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Seeing the Light

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Submitted By spencey27
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Thoreau’s View of Modern Society
Henry David Thoreau’s “Seeing the Light,” explains about his journey into the wilderness. He went into the wilderness to find the truth about human’s existence. Thoreau proceeded on this journey to live with an agglomeration of simplicity. Thoreau chose this lifestyle of simplicity on his own volition, without any outside influence as expressed in “Seeing the Light.” In this excerpt Thoreau discusses the negative impacts of over-working, stresses the advantages of disassociating with the negative aspects society, and enabling ones self to experience a spiritual awakening. He wanted to have his life changed and in this excerpt he reflects and implies his own thoughts to create this change for himself.
Thoreau views working in a negative way because he believes that society as a whole is working too often and too fast. Thoreau does not like the “modern gadgets”. He lists the telegraph and the railroad as specific examples. This passage explains that the railroad is a poison to the countrymen’s lives because it changes their slow paced lives into fast paced, hectic lives. As a result, people spend most of their time rushing around everywhere trying to get everything done as quickly as possible but ironically, people are always tardy. Thoreau wants people to stay at home and mind their own business so their lifestyles will not be altered to a faster pace. Thoreau is very conservative and traditional; he does not want anyone changing his life into what everyone else is moving towards. He wants to be like the countrymen, unaffected by the hectic lifestyle. Thoreau indicates that if one spends their life focusing on the important things, then they will be freed from the unessential, which will greatly improve their quality of life. He also stresses that it is unnecessary to merge into the fast paced lifestyle of constantly moving and working.
Thoreau chose to separate himself from society not only to escape the fast paced lifestyle, but because he wished to live deliberately. He wanted to discover and study his own life. He wanted to get the most out of his life as possible. This becomes obvious when he states, “I wanted to live deep and suck out all marrow of life…to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner…” This quote is referring to the fact that most of us are living lives that are packed with the unessential. People live at such rapid pace that they never listen to their thoughts or focus on their bodies. Most importantly he wanted simplicity, to get away from everything so he could focus more on himself. Thoreau explains everything in precise detail. His writing style is unique in that he expresses his thoughts with a confidence and a sense of urgency. Everything he says links together to his purpose of going into the woods.
Thoreau wants to awake the sleeping mankind because he believes they need spiritual awakening. There is a cycle that keeps mankind working so hard he is not living spiritually but just living to stay alive. Thoreau believes that mankind is in such a strict, fast paced life that they leave no time to spiritually awake and look at why they exist. “The morning, which is the most memorable season of the day, is the awakening hour.” By waking up very early in the morning, Thoreau gains a different perspective on the world. While everyone is sleeping he is awake, enjoying nature. Since the morning is Thoreau’s favorite “season of the day” he is most likely referring to Spring. Spring is the awakening season during the year. It is when all the plants, trees, and animals are budding or awakening ready to find why they exist and what they are there to accomplish. He wants people to experience fact face to face so one can physically see it and let it dive into one so you can feel it. Thoreau wants everyone to experience the awakening not only in the morning but all throughout the day and even when in darkness.
In conclusion, Thoreau discusses the negative impacts of over-working, stresses the advantages of disassociating with the negative aspects society, and enabling ones self to experience a spiritual awakening. Thoreau states that over-working leads to a shallow, fast paces life. He believes that new inventions such as the railroad and telegraph take away from the traditional lifestyle and lead to this shallow lifestyle. As a result, he chose to separate himself from the business of modern life and take time to reflect on what was important to him.

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