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American Literature: Walden 341 Views
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Description:
Self-discovery doesn't just happen in nature, so if dirt and bugs make your skin crawl, cop a squat and hit play.
Transcript
- 00:03
Walden.....
- 00:18
let's do this nature is
- 00:20
wonderful the sunshine the animals clouds in the sky the mosquitoes the [Butterfly appears on a cloud]
- 00:27
pollen the sudden rainstorm that ruins everything
- 00:30
okay nature's not for everyone but like it or not humans are connected to nature
Full Transcript
- 00:35
we might hide from it in our air-conditioned condos and cars but it's
- 00:39
still out there there are a lot of lessons that can be learned from
- 00:43
spending time in and observing the natural world around us and as one man [Woman looking at animals with binoculars]
- 00:48
discovered being tight with nature totally has its benefits Henry David
- 00:53
Thoreau was born lived and died in and around Concord Massachusetts with a
- 00:58
thirst for knowledge and a hot intellectual curiosity he pursued study
- 01:02
in philosophy politics and religion at Harvard University not stoked about the [Harvard University appears]
- 01:08
usual job fields that most people pursued after graduation business
- 01:12
religion or law, Thoreau decided to teach finding that public school teaching
- 01:17
clashed with his personal beliefs meaning that he wouldn't dole out
- 01:20
corporal punishment to bad students Thoreau and his bro opened their own [Thoreau outside concord academy school]
- 01:24
school there the brothers tried out new methods with the students like taking
- 01:28
them on nature walks and writing poetry about their experiences
- 01:31
Thoreau became friendly ahem with an older gentleman named Ralph Waldo
- 01:36
Emerson who encouraged Thoreau to write and seek publication in a local journal
- 01:40
Emerson was a leader in a movement called transcendentalism that Thoreau found
- 01:45
thoroughly interesting this philosophy is tricky to define but essentially
- 01:49
transcendentalist believed in individualism idealism and a common
- 01:54
humanity among people despite how different and unique everyone is
- 01:57
believers in this philosophy felt that humans have the ability to transcend the [Woman meditating on the grass]
- 02:02
material things of the world in order to find themselves through spirituality and
- 02:07
you know personal examination come on people get your minds out of the gutter [Butterfly flying by]
- 02:11
Emerson also let Thoreau live in his cabin for a while this camping
- 02:16
experiment led to Thoreau's most famous work Walden published in 1854, Walden
- 02:22
describes Thoreau's experience living alone in nature with nothing but
- 02:25
squirrels on his own thoughts to keep him company he wanted to better [Thoreau sitting on a bench with squirrels]
- 02:29
understand what in the world humans were really about and he decided that the
- 02:33
only real way to do this was to cut himself off from society in order to
- 02:37
simplify, simplify this was kind of like Thoreau's mantra can't really knock the
- 02:42
idea unless of course you simply can't simplify because you've got 16 different
- 02:47
handheld electronic devices a shoe collection that would rival kim [Man sitting with a huge shoe collection]
- 02:51
kardashian and more posters than the national poster museum does... Thoreau
- 02:56
wasn't interested in material possession instead living with basically nothing
- 03:00
and writing all about how the minimalist lifestyle affected him so was he a nut
- 03:05
job or simply genius before we dismiss Thoreau as a weirdo crackpot with
- 03:10
outdated notions about how to live life let's check out a chapter from Walden [Walden book appears beside flying butterfly]
- 03:14
this should give you a smidge of understanding into who this guy was and
- 03:18
why on earth he'd choose to live in solitude instead of hitting up a spot
- 03:22
downtown with a couple of choice roomies or a good-looking partner in crime hit
- 03:26
pause and read the chapter called where I lived and what I lived for..... welcome back
- 03:32
before we take apart the chapter you just read here's a full rundown of the
- 03:37
book as I mentioned before, Walden is all about living a simple life in nature [Man playing saxophone]
- 03:42
and all that jazz the book takes place over the two years that Thoreau lived in
- 03:46
a cabin he built himself on Emerson's property at Walden Pond this book is
- 03:51
mostly about the literal observations that Thoreau made and how he tied his
- 03:55
thoughts about history philosophy and humanity at large to what he sees in the
- 03:59
natural world Thoreau made a few trips into town and occasionally entertained [Thoreau trips over in the street]
- 04:03
people at his cabin but mostly he chilled by himself just thinkin
- 04:07
observing and writing this may sound totally boring or like an old school
- 04:12
version of survivor but here's the deal Thoreau was living life exactly the way
- 04:17
he wanted to how many people can honestly say
- 04:20
that about their own lives think about it if you could live any way you want it [Man surfboarding in the ocean]
- 04:24
what would you do if there were no parents forcing you to do chores no
- 04:28
school to fill your days no siblings demanding you play with them or help
- 04:33
with their homework what would you do how would you choose to live your idea [Boy asking sister for help with homework and boy disappears]
- 04:37
of a perfect life might be way different than the one Thoreau came up with but this
- 04:40
important thing was that he was doing it his way that's a huge deal and because [Thoreau walking his way]
- 04:46
he chose to live in the way that he did he freed up his mind from normal
- 04:50
everyday stressors and came up with some pretty awesome observations about life
- 04:54
in where I lived and what I lived for we get Thoreau's own take on the purpose
- 04:59
behind his experiment in the preceding chapter that we didn't read he says
- 05:03
the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation that doesn't sound like a [Quote from Thoreau's book appears]
- 05:08
good thing Thoreau thought that most people go through life carrying out
- 05:12
what's expected of them but seeking something more they feel trapped in some
- 05:16
way but not knowing how to talk about this feeling they keep quiet and remain
- 05:21
