“Few people know how to take a walk. The qualifications are endurance, plain clothes, old shoes, an eye for nature, good humor, vast curiosity, good speech, good silence and nothing too much.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson
I set out on an early morning walk fully prepared to listen to a podcast through noise-cancelling headphones for the bulk of the five miles I’d planned to traverse. Walking down the driveway, I heard the distinct song of a cardinal greeting the morning. Listening more carefully, I heard almost nothing else beyond the cardinal. With such clear guidance, I stuffed the earbuds in my pocket and opted to take in the world instead of block it out.
A proper walk ought to be simplified. Without earbuds I could hear the approach of cars, industrious squirrels harvesting acorns high above, and feel the world around me in a way not possible when you’re focused on a podcast or your favorite playlist. There’s a place for multi-tasking with earbuds, but there are times when bringing your ears to the walk offers a greater overall experience.
All of this seems obvious on a hike or a walk through a place we’re visiting for the first time. Could you imagine walking through Edinburgh or Amsterdam or across a stunning ridgeline for the very first time wearing earbuds? Neither can I. We tend to save the addition of media for the mundane. But what if we sought out something new in each step? This is only possible when we’re fully present.
The thing is, it’s not just walking, is it? Within each moment we have the choice to block out the world or let it in. What we do in that moment influences our now and our accumulation of experiences. We don’t just learn how to live, we learn how to live optimally. To be open to the world allows us to receive more than we otherwise might have.
A visit to Walden Pond can be immersive, if you go at the right time. Many people go in summer to swim and enjoy the pristine water. Many fish for large mouth bass and other prizes. But the pilgrims go to visit Henry David Thoreau’s famous pond and the woods surrounding it. I’ve watched the place change over the years, but the pond and woods remain largely as Thoreau would recognize.
You must treat a brief visit to Walden as you would a visit to a nightclub with a cover charge. There’s a flat fee of $30 USD to park. That applies for an hour or the entire day. There’s a lower fee, apparently, for Massachusetts residents. I suppose you can also opt for other ways to get to Walden Pond, but this was the simplest way to spend time at a place. The area surrounding Walden Pond is a mix of highway, commuter railroad (as it was in Thoreau’s time), capped landfill and houses increasingly further out of reach for someone choosing the lifestyle of the person who made this place famous.
Early December is considered late autumn, but my visit felt more mid-autumn, with temperatures warmer than they should be this time of year. Henry David Thoreau would have shaken his head, I think, at some of the same behavior he observed in his day leading to the climate change we’re experiencing today but generally sitting on our hands about. But it made for a lovely day to walk around the pond.
There is a well-defined path around the pond. It’s maintained and easy for most walkers to navigate. They make you feel like you’re in a cattle chute for much of it, with wire strung on each side of the path to keep wanderers from straying off the path. Signage explains this as erosion control measures. As a hiker of the White Mountains in New Hampshire, I’m all too familiar with the impact of popularity on trails and the surrounding landscape. I stay to the path, liberated from the freedom to wander, I instead focused on the environment around me.
You can hear the world encroach on you at Walden. Distant highway sounds, construction, sirens, airplanes flying overhead and the commuter train all remind you that you’re in a suburb of Boston. It’s best to acknowledge this, but let it go as Thoreau let the train go as it went past in his time. The landscape is largely preserved, the water clear, awaiting those who would linger.
When I was younger, there was no visitor center, but there was a bath house. At some point well before I came into this world some well-meaning people decided that the best way to save Walden Pond was to make it a recreation center. So a bath house was built, beach sand extended and you had a destination for family recreation. Thoreau’s cabin is on the opposite shore from the bath house, but it’s the first thing you see when you walk down the visitor parking lot. You’re either at peace with it or not, but it’s relatively benign in the off-season.
Walden Woods extend well beyond the perimeter of the pond, and we can thank people like Don Henley for their commitment to preservation. Generations of developers find a way to squeeze as much money as they can from resources, and there are plenty of people who would turn the place inside out and up. There’s a place for development in this world, but there ought to be a place for preservation too.
