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Henry David Thoreau - Season 1 - Episode 02: Being Alive
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00:00Major funding for Henry David Thoreau was provided by the Better Angels Society, Jeff Skoll, the Mansueto Foundation, Tyson Foods,
00:12and the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations.
00:15Funding was also provided by the Tyson Family Foundation, the Neil and Anna Rasmussen Foundation, and by the Better Angels
00:23Society members, the Keith Campbell Foundation for the Environment and Mark A. Tracy.
00:30Additional funding was provided by Roxanne Quimby Foundation, Jim and Mona Mylan through the HeartSpace Fund, and Elizabeth Kenney.
00:45In the spring of 1845, Henry David Thoreau was 27 years old.
00:52For years, he had dreamed of spending time away from society.
00:57So he asked his friend and mentor, Ralph Waldo Emerson, if he could build a small one-room house on
01:05land that Emerson's family owned, not far from the village of Concord, Massachusetts.
01:12Emerson agreed.
01:21I want to go soon and live away by the pond, where I shall hear only the wind whispering among
01:30the reeds.
01:31It will be success if I shall have left myself behind.
01:36But my friends ask what I will do when I get there.
01:40Will it not be employment enough to watch the progress of the seasons?
01:46Henry David Thoreau.
01:50Still mourning the loss of his brother John, who had died three years before, and facing an uncertain future,
01:58Henry was ready to try what he called my own experiment.
02:03For the next two years, he would live in a small cabin at Walden Pond.
02:09There, he could focus on his writing while contemplating the natural world and himself.
02:17He begins a lot with Emerson's ideas about nature and civilization.
02:22He has to try to put them into practice and see how they hold up.
02:27He's not going into the wilderness.
02:29He's not trying to be a hermit.
02:31He wants to position himself on the edge of society to see if he could live there, get by, and
02:39be happy about it.
02:41His stay would be interrupted by an expedition to the wilderness of northern Maine,
02:46and by a night in prison at the local jail, both of which would expand his understanding of freedom.
02:56Writing about his experiences would change the lives of countless others around the world for generations to come.
03:04I have to figure out how to live, but what does that mean?
03:07He really reduces that question to its absolute barest terms,
03:13and then proceeds to see what he can learn about being alive.
03:35July 5th, 1845.
03:40Yesterday, I came here to live.
03:56On July 4th, 1845, Henry David Thoreau moved into a 10-by-15-foot house on the northern shore of
04:05Walden Pond.
04:07He had built most of it himself, cutting down trees to make a post and beam frame.
04:14Which friends helped him raise.
04:16He then attached siding from a shanty he had purchased from an Irish railroad worker,
04:22hauled up rocks from the pond for a chimney, and dug a root cellar.
04:27He moved in, bringing along his cane bed, green writing desk, a small table, and three chairs.
04:35One for solitude, he said.
04:38Two for friendship.
04:39And three for society.
04:42Some people called it a lonely hut, and a wooden ink stand.
04:49For Henry, it was home.
04:52My dwelling was small, and I could hardly entertain an echo in it.
04:57It was kitchen, chamber, parlor, and keeping room.
05:03I enjoyed it all.
05:14July 6th.
05:16I wish to meet the facts of life.
05:20The vital facts, which are the phenomena, or actuality, the gods meant to show us.
05:29Life.
05:30Who knows what it is, what it does.
05:37July 7th.
05:39Tonight, as I sit by my door, I hear the far-off lowing of a cow.
05:46Why should I find anything to welcome me in such a nook as this?
05:54After the evening train has gone by, and left the world to silence, and to me,
06:00the whippoorwill chants her vespers for half an hour.
06:06And when all is still at night, the owls take up the strain like mourning women, their ancient Yululu.
06:20On most mornings, Henry got up at dawn to tend to his vegetable garden, including row after row of beans.
06:28An endless task, only made harder by the woodchucks that dined on the shoots.
06:35Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal simplicity,
06:41and I may say, innocence, with nature herself.
06:46I got up early and bathed in the pond.
06:49That was a religious exercise, and one of the best things which I did.
06:54Renew thyself completely each day.
06:58His morning bath, he describes as a religious exercise,
07:03not just as some sort of random dunk that he took in the pond,
07:07but as a sort of ritual act that has suddenly a significance beyond itself.
