look to the exploits of Dick Proenneke, a former carpenter who retired to the Alaskan wilderness and spent 30 years living alone in a cabin of his own construction. Even so, it is a stretch to think that Proenneke lived in complete isolation.

When the Twin Lakes area where Proenneke had constructed his cabin was designated as Lake Clark National Park and Preserve, Proenneke quickly became a favorite among the park staff as well as with park visitors. Though he likely spent his winters in near isolation in the harsh Alaskan wilderness, it is clear that Proenneke had occasional visitors during the warmer seasons. Visitors appreciated Proenneke, as evidenced by the number of publications in which people describe their interactions with him, and it seems natural to conclude that Proenneke likewise cherished these relationships and interactions. 

Proenneke passed away in 2003, having left Alaska five years previously to live out his remaining years with his brother. I am extrapolating here, but Proenneke, like Thoreau, likely saw the inevitability of death not as something to be feared, but as something to prepare for. Proenneke left his beloved wilderness in order to live out his years alongside his brother, opting for the meaning that such relationships provided over the inherent contentment he undoubtedly felt in the woods. The wilderness would pass away, inevitably, as all things do, and perhaps Proenneke knew this. Perhaps he felt he was better suited for the next phase of life by the serenity found through relationships, rather than by desperately clinging to a solitary existence in the wilderness.

Human interaction and mutual reliance, in one form or another, is inevitable, and is, in fact, a form of music and poetry. The clamor, the worries, the busyness of everyday life, these are the things Thoreau cautions as “but the shadow of reality.” Nevertheless, when one steps back and takes a moment to breathe it all in, to see the big picture, one can appreciate the beauty of all of humanity interacting together in this great game of life. It becomes “but the shadow of reality” only once we have chosen to focus our attention on these things that trip us up. 

These hang ups will inevitably come, but being able to hear and appreciate the music and poetry of life is simply a matter of focus. Will you choose to focus on the irritants, the externals that you cannot control? Or will you simply deal with those as you must, choosing instead not to lose sight of the beauty inherent in all of life’s aspects? Will you listen for God’s voice, the voice of the Universe? It is only when we are, as Thoreau says, “unhurried and wise,” that we can listen properly.

Let’s envision a scenario. You are an engineer, headed to a bid meeting with a client to meet with contractors looking to bid on a construction job. As the engineer, you have developed a plan for the project, carefully designed over many hours to the constraints imposed by the project schedule and budget. Upon arrival, the contractors quickly propose an alternative option to your design. The client, quickly forgetting budget limitations, is taken with the idea and hops on board with the contractors, leaving you to defend the path that you took and explain why you seemingly overlooked this other alternative. 

Being conscientious, you attempt to explain why you did not design according to the contractors’ admittedly good suggestion without placing blame on the client for the inadequate budget. It is not advisable to place blame on the client, even if that’s exactly where it belongs. Instead, you explain that the plan proposed by the contractors would require extensive rework on the existing infrastructure in order to make the plan work, hoping that the budget implications are clear to all present. Apparently, they are not. 

The contractors continue arguing for the alternate option, the client won’t make a decision on the spot, and you are left to try to convince the room at large that the original plan is still the best option, but to no avail. The project gets tabled and is never built. You are now out many hours of design time, careful thought, and planning for a project that will never come to fruition, and have just been thrown under the bus by your client. How will you respond?

Option A, the petty fears option, would have you obsess over how you could have approached the project differently, of how you could have convinced the others in the room of the adequacy of your design. You would go back to your hotel room and aimlessly wonder how things could have gone better, and worry fruitlessly over potential ramifications back in the office. Option B, the unhurried and wise option – the deliberate option – reminds you that the only thing that you can control is your reaction to the situation. Certainly, you can learn from it. Certainly, you can be better prepared the next time around. Certainly, you should not let it ruin your month, week, or even your day. 

Do not let such concerns linger. The worries of our daily lives pass more quickly than the sands of time, and yet we tend to let them dominate our thoughts. Let the shadows pass unheeded, and instead focus on those permanent and beautiful things, those things that make our whole existence worthwhile.