I’d brought a water bottle with me on the walk, warm day that it was, and decided in a moment of inspiration to fill it with water from Walden Pond. Thoreau drank straight from the pond in his day, I’m not inclined to do that without a filter. Instead, I brought the water with me for another pilgrimage. Just across that highway is the center of Concord, where Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson lived. Just beyond the center is the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, site of Author’s Ridge, where Thoreau, Emerson, Alcott and others are buried. I stopped for a brief visit on Author’s Ridge, told of my visit to his old cabin site, and poured Henry a sip of Walden Pond. Cheers Henry.
Walden PondA view of the pond just down the hill from Thoreau’s cabin site. This is similar to the view he would have had.Pile of stones next to the cabin site. I’m not loving it, but cairns are how people seem to express themselves. The site to me feels like a construction site, cleared and ready to build.The cabin site is surrounded by granite pillars to denote the position and size of the cabin.Creative cairn art rising out of Walden Pond.
“Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.“ — Ralph Waldo Emerson
We often forget how blessed we are. Counting blessings ought to be a daily activity. I suppose it is for some of us, while the rest of us are too busy juggling to linger with gratitude. Experts on such things as happiness suggest writing down what you’re grateful for at the end of each day. I’n not so bold as to call myself an expert on living happily, I just try to do it. It does seem logical that if we are what we focus on, focusing our attention on gratitude and the blessings in our lives surely seems more delightful than focusing on what’s missing. Acknowledge both; dwell in joy.
Americans have this holiday of holidays: Thanksgiving. Some people aren’t really focused on thanks and gratitude on Thanksgiving, they’re just trying to pull of the logistics of the day. But this is the very best holiday of them all for many of us—not because of the day drinking and heaping plates of everything, but because we come together with the people we love the most. What’s lost on some Americans as we celebrate this coming together as family business is that much of the world does this gratitude and love thing every day of the year.
Gratitude and love fill a void otherwise open to darker forces. Happy doesn’t need Thanksgiving, but giving thanks seems to lead towards happy. It’s a funny twist on words, I suppose, but also a more fulfilling way of living in this complicated and tragic world. A recipe for happiness, if you will. So whether you celebrate this particular holiday or not, we’re sending a nice helping of love, from our table to yours.
“To wish to escape from solitude is cowardice.” — Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace
“At times the whole world seems to be in conspiracy to importune you with emphatic trifles. Friend, client, child, sickness, fear, want, charity, all knock at once at thy closet door and say,—’Come out unto us.’ But keep thy state; come not into their confusion. The power men possess to annoy me I give them by a weak curiosity. No man can come near me but through my act.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson
Being an advocate for solitude doesn’t mean one is antisocial, it means embracing the potential of the moment. We ought to embrace our time alone, and stop reaching for distraction at any sign of discomfort with the practice. Solitude isn’t the same thing as loneliness, they’re quite the opposite of one another. We can be alone and be productive with the circumstance, or retreat into the comfortable friction of others. We aren’t bait fish, friends, there may be anonymity in numbers, but that isn’t safety, merely avoidance.
Writing requires solitude—there’s no getting around it. We must wrestle with our thoughts without interruption if we hope to mine anything of consequence from ourselves. Most of us don’t have the luxury of a cabin in the woods in which to dream and scheme. We seek the edges of the day and make them ours. Some of us thrive early in the morning, others late at night. The time is inconsequential, it’s the willingness to tap into the moment that matters most.
Solitude is a productive state of being in a world intent on drawing you back to the pack. Solitude isn’t retreating into our selves, it’s a deep conversation with an old friend, the one who knows all our traits and sticks with us anyway. We only have so many such moments in a day or in a lifetime, and ought to explore them fully. The best thing about writing is sharing a wee bit of that with a few interested collaborators. In that respect, we transcend aloneness completely.
He went to Paris Looking for answers To questions that bothered him so — Jimmy Buffett, He Went to Paris
“As we grow old, the beauty steals inward.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
And now I will tell you the truth. Everything in the world comes. At least, closer. And, cordially. — Mary Oliver, Where Does the Temple Begin, Where Does It End?
It struck me reading a book on Existentialism that it’s almost impossible to arrive at enlightenment and sagacity when life becomes relentlessly hectic. Try absorbing deep thoughts from another era when you’re exhausted and grabbing a few pages in between commitments and sleep. We’re all so damned busy that we don’t take the time to understand the universe, let alone ourselves. The maze might have a beginning and an end, but we get so caught up finding the cheese that we forget to figure out where we are.