07:15Thoreau also said, I needed to clean the house.
07:17So I took all the furniture out,
07:19and the furniture was happy to have a little excursion into nature.
07:24He said, I almost regretted having to bring it back in.
07:27He waited until November to plaster his house.
07:31And before that, there were all these cracks where, you know,
07:35animals came in, bugs came in, and the air came in, and he loved that.
07:41In the afternoon, he often took long walks
07:45and made detailed field notes of everything he heard and saw,
07:50a practice he would continue for the rest of his life.
07:57Walking was a writing practice, a process of taking notes
08:01that would become the content of his journals
08:04as inspiration would spark to turn it into a kind of larger mythology.
08:10What he observed fed what he would write about,
08:16but what he wrote about would also lead him deeper back into observation.
08:23Thoreau filled page after page of his journal
08:26with reflections on nature and the human condition,
08:30often referencing Greek and Roman literature,
08:33as well as ancient Eastern texts like the Bhagavad Gita and Buddhist sutras.
08:39He's saying, all of these texts and traditions have something to teach me.
08:45Thoreau is taking his own experience, and he's elevating it.
08:52The vision of simplicity had been explored in Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism.
08:59But in Concord in 1845, I think it was something radical and liberating.
09:06So whether he knew those works or not, he inwardly rhymed with them.
09:13Thoreau would find a way to incorporate many of these ancient teachings
09:17into the project he went there to write.
09:20A book about the trip he took on the Concord and Merrimack rivers
09:24with his late brother John.
09:28He strengthened and oriented himself in writing.
09:34Writing was a way of being alive that was deeply nourishing to him.
09:51I am convinced that to maintain oneself on this earth
09:56is not a hardship but a pastime
09:59if we will live simply and wisely.
10:06Throughout his stay at Walden Pond,
10:09Henry kept meticulous track of his finances.
10:13He needed to spend money on seed and other garden expenses.
10:18But he actually made money selling his produce.
10:21It cost him less than $20 to live there for the first six months.
10:27The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life,
10:32which is required to be exchanged for it.
10:36His goal is to remind us how much energy it takes,
10:42how much work it takes to make a living.
10:45But why are you making a living?
10:47Well, to buy these things.
10:49But why do you need these things?
10:52His focus was on how much do I have to work to secure my sustenance
10:57so that I can do what I really want to do.
10:59Our life is frittered away by detail.
11:04Let your affairs be as two or three
11:07and not a hundred or a thousand.
11:11Simplify.
11:13Simplify.
11:16I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately,
11:22to front only the essential facts of life
11:25and see if I could not learn what it had to teach
11:29and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
11:40We all get lost in the challenges of everyday life.
11:46And our world has been set up to help you do that.
11:50As I understand it, the root of deliberate is from freedom.
11:54And it's to do something because you choose to,
11:59not because fate dictates it.
12:02On some days, he simply chose to do nothing.
12:09There were times when I could not afford to sacrifice
12:12the bloom of the present moment to any work,
12:16whether of the head or hands.
12:21Sometimes, having taken my accustomed bath,
12:25I sat in my sunny doorway from sunrise till noon,
12:30wrapped in a reverie amidst the pines and hickories and sumacs
12:36in undisturbed solitude and stillness,
12:41while the birds sang around or flitted noiseless through the house,
12:46until by the sun falling in at my west window
12:51or the noise of some traveler's wagon on a distant highway.
12:56I was reminded of the lapse of time.
13:02I grew in those seasons like corn in the night,
13:07and they were far better than any work of the hands would have been.
13:13He practiced doing nothing,
13:15which can be the hardest thing of all for many of us.
13:18He saw the beauty of sitting still,
13:20and he knew that if he just sat by his pond,
13:24reflecting in every sense of that word,
13:25he could find everything he needed.
13:28He says that one of his job descriptions
13:30is to know the nick of time,
13:32to be able to notch it on his stick.
13:34He wants to be present.
13:36He gets down and on the ground
13:39to look at the battle of the black ants
13:41and the red ants at the pond.
13:44He goes into the shallows,
13:46and he finds a way to pet fish.
13:49Try that sometime.
