11th blog

To me Thoreau's Walden Where I Lived, and What I lived for and Conclusion, falls in both the categories of the naturalist, objectivist and subjectivist.  In his writing Conclusion, it leans toward subjectivists.  He suggests that we should open our eyes through our minds.  What we see is not how it is always in our thoughts. How not only the things we know or the thing we are told to follow should stop us from viewing the world as a bigger whole.  He tells us to express ourselves by saying, “ Say what you have to say, not what you ought.”  Follow society and you will live a dull life; do what you have always dreamed of will open your eyes to new perspectives.  Some things are meant to be unseen from one person to another like our interpretations of things, for example the expensive wine and food.  How one might view it as delightful and satisfying, but as Thoreau puts it unsatisfying.  He suggests that a person should follow his or her dreams, and not just be satisfied with just normal, because everyone is unique in their own way.  Let them live life to the fullest and enjoy every moment of it, good or bad, and not just to rush through life.  How if you don’t live life to the fullest you are not really living life, or as he puts it, “… we are not where we are, but in a false position.”  Thoreau suggests living a simple life to discover whom you actually are within.  He suggests getting out of your routine and thinking for yourself, not what you were told.  Thoreau passage says, “ Direct your eye right inward, and you’ll find A thousand regions in your mind yet undiscovered.  Travel them, and be expert in home-cosmography.”  What he is trying to tell us is that we should look within our souls to find out who we are, then, can we understand what the universe is really like around us.  In his quote, “the universe is wider than our view of it” I agree with Thoreau, because we may see with our eyes and hear with our ears, but our minds can take us to infinite places if we wanted it to.

             In the chapter, Where I Lived, and What I lived for,  on the other hand, is considered an objectivists perspective to me.  He describes many types of scenery that he has seen, but the main point is what he learned through his experiences living in a more simplified life.  He realized that poverty could be virtuous because he had experienced it himself.  For a while, he lived the less fortunate life and still showed high moral standards. I agree that poverty can be virtuous, because some people who are poor have better morals than some wealthy people that I have seen.

  http://www.kenkifer.com/Thoreau/where.htm 

 http://www.kenkifer.com/Thoreau/conclus.htm