desperate which sounds miserable but that's the point Thoreau was making he
- 05:25
thought that most people were pretty miserable [Man takes drink while sitting in a chair]
- 05:27
and since it was certainly not most people he attempted to live in a
- 05:31
different way reflecting on the experience as he goes
- 05:34
to see what the result will be he also figured out that most of the luxuries
- 05:39
and many of the so-called comforts of life are not only not indispensable but
- 05:44
positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind this means that people are
- 05:49
taught to seek happiness in things or possessions but these only hold us back [Thoreau walking through a forest]
- 05:53
from becoming higher-level thinkers if someone told you that your cell phone
- 05:57
was holding you back from being an elevated being you might laugh and then
- 06:01
text your BFF about what they just said But Thoreau had a point if we break out of
- 06:05
our normal routines and give up using our beloved possessions 24/7 we're
- 06:10
forced to look at life in different ways in this same vein of thinking Thoreau [Man driving a car]
- 06:14
noted the massive discrepancy between how rich people and poor people live and
- 06:18
enjoy life but how happens it that he who is said
- 06:22
to enjoy these things is so commonly a poor civilized man while the savage which
- 06:28
has them not is rich as a savage the cost of a thing is the amount of what
- 06:33
I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it immediately or in the
- 06:38
long run he's saying that rich people have and poor people don't and that
- 06:43
these attributes make the rich people poor in spirit and the poor people quite
- 06:48
rich the message is that wealthy people amass goods that only hold them back [Rich man attempting to reach enlightenment]
- 06:51
from being truly fulfilled in life and poor people don't have things cluttering
- 06:56
up their lives so they can live a more spiritually free existence just like he
- 07:00
attempted to do....
- 07:08
This is a transcendentalist way they transcend the
- 07:11
notion that we need material goods to make us happy [Butterfly flys by]
- 07:14
ie not very 80s Madonna it's all about slowing it down, taking in the world
- 07:19
around you with all of your senses and if we can do that then silly things like [Woman stood by tree smelling a flower]
- 07:23
deadlines and crushes who don't return phone calls become meaningless well more
- 07:28
or less what's wrong with that crush anyhow in
- 07:31
where I lived and what I lived for we become immersed in the great details
- 07:35
of Thoreau's observations of his home/setting of this book....
- 07:49
can't you just see those ghosts like mists sneaking off into the [Mists appear from Walden Pond]
- 07:53
thick woods because he slowed everything down to the base level of existence, Thoreau
- 07:57
was able to focus on his surroundings and make these detailed observations
- 08:02
pretty much every single day he wrote them in a way that even when we read
- 08:07
them some 150 plus years later we can totally envision the place where he was
- 08:12
living these observations are so descriptive
- 08:14
and full of imagery they could easily be written into poetry but what's the point
- 08:19
let's let Thoreau tell us for himself...
- 08:36
let's break this up Thoreau says he went to the woods which
- 08:40
we already know because he wanted to live deliberately that's a weird choice
- 08:45
of descriptor or maybe not deliberately means intentionally or on purpose so [Butterfly carrying a definition of deliberately on a board]
- 08:50
saying that by taking off on the nature hike of a lifetime is making a conscious
- 08:55
choice to live in a particular way okay I can get down with that
- 08:59
he then says he wanted to front only the essential facts of life and see if I
- 09:04
could not learn what it had to teach and not when I came to die discover that I
- 09:09
had not lived, Thoreau is pretty much explaining that he is ready to open
- 09:13
himself up to living with only the bare necessities without the Disney song and [Thoreau stood by a campfire and a bear appears behind a tree]
- 09:17
see what happens he's pretty sure that his experiment is going to yield the
- 09:21
results that he's been predicting all along that freeing himself from society
- 09:25
and all of its constraints will allow him to feel as if he's truly living life [Thoreau riding a rollercoaster]
- 09:30
sort of like how some people feel about going bungee jumping or skydiving. Thoreau
- 09:34
had a tight grip on ideas about what makes life precious and worth living and
- 09:38
what simply distracts and detracts from the life experience as he said I did not
- 09:42
wish to live what was not life living is so dear nor did I wish to practice [Sentence of chapter appears highlighted]
- 09:47
resignation unless it was quite necessary but he wasn't just hanging out
- 09:52
waiting for life to happen to him either....
- 10:08
....he's saying that he's not afraid to get his hands dirty literally [Thoreau shows his dirty hands]
- 10:12
this whole experience is about living life and Thoreau is excited about
- 10:15
diving in deep there are sixteen more chapters including a conclusion in
- 10:20
Walden and you should definitely put this one on your ever-growing to read [Conclusion appears and stamped must read]
- 10:24
list he talks about being alone, what he was reading and how he was affected by
- 10:28
the visitors who came along and saw how he was doing his thing in the conclusion
- 10:32
Thoreau writes...
- 10:40
success it might seem strange that Thoreau left the woods at all since he was [Thoreau standing in the woods by a cabin]
- 10:45
so dang happy there but naturally he had it perfect for doing so....
- 10:55
we wouldn't expect any less from this master of thought and self understanding
- 10:59
so what have we learned? even though nature might not be your
- 11:03
deal you can still appreciate what Thoreau said we're all mysterious beings
- 11:08
trapped in a web of routine to break out of the routine and really get to know [Man in handcuffs on TV]
- 11:12
ourselves in a spiritual way is what Thoreau and the spirit of transcendentalism
- 11:16
was all about we can all stand to know ourselves a bit better, even if
- 11:21
hiking flowers and bugs make our skin crawl
- 11:23
don't worry self discovery you can have an indoors too [Butterfly flying indoors]
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