13:51But you have to surrender to nature and nature's rhythms
13:55if you want to be whole.
13:58And you will see things you never saw before,
14:01and what you see will mean more than it ever did.
14:09What sweet and tender,
14:12the most innocent and divinely encouraging society
14:16there is in universal nature.
14:20There can be no really black melancholy
14:23to him who lives in the midst of nature
14:27and has still his senses.
14:31While I enjoy the sweet friendship of the seasons,
14:34I trust that nothing can make life a burden to me.
14:38Here I know I am in good company.
14:51In his bean field,
14:53as he's honing his beans,
14:54he came across these arrowheads
14:56and stone implements of native peoples,
14:59and he gets a sense that people have lived here
15:01for thousands of years
15:02whose lives are very much written on the land.
15:06He notices other signs in the landscape.
15:09He saw bricks, he saw cellar holes,
15:13he saw trees and bushes
15:16that are not native to Walden Woods.
15:19This meant someone had been there before.
15:21Who were they?
15:22Where had they gone?
15:24What was their story?
15:26For human society,
15:28I was obliged to conjure up
15:30the former occupants of these woods.
15:33The woods which border it
15:35were notched and dotted here and there
15:37with their little gardens and dwellings.
15:40In this 19th century American New England town,
15:42you think of this kind of thriving,
15:45very close-knit community,
15:46which Concord really was to a large degree.
15:49And then on the outskirts,
15:50there are other people.
15:52And Thoreau was fascinated by these people
15:54who were living on the edge,
15:56living very close to the land.
15:59These were people who had been enslaved
16:01in his hometown.
16:03In the 1780s,
16:05Massachusetts became the first state
16:07to make slavery illegal.
16:10But most black people in Concord
16:13had to choose between working as servants
16:15or scratching out a living
16:17on poor quality land
16:19that no white person wanted to farm.
16:23Sentiments don't change
16:25just because a law is enacted.
16:27The conditions of enslavement of labor,
16:31those may change in the law,
16:34but in practice,
16:36it's really servitude for life.
16:39Using local lore
16:41and his own observations,
16:44Thoreau pieced together
16:45the stories of what he called
16:46these former inhabitants,
16:48which otherwise would have been
16:50all but lost from the historic record.
16:54As he's writing a biography
16:55of the green space
16:57that we know of as Walden Woods
16:59or Walden Pond,
17:00he's also writing the biography
17:02of a black space.
17:04Down the road lived Brister Freeman,
17:07slave of Squire Cummings once.
17:10There, where grow still the apple trees
17:13which Brister planted and tempted,
17:15large old trees now.
17:17We're learning about a man
17:18who decided to claim for himself
17:20his new status as a free man,
17:24but he couldn't plant a larger crop,
17:27something more in line
17:28with what other Concord farmers
17:29were planting
17:31because it's not fertile soil.
17:33So he's barely able to make his way.
17:37Here, by the very corner of my field,
17:41still nearer to town,
17:43Zilpha, a colored woman,
17:45had her little house
17:46where she spun linen for the townsfolk.
17:48He describes the life of Zilpha White,
17:51who is eking out an existence.
17:55She spins threads and silks
17:57for the Concord women.
17:59She led a hard life
18:01and somewhat inhumane.
18:04One old frequenter of these woods
18:06remembers her muttering to herself
18:08over her gurgling pot,
18:11you're all bones, bones.
18:13And he describes her
18:16as living a life
18:17that is cruel and witch-like.
18:19This woman in the woods
18:21who's overheard stirring a pot
18:23and saying,
18:24bones, all ye are are bones.
18:27And later,
18:28he comes to a place
18:30where he says,
18:30you know what?
18:31She wasn't witch-like.
18:33She's hungry.
18:36East of my bean field,
18:38across the road,
18:39lived Cato Ingraham,
18:41slave of Duncan Ingraham
18:43of Concord Village,
18:44who gave him permission
18:46to live in Walden Woods.
18:47And the man to whom
18:48Cato is enslaved says,
18:50you have freedom,
18:52but you will receive
18:53nothing from me.
18:55So Cato begins to try
18:56to make a life for himself.
18:59Cato has tried to secure a future
19:02by planting walnut trees,
19:04but he's preparing for a future
19:06that he never gets to enjoy.