Busy never answers, busy avoids answers.
As we stack experiences one atop the other, do we take the time to sort them into insight? We spend so much time focused on becoming and belonging that we short the time required to being. The quest for answers never really ends, but we can edge closer to that which resonates for us. It seems the benefit of aging is capturing the time that eluded us when we were younger to sit with deep thoughts, reflect on the universe and find ourself.
The real question is, why do we wait so long to sift through the answers?
“The sky is the daily bread of the eyes.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
Last night offered a small chance to see the northern lights as the skies cleared just enough to open up the universe. What are you to do with an opportunity like that but chase after it? With son and daughter as my two co-conspirators we jumped in the truck and drove northward over twisting country roads. Higher elevations, darker skies, reason for hope to witness that elusive sky dance.
We never did find the northern lights. Instead we found the starry dome, the wind whispering a chilly welcome, and time to catch up with each other in a random field far from home. The sky above didn’t disappoint, even as we recognized that it wasn’t going to show all its cards to our power trio. As the clouds rolled back in, we jumped back in the truck for the drive home. We agreed the chase was worthwhile, if only for the billion stars dancing infinitely above and for locking us in the amber of the moment in revelatory quiet below.
We don’t just stumble upon revelation, we must seek it out. Having a spirit of adventure mixed with a sense of place may seem contradictory, as if chasing dreams means leaving home. But the spirit that calls is the universe, and it in turn is our place. You see it more clearly when you get away from the ambient light.
The secret of the illusoriness is in the necessity of a succession of moods or objects. Gladly we would anchor, but the anchorage is quicksand. This onward trick of nature is too strong for us: Pero si muove. When at night I look at the moon and stars, I seem stationary, and they to hurry. Our love of the real draws us to permanence, but health of body consists in circulation, and sanity of mind in variety or facility of association. We need change of objects. – Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature
This phrase, Pero si muove, mentioned in passing by Emerson, is famously Galileo Galilei’s. Forced by the Catholic Church to recant the truth of the matter that the earth revolves around the sun, Galileo dropped this little truth bomb after recanting. “Pero si muove” or, “And yet it moves”.
I think about Galileo’s mic-dropping truth in a particularly dark time for truth in history as reality-based people of the Earth coexist with the buzz of maddening conspiracy theories, flat-Earthers and rigged election believers. The simplicity of truth seems lost in the escalating rhetoric of these online screamers. Imagine for a moment Galileo and Emerson returning to the world of today and listening to this din of despairing dolts. They’d lose all hope in humanity and throw up their hands in despair. There are days when I want to myself. Aren’t we past all this nonsense?
It’s ironic that all this craziness is happening at a time of brilliant scientific advancement. We see images and hear sounds broadcast from the surface of Mars. We embrace the heroic efforts of the scientific community to develop viable vaccines to fight off COVID, and to stand up a delivery system to get it into the arms of the billions of people on the planet that desperately need it and a return to “normal”. We see the smartest among us looking at the problems humanity has created on this fragile blue ball rotating around the sun and tackling climate change and plastics and clean water and the related list of short-sighted gains that created long-term problems for future generations.
There’s hope in the world, but there’s also a healthy dose of self-inflicted despair and rage. And we won’t get past it without facing the truth. Pero si muove. Or consider again Emerson’s words: “Our love of the real draws us to permanence, but health of body consists in circulation, and sanity of mind in variety or facility of association. We need change of objects.” I think all of this social isolation has stirred the pot of madness a bit too much. Sanity of mind seems to be a real issue for way too many people looking for something to cling to in the swirling uncertainty of the age.
I find hope in Galileo’s phrase. For all the forced dogma of his time, the truth prevailed. And it lives on in the majority of people in the world today. There have always been laggards on the bell curve of reality, they just happen to have a louder voice at the moment. Pero si muove. Truth finds a way to shine through in the end. So long as people have the courage to stand for it as Galileo did.
