I first read Walden in my college dorm room. My roommate was binge-watching a TV show. The hallway was noisy and never stopped. I held this book from over a hundred years ago and felt as if a layer of glass separated me from the world around me. Thoreau built his own wooden cabin by the lake, grew beans, watched the ice crack, and listened to the owls call.
When he wrote those words, America was still in the middle of the nineteenth century. The chimneys of the Industrial Revolution were going up one by one. What he smelled was not just the moisture of Walden Pond, but also the burnt smell of an entire era sinking into the money pit.
By the time I closed the book, the lights in the dorm had already gone out. The city outside my window was brightly lit. Thoreau said not to be so bright. I looked at those windows. Every single one of them was lit. But not one of those lights was a campfire by Walden Pond.
He Lived by the Lake for Two Years — Not to Escape the World
Thoreau lived by Walden Pond for over two years. He borrowed an axe, cut down trees to build a house, and spent just over twenty-eight dollars. He calculated how much he ate each day and how much it cost, and came to a conclusion: a person does not need to earn a lot of money to survive. This conclusion sounds like a joke today. Rent. A child’s tuition. These are stones pressing down on your shoulders. But Thoreau’s point was not for you to quit your job and go farm. He was saying something else. You take away the superfluous things in your life, one by one. Whatever remains — that is what you truly need.
In the book, he wrote about many things he did by the lake. Watching ants fight for an entire morning. Listening to the sound of lake ice thawing for an entire evening. Weeding his bean field until the sun went down. In the eyes of the residents of Concord at that time, these activities were about as interesting as watching someone livestream their farming today. But every time Thoreau picked up his hoe, he was thinking about one question: why do I live? The answer to this question is not in books. It is in the moment you stick your hands into the soil.
The Surface of Walden Pond Reflects the Depth of Each Person
The way Thoreau wrote about nature was to place himself inside it. When he wrote about the blue of Walden Pond, he was not standing on the shore looking out. He was lying over the side of a boat, his face close to the water, watching how the light reflected up from the bottom. When he wrote about the winter ice on the lake, he did not observe from a distance. He took a ruler and measured the thickness of the ice. He recorded how the shape of every snowfall changed as it landed on the ice. This style of writing makes you feel like you are stepping on the same fallen leaves he stepped on. Like you are smelling the same pine resin he smelled.
Thoreau said that a lake is the eye of the earth. The depth of the lake is the depth of the person looking into it. What he saw in the lake water was not just the reflection of clouds and trees. He also saw the things inside himself that he usually hid very well. Loneliness. Unease. Fear of the future. Distancing from people. These emotions were magnified by the lake because he had nothing else to distract him from them. He could only sit there, face to face with them. He was not enjoying loneliness. He was learning how to live with loneliness.
This Book Dug a Well in My Heart
Reading Walden requires a bit of patience. It is like a slowly flowing river. You have to squat down yourself, put your hand into the water, and feel its temperature and its current. Thoreau’s writing is clear. So clear that you can see every single stone at the bottom of the river. Those stones are his thoughts. About work. About consumption. About how much stuff a person actually needs in order to live a dignified life.
I did not go and terminate my lease and move into the mountains the next day. The next day, I still went to work. I still squeezed onto the subway. I still replied to all those messages that never end. It’s just that when I pick something up at the supermarket, I take one more look at the price tag. That lake helped Thoreau see some things clearly. Then he took those things back with him into the crowd. His words dug a well inside my heart. That well is not big. It isn’t deep. But whenever life presses down on me so hard that I cannot breathe, I can squat down, scoop up a handful of water from that well, and wash my face. After washing, I keep walking.