19:09What remains in the earth
19:12is central to African-American history.
19:15So planting walnut trees
19:18is a way of understanding
19:20that they were there.
19:22And also, they have ownership.
19:26Ultimately, it is enslavement
19:28that kills him
19:28because the terms of his freedom
19:31are so qualified.
19:34They're so mean-spirited.
19:37And this is the story
19:38Henry tells us.
19:41Why did this small village fail,
19:43Thoreau asked,
19:44while Concord kept its ground?
19:49Thoreau is asking the question
19:52at the heart of American history,
19:54at the heart of America itself.
19:57The question of why,
19:59after slavery,
20:00a community of formerly enslaved people
20:03could not be included,
20:06could not make themselves
20:07into a town
20:09that could survive and blossom.
20:12The gentlemen of Concord
20:14abandoned them to their freedom.
20:17He's trying to negotiate
20:19how there can be different histories
20:21alongside his at Walden
20:23because he gets to move
20:25wherever he wants to
20:27because he's a person of privilege.
20:29And all of that paves the way
20:31towards his increasing involvement
20:33in anti-slavery work
20:35and his outrage about injustice.
20:44The minister of the Congregationalist Church
20:47once said,
20:48who but some half-crazy,
20:51disgusted hermit
20:52would live alone and independent?
20:56So Thoreau's choice
20:57is a choice that
20:59his neighbors are going to think
21:01is really strange.
21:03Why would you live alone?
21:04I think he went to Walden
21:06not to escape human society
21:08but to find a vantage
21:10from which to look at it,
21:12criticize it.
21:15I am no more lonely
21:16than the loon in the pond
21:18that laughed so loud
21:19or the Walden pond itself.
21:22What company has that lonely lake,
21:25I pray?
21:27I am no more lonely
21:28than a single mullein
21:30or dandelion in a pasture
21:32or a bean leaf.
21:34or the North Star
21:36or the South Wind
21:37or the April Shower
21:39or the first spider
21:41in a new house.
21:43I had more visitors
21:44while I lived in the woods
21:46than in any other period
21:47of my life.
21:49Walden was basically
21:50the town's backyard.
21:52It turned out not to be
21:54a place of solitude at all
21:55because he's right by the road.
21:57And this is the town's
21:58favorite fishing hole
21:59and picnic spot.
22:01He received visitors regularly.
22:04His friend Ellery Channing
22:05stayed with him for two weeks,
22:07sleeping on the floor.
22:09Bronson Alcott visited weekly.
22:12Others came by
22:14just out of curiosity.
22:17People are stopping by
22:18and he wants to tell them
22:20what he's doing
22:22and why he's trying
22:23to simplify his life.
22:26Every day or two,
22:28I strolled to the village
22:29to hear some of the gossip
22:30which is incessantly
22:32going on there,
22:33circulating either
22:34from mouth to mouth
22:36or from newspaper
22:38to newspaper,
22:39which, when taken
22:41in homeopathic doses,
22:43was really as refreshing
22:45as the rustle of leaves
22:46and the peeping of frogs.
22:50He frequently headed
22:51into town
22:52to spend time
22:53with family and friends,
22:55work at the Thoreau
22:56pencil company,
22:57and do chores at home.
22:59He also picked up
23:00supplies he needed
23:01and sometimes
23:03dropped off his laundry.
23:05When everyone pretends
23:07to hate Henry David Thoreau
23:09for exploiting female labor,
23:11they're pretending
23:12that the woman
23:13and his family
23:14were just domestic drudges
23:16that all they did
23:17was cook and wash clothes.
23:20These women were leaders.
23:22They were taking in
23:23the dirty laundry of America
23:25that is slavery.
23:26So the laundry question
23:27is dismissive of all that
23:29and all the other ways
23:31he was contributing.
23:33He paid rent to the family
23:35his whole adult life.
23:37He did a lot of manual labor
23:40as well as being a teacher,
23:42a nanny,
23:43and housekeeper.
23:46After learning the kernels
23:47and very last sieveful
23:49of news,
23:51what had subsided,
23:52the prospects of war and peace,
23:55and whether the world
23:56was likely to hold together
23:58much longer,
23:59I was let out
24:01through the rear avenues
24:02and so escaped to the woods again.
