Walden stood alone in the corner of my bookshelf for a few years, and when I bought it, I read a few chapters and thought it was just a book about the environment, just a high-grade chicken soup for the soul. It wasn't until I came across a description of Thoreau, the author of this book, that I came across a selected essay by Zhang Ailing and learned about his creative background that I reopened the book. It is a book that has been rated as constituting the American character, with the theme of nature, highlighting the American style of individualism and critical spirit, and Thoreau advocated that a new culture of the United States should be established free from the influence of traditional European culture. He does not advocate building houses on the ruins of ancient civilizations, he despises clichés. This book is also an extremely beautiful collection of essays, and this book written a hundred years ago seems to record far more than the life of a hundred years ago, and perhaps only when people simplify their lives to only three meals a day, accompanied by a lake, relative to the sun, moon and stars, the words written can be so clear.
Translator Xu Chi said that this book is suitable for reading from dusk to late at night, in order to appreciate the mood in the text, in order to see those shining words. So I read on a few quiet nights, trying to get closer to Thoreau, to perceive Thoreau's understanding of the material world, but also let me really perceive that our bodies do not need much, we have been complicating the original simple life, and think that it is a kind of refinement. In fact, there is a kind of life, no need to be so commercial, it can save a lot of time for enjoying relaxed nature. The spiritual simplicity that Thoreau advocated was not against the improvement of material conditions, but against the pursuit of material conditions as the highest achievement or only goal of life. How close a person's mind can be to the broadness of nature depends on how much it can be put down.
Thoreau's life we do not need to emulate, nor can we imitate, he went into the jungle to live alone, built his own house, cultivated food, he had the competence and self-confidence of a real man, Emerson said that Thoreau said that he had rich common sense, strong hands, keen sense, tenacious will, he had outstanding wisdom, and the inspiration of a poet. He was so viable that he turned his back on us and approached Walden lake with an axe, but he excelled in a simple life of seclusion. He was an extreme Protestant who believed that the universe gave man divinity and spirituality, that he did not have to know God through religion, and that man could control his own life. He had no desire for material wealth, but he knew how to be poor without being filthy and vulgar. He said "They're proud of their high price, I'm proud of my low price."
A hundred years later, most of us don't have the confidence of Thoreau and live that life, and I long for that loneliness from my heart. When Yu Dan recommended this "Walden" to college students on Youth Day, she said that she learned to pay tribute to loneliness when she read the book in college, people are doing addition before the age of thirty, and after the age of thirty, they have to do subtraction, subtract the unwanted quantity, seek a quality of perseverance, and the young people in the reading season can read some useless books, but be interesting people. Spend the most sensitive and awake time reading, and the youth awakened by reading is a state that can be accompanied for life.
I wish that my room also had Thoreau's three chairs, one for myself to sit alone, and two for socializing with friends and having long conversations. It also makes me know that when people are at their loneliest and most awake and rich, the inner wonder of a lonely person is enough for him to use solitude to pleasure himself and enjoy that state, he does not have to get spiritual energy through gatherings and socializing, he does not even have to travel thousands of miles, he does not have to travel around the world, he does not have to go to Tibet to wash his soul, these people just observe a ray of sunshine, or listen to a voice in the middle of the night, or read a passage of text, the mind will stretch, and he can see the incomparably rich world, just like the poem of the English poet Blake." One sand, one world, one flower and one heaven".
Haizi said goodbye to the world with four books, one of which was Walden, which may have made people see courage and vulnerability. It can make people examine its thoughts and strength from a philosophical point of view, and it is also easy to make people sigh their helplessness from the perspective of freedom and living conditions. One of Haizi's poems says, "From tomorrow, be a happy man, feed the horses, chop firewood, travel the world, from tomorrow, care about grain and vegetables, I have a house, facing the sea, spring blossoms" This should be closer to the life he desires, like Thoreau, like Walden Lake.
I hope that one day I will have enough courage to go inside myself and explore, just like Thoreau. I am thankful that all the good books came to me at the most opportune time of my life. Seems to know when I can read it. I can meet Kong Mengzhuangzi, immerse myself in Tang poetry and Song Poetry, and at the same time encounter the deep water of Walden Lake, approach Thoreau, and live next to the flowers and trees in nature.
Feng Zikai said that this world is not a world of rich people, nor is it a world of people without money, but a world of people with hearts. I want my heart to be clear and beautiful because of a lake and nature, and my world to be rich and wonderful. I know that in addition to struggle, there is also a lake of nourishment, and I want to meet that lake. Give your heart a place to live freely.