You have to wonder, sometimes--what was Thoreau thinking? What was his problem? Why did he decide to pull away from the world and hide out in the woods? Was it a failed love affair? Was it his failure to find financial success? Was it a way of one-upping his mentor Emerson, who was both happily married and financially successful?
Jean-Paul Sartre once said that "Hell is other people." I tend to agree, and I'm sure Thoreau would too.
I have to say that, as lonely as it is out here in the woods, the society of other people does make you feel contaminated sometimes--it's hard to know who to trust, who to believe in, who to doubt, and who to avoid. I'm a basically trusting person, a quasi-Pollyanna type, and sometimes my faith in people gets smacked around. It's nice to hole up in my sylvan retreat sometimes, and pretend, as Thoreau pretended, that other people just aren't necessary.
But of course they are, and to pretend otherwise just doesn't work. Even Thoreau admitted as much, when he said that he left the woods in the end because he "had other lives to lead." What I hope to do, though, is to do a better job at finding out how to make and keep friends, how to keep untrustworthy people at a distance, and, finally, how to discover within myself those qualities that are both worth keeping, those that need improvement, and those that need to be discarded. Our lives are our only real DIY projects, the only ones that really matter. We have to be vigilant about finding the lives that we are supposed to be leading, and equally vigilant about keeping out those influences--et les autres--that eat up all our peace of mind.
However, the sign, I must add, does add a certain level personal satisfaction to my day, every single time I pass it coming in and out of the property. I only hope it doesn't scare the UPS guy too much.
No comments:
Post a Comment