24:07He kept himself unencumbered.
24:11No romantic relationships
24:13that we really know about.
24:14He didn't have children.
24:16So the ties that bind
24:19ordinary people,
24:21he was free of a lot of those,
24:23and that was partly
24:24the basis of his freedom.
24:26He was one of the towns,
24:29in many ways,
24:29most social people
24:30because he walked around
24:33and talked to people constantly.
24:35Henry was a good friend,
24:38but he was a difficult friend sometimes.
24:42He expected so much of friendship.
24:45It's difficult for him
24:46to disagree with someone
24:47and still feel like
24:49he can go on being friends with you.
24:51One of his friends said of Thoreau
24:53that his thoughts
24:54burned like a flame in him
24:57because of the earnestness
24:59of his convictions.
25:01One of the ways
25:01he put ideas into practice
25:03is test them
25:03against other people's ideas
25:04so he enjoyed the argument
25:07that it helped them refine his ideas.
25:11But he also had a sense
25:13of the other beings
25:14we share this planet with.
25:16This is a time
25:17where nature is either
25:18a threat or a resource.
25:20He's finding a whole other way
25:22to think about it.
25:24It was a real series
25:28of particular relationships
25:31with particular species,
25:33kinds of weather,
25:36even individual organisms.
25:39He considered the plants
25:41and the beans
25:41and the moon
25:42his friends as well.
25:44And he said,
25:45how could he ever be lonely
25:46when we're part of the Milky Way?
25:49Not all of us
25:50have such an expansive
25:51sense of friendship.
25:58One day in the summer
26:00of 1846,
26:02after a year in his cabin,
26:04he went to town
26:05to pick up a mended shoe.
26:08There he ran into
26:09the constable
26:10and tax collector,
26:11Sam Staples,
26:12who pointed out
26:13that Henry owed
26:14four years
26:15of state poll taxes,
26:17an annual fee
26:19that every adult male citizen
26:20was required to pay
26:22in order to vote.
26:24Sam offered to pay it
26:25for him,
26:26but Thoreau adamantly refused.
26:31I was seized
26:32and put into jail
26:34because I did not pay a tax
26:36to or recognize
26:37the authority
26:38of the state
26:40which buys
26:41and sells men,
26:43women,
26:43and children
26:44like cattle
26:45at the door
26:46of its Senate House.
26:49The economy of Massachusetts
26:51had depended on trade
26:52with the South
26:53and they were still constrained
26:56by the times
26:57that actually permitted
26:59enslavement
27:00to exist
27:00in the first place.
27:02So by paying
27:03Massachusetts taxes,
27:05he continued
27:06to sustain
27:07this appalling,
27:08immoral,
27:09anti-American
27:10economic system.
27:12And then
27:14there's
27:14the Mexican-American War,
27:16which is not just
27:18a war
27:18between two nations.
27:20It's actually
27:21an American provocation
27:23and campaign
27:24to expand
27:25enslavement.
27:26It's a territory
27:28grab.
27:30Henry David
27:31sees this
27:31and decides,
27:33well,
27:33how is my name
27:34actually attached
27:35to these enterprises?
27:37Through taxes.
27:39The dollar
27:40can now have
27:41a different
27:42kind of currency.
27:43Henry was placed
27:45in an upstairs cell.
27:47He spent the night
27:48there,
27:49viewing his hometown
27:50from the fresh perspective
27:51of a prison window.
27:53Seeing more clearly,
27:55he said,
27:56the state
27:56in which I lived.
28:00Someone,
28:01probably his aunt Mariah,
28:03bailed him out.
28:04He was mad
28:05as the devil,
28:06Staples remembered,
28:07that someone
28:08had interfered
28:09and paid that tax.
28:13Within 30 minutes
28:14of his release,
28:15Henry found himself
28:16picking berries
28:17on Fairhaven Hill,
28:19surrounded by children.
28:21I joined
28:22a huckleberry party
28:23on one of our
28:24highest hills,
28:25he mused,
28:26and then
28:27the state
28:27was nowhere
28:28to be seen.
28:31The question
28:32of how to live
28:33a life of conscience
28:33is a major question
28:35for him.