“Nature says thou shalt keep the air, skate, swim, walk, ride, run. When you have worn out your shoes, the strength of the sole leather has passed into the fibre of your body. I measure your health by the number of shoes and hats and clothes you have worn out. He is the richest man who pays the largest debt to his shoemaker.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Those Concord folks were walkers, weren’t they? Ralph and Henry wandered about, wearing out shoes and building big thoughts. There are a couple of versions of that Emerson quote above, but some online research makes me believe these were his words. I like the alternate quotes just fine, but when I start quoting people I’d like to have it right. I love the idea of transferring the strength of the shoes into the fiber of your body. It applies just as well with shoes as it does time and sweat equity invested in other worthwhile things.
I’m wearing out shoes more quickly lately. My feet took a beating last year, ankles and knees too, but they merely paid it forward to my heart and soul. Over time the body adjusts and stops complaining about taking another step and just goes. It’s a bit like writing and washing dishes and making the calls, you just teach yourself that there’s joyful bits in every moment of doing.
I’m a collector of joyful bits. On my deathbed I won’t regret not finishing Breaking Bad, but I’ll surely regret not seeing the Northern Lights or the Southern Cross should I not see each. The last year is a reminder to not take mobility for granted. Wearing out more shoes seems a great goal for our next normal. The correlation seems apparent. Wearing out your gear is an easy measure of your physical and mental health. So lace up; we have places to go.
“In the woods too, a man casts off his years, as the snake his slough, and at what period soever of life, is always a child. In the woods, is perpetual youth…. In the woods, we return to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befall me in life,—no disgrace, no calamity, (leaving me my eyes,) which nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground,—my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space,—all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God. – Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature
I admit to a bit of excitement. Adrenaline coursing through me as I anticipate the first steps outside into the freshly fallen snow. A few inches of the fluffy stuff fell from early evening and overnight and still drifts downward in lazy accumulation. Not enough to strap on the snowshoes (pity), but enough to make an adventure of the walk. What is winter for if not to be a kid again when it snows?
My destination is the woods. The woods grow silent in the snow, and I fill with reverence. The days inside are long, for there is much to do in this forever connected march to quarterly numbers and customer engagement and cross-department collaboration. But the early mornings are mine alone. And there is magic in the air. And underfoot.
“I am the lover of uncontained and immortal beauty.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature
The world ought to be filled with wonder, I think. But most people slide into survival mode, leaving their inner child far in the rearview mirror to face all the horrors of the world stoically. But the stoics saw the wonder of nature as Emerson saw it, and shouldn’t we too, while we still have both nature and the capacity to marvel at it?
I always smile when I come across people from places without snow who walk outside in awe, snapping selfies in a frozen wonderland. Living in the snow globe we sometimes forget to shake it up and embrace the swirling magic. Not us, thank you. We’ll walk and swirl in the magic too.
“The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond them.”– Alan Watts
Enjoying being alive is surely a worthy pursuit, but even Watts, in pointing this out, was achieving something beyond himself. For otherwise, what are we contributing beyond a few laughs over drinks? Unsaid, I believe, is contributing joyful pursuits that create those ripples that live on beyond your lifetime.
I’ve visited the graves of many notable names in history, and generally it’s a chunk of silent stone in a lonely plot. The best graves betray the personality of the person who resides there. A clever line about how they lived, or what they believed. Or maybe it’s the stone itself that signals the character of the person. Ralph Waldo Emerson lies below a chunk of rose quartz, which stands out amongst the weathered gray stones of his family and peers on Author’s Ridge. Whether you ever knew much about Emerson, you’d surely note the personality emanating from his gravestone.
Of course, Emerson left a big ripple well beyond a rock on a hill through his contribution to the world. Did he enjoy writing and speaking? Certainly. Emerson wasn’t running around in a panic trying to achieve something beyond himself. He just did the work. And so did Watts. And so must we.
“Men live in their fancy, like drunkards whose hands are too soft and tremulous for successful labor. It is a tempest of fancies, and the only ballast I know is a respect to the present hour.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature
There’s a distinction between being alive and achieving something in your life, but they don’t have to be mutually exclusive. And usually the things that make us feel most alive offer more than just a momentary dopamine rush. They’re part of building something beyond ourselves. Family, meaningful work, friendships that transcend convenience, and community. These things aren’t achieved, they’re earned one moment at a time.
