Another great author who also is a transcendentalist is Henry David Thoreau. He wrote “Civil Disobedience”, “Walden”, and “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”. In one of his works “Walden”, he believes “if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.” This is what Thoreau learned from living in the woods and this is connected to transcendentalism because he lived in the woods and did not study anything except for observing the things around his house. This is connected to the idea in which transcendentalists meditate and they believe they can use their five senses to learn about the nature, and that is why Thoreau wanted to be in the woods.
People view transcendentalism in many ways, however in my opinion, people still believe in some ideas of transcendentalism but people don’t believe in other ideas of transcendentalism. Many people today still believe that we should have our own ideas and we learn from experience, however, the idea of the “society is corruption and materialism is bad” does not exist today anymore. Some people today believe we should not follow others because following others is showing that one does not have their own style and own ideas. For example, we shouldn’t wear what other people wear or wear clothes according to fashion; we should wear clothes which we think fits our style. Another example is we should do what we want to do; we should not smoke just because everybody smokes, we should think about how bad it is for us. People also believe that we learn from experience. An example is when we play a sport and when we lose, we know what to improve and that is experience. The next time we play, we could play a lot better. Other ideas such as corrupted society and rejection of materialism do not exist anymore because everyone is involved in a society and everyone possesses material goods.
“Men frequently say to me, ‘I should think you would feel lonesome down there, and want to be nearer to folks, rainy and snowy days and nights especially.’ I am tempted to reply to such. 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 much nearer to one another...” This is an excerpt from Henry David Thoreau’s Walden, and this excerpt talks about Thoreau no feeling lonely in the woods because he believes he is not lonely, there are many people on Earth and people with the same ideas are never separated. This excerpt is trying to show that people can be alone and isolated physically, but when people have similar ideas, their minds will always be closer than ever. And according to transcendentalism, people should be isolated from the society because it is corruption and people should rather be alone to meditate for more knowledge.
Some ideas of transcendentalism still exist today. Like I said before, people today believe we should not follow others because following others is showing that one does not have their own style and own ideas. And also, people believe that we learn from experience. But people don’t think society is corruption anymore because it isn’t and we are all involved in a society.
In conclusion, transcendentalism was created because the transcendentalists believed that they should have had the freedom to do whatever they what as long it doesn’t infringe the freedom of others. Today, it is almost impossible to avoid doing something which does not infringe the freedom of others. However, we have found other ways make up for that and societies are not corrupting. We should have our own ideas and let our ideas guide us to where we want to be.
