DO NOT READ. CONTENT IS FOR THE EYES OF THE NCALAGA ONLY!

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Ethan Faidley
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ENGL1010-Section.038
Dr. Jessie Bray
16 September 2010

Ethan Faidley
ENGL1010 – Section .038
16 September 2010
Essay Final Draft

Why Henry David Thoreau Went to the Woods

In a past life, Henry David Thoreau was a sleeper, a half-conscious human being wandering around aimlessly with no hint of meaning or reason, just like a zombie, or a democrat.
But eventually, something woke him up, and henceforth he sought to escape what he saw as a meaningless existence in the ever-advancing industrialist society of the 1800's. The reason he went to the woods was to see how it would feel to live as humans are naturally intended to live, or, as he chose to put it, “to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, and to give a true account of it in my next excursion,” (Thoreau 126). In other words, he wanted to become less dependent on technology in order to live in a more simpler form of matter, so to speak. Whether one considers his or herself an industrialist or a naturalist, his belief still rings true, that, while many technological advances of this era are capable of making our lives less complicated, we as humans tend to become too dependent, even to an extent of addiction, and therefore unintentionally make are lives out to be more complicated. Several key notes come together to explain why this is perhaps the one ultimate flaw of mankind.
“I have always regretted that I was not as wise as the first day I was born,” (Thoreau 130). Thoreau implies, reflecting the ideas that experience and knowledge are useless and that ignorance and innocence are blissful assets. We all exit the womb with the sole intentions of being happy and free, and to live the simple life, but soon enough we are corrupted into power hungry maniacs with the intentional pursuit of material possessions we do not need. “Still we live meanly, like ants; though the fable tells us that we were long ago changed into men; like pygmies we fight with cranes; it is error upon error, and clout upon clout, and our best virtue has for its occasion a superfluous and evitable wretchedness,” (Thoreau 126) I shall presume that a high mind focused on good-old-fashioned independence and will power is the most precise alternative to combat the problem.
Over-dependence of technology should be categorized as an addiction, just like alcoholism and smoking, rather than seeing it as a choice of life. All addicts have one thing in common: They are being controlled by something, a substance or a device or what have you, and this rule is no different in techno-junkies. Thoreau defines these addicts as “sleepers,” (Thoreau 127-130), and rightfully so, as they are unaware of their serious condition until they wake up and realize it. It truly does seem like we are constantly dragging ourselves down to a point where we starve ourselves of the truly gratifying things that we have been offered, and instead manage to fill the dark void with emptiness and uselessness that, in reality, should mean absolutely nothing to us. I'll bet that a lot of people would be left dumbfounded if shown the amount of texts they sent out within a month's time, or how many times they switched the thermostat from burning to freezing, and then back to burning again, whilst attempting to achieve a state of perfection that obviously does not exist. Henry states it best when he says, “Most men have hastily concluded that it is the death of themselves to glorify God and enjoy him forever,” (Thoreau 126). He obviously believes otherwise, and so do I. In recognition to Thoreau's repetitious use of wording, simplification is definitely they way to go. It would seem a tad drastic, in our current day and age, to simply dispose of our cell phones, computers, television sets, heater, IPods, refrigerators, and other miscellaneous objects of industrialism, and to start over with nothing but the most basic of necessities; yet this is more than doable, its natural! I'll sympathize that these items do make life easier and more entertaining, but what's the point if it becomes an obsession? Americans need to simplify, to limit text messaging to emergencies only and to forget about the 5,000 people on Facebook ™ that they consider friends even though they've never even met.
We Americans should also make sure that our extra working hours do not get out of hand. Supporting a family is crucial to survival, but working extra hours just to be capable of purchasing personal items of value is a stupid and selfish gesture. “The intellect is a cleaver; it discerns and rifts its way into the secrets of things,” (Thoreau 131); What Henry David Thoreau means by this is that the World needs to learn how to use its mind to get what it needs, instead of using the mind to get what it wants and what it thinks it needs. This is clearly the only way anyone is ever going to be satisfied with anything: To just stop working to earn something completely and utterly useless in comparison to the true necessities that the Earth has to offer.
The world needs to get back to its roots, to simplify the amount of personal items it allows to be consumed by, and to focus more on settling for satisfaction rather than gaining and gaining and never being satisfied. In other words, the world needs to learn how to be fun again. By reading the text, it is certainly obvious that when Thoreau managed to wake up, he gained a more vivid since of freedom and imagination, “If men would not allow themselves to be deluded, life would be like a fairy tale and the Arabian Nights' Entertainments,” (Thoreau 129). This is such a broader aspect towards the Universe than the sleepers; surely this is a world that we would all wish to awaken to one day.

I don't even know what the NCALAGA is, but I'M IN YOUR THREAD!

I wonder if you realise that you are pointlessly posting this on the internet rather than getting on with your life.

Apparently this means you've fallen into the trap of technologically addicted "sleep".

Sure, technology is used for utterly useless purposes, but really, living in the jungle and shunning technology is not sensible. Simply using technology properly, rather than wasting it, is all that anyone needs to do. Keeping warm allows us to focus our mental energies on tasks which can provide rewards that will be of even greater benefit to us in the future, rather than sitting around freezing and being unable to think because of the cold.

Also, most people can't go and live in the jungle. Do you know why? Because powerful people have already laid claim to all the land and will not permit its use by anyone who doesn't pay tribute to them. If you want that kind of freedom, you have to compete with their power, and in order to do that you have to use the technology and the intellectual tools you find laying around in modern society, which can offer you advantages over others, and which others will invariably use to gain advantages over you.

We already live in a competitive jungle where absolutely anything goes, in one big free-for-all. In a jungle, the man who utilizes technology to his advantage is more capable of carving out his own life on this earth however he pleases. The man who finds a big stick and utilizes it as a club to beat another man down with, is the man who gets to live freely in the woods that he now rightfully owns. In the modern world our big sticks are simply more complicated and our technology and methods of "beating down" are more advanced.

The writer of this article seems like someone who was simply powerless to live as freely as they would like, and assumes that ignoring our modern jungle and daydreaming about a more simple prehistoric jungle is the answer to their problems. In reality, the lifestyle that they desire would put them further down the food chain in our real jungle than they can possibly imagine. The real solution is to use every advantage that society can offer, not to simply run away from it because all the cavemen wielding futuristic space-clubs are too intimidating.

Technology got us where we are today. As organisms, even our limbs are technology. Perhaps we should abandon those too and become single-celled organisms again just because we don't like how our contemporaries use their opposable thumbs?

Or perhaps it would make more sense to simply make better use of that technology ourselves, and not worry about what they are doing.

Let them sleep, what easier way is there to advance beyond someone?

I didn't read anything in this thread.

I attempted to read this thread, but gave up as it was boring and made no sense.

The irony is ironic.

Plus I agree with everything else you said but don't want to build a text pyramid by quoting it in bulk.

I have always rejected the premise that life can only be meaningful if a person uses as little technology as they can without compromising their own survival. That premise is always stated as pure fact by these sort of screeds but it isn't. It's just a value judgement, a way of saying "my life is meaningful but yours isn't".