28:35How do you go
28:37on living
28:38at a time
28:39when simply
28:41living your life
28:42seems complicit
28:43with something
28:43you find morally
28:44intolerable?
28:46Just a week
28:47after his night
28:48in jail,
28:49Thoreau invited
28:50the Concord
28:51Female Anti-Slavery
28:52Society
28:53to host their
28:54annual event
28:54at his cabin,
28:56commemorating
28:57the end of slavery
28:58throughout the
28:59British Empire.
29:01From Henry's
29:02open doorway,
29:03a slate of speakers
29:04addressed the
29:05small crowd,
29:07including William
29:08Henry Channing,
29:09a Unitarian minister
29:10who called for
29:11a new U.S.
29:12constitution
29:13that excluded
29:14slaveholding,
29:16and Louis Hayden,
29:17a rising abolitionist
29:19who had escaped
29:19from the plantation
29:20of the powerful
29:21Kentucky senator
29:22Henry Clay.
29:24Hayden told
29:25the audience
29:26the tragic story
29:27of his wife
29:28and child
29:29being sold
29:30away from him.
29:32and Thoreau
29:34starts to realize
29:34that he had
29:36a social
29:36and ethical
29:37responsibility
29:37to speak out.
29:40He needed
29:41to give this
29:42his time
29:42and attention
29:43in a deep way
29:44as well.
29:46Thoreau began
29:47to write
29:47in earnest
29:48on society's
29:50obligation
29:50to uphold
29:51the principles
29:52of freedom
29:52and justice,
29:54culminating
29:55in an extensive
29:56essay
29:56that would be
29:57published
29:58three years later.
30:00It would eventually
30:01be called
30:02civil disobedience.
30:05Under a government
30:06which imprisons
30:07any unjustly,
30:09the true place
30:11for a just man
30:12is also
30:14a prison.
30:16It is there
30:17that the fugitive slave
30:19and the Mexican
30:20prisoner on parole
30:21and the Indian
30:23come to plead
30:24the wrongs
30:25of his race
30:26should find them.
30:29on that
30:29separate
30:30but more free
30:31and honorable
30:33ground
30:34where the state
30:35places those
30:36who are not
30:37with her
30:38but against her,
30:40the only house
30:42in a slave state
30:43in which a free man
30:45can abide
30:47with honor.
30:50In order to
30:51challenge the status quo,
30:53in order to recreate
30:53a new sort of society,
30:55there needs to be
30:56what Thoreau calls
30:57counter-friction.
30:58Slavery is
30:59a machine
31:00that is
31:01moving forward
31:02constantly.
31:04Friction creates heat
31:06and the machine
31:07itself breaks down.
31:11The human revolution
31:12in a single person
31:13can change the course
31:14of history.
31:17My Uncle Johnny
31:19went to prison.
31:21He encountered
31:22a young man
31:22by the name
31:23of Malcolm Little.
31:24And Uncle Johnny
31:26introduced Thoreau
31:27to Malcolm.
31:29The only place
31:30that a free man
31:31can abide with dignity
31:31in a slave state
31:33is in a jail cell.
31:34That resonated
31:35with Malcolm.
31:37That Thoreau would choose
31:39as a matter of honor
31:40a jail cell.
31:43Malcolm Little
31:44would later be known
31:46as Malcolm X.
31:48During his prison years,
31:50he was often
31:51found reading
31:52the works of Thoreau.
31:57People just don't
31:59have brilliant ideas
31:59about justice
32:00and redemption
32:01from an empty,
32:03blank slate.
32:06Martin Luther King
32:07was reading Thoreau.
32:10Civil disobedience,
32:11the words of Henry
32:12David Thoreau,
32:13could be used
32:13to disobey laws
32:15because they were unjust.
32:17So a person
32:18like a king
32:19or Malcolm X
32:20found solace
32:21in what Thoreau
32:22was talking about.
32:25The first time
32:26Gandhi was imprisoned,
32:28somebody gave him
32:30a copy of Thoreau's
32:32civil disobedience
32:34for him to read.
32:36Thoreau was thinking
32:37on the same lines
32:39as he was.
32:40That's how Gandhi
32:42began his
32:43civil disobedience campaign.
32:45you need
32:46some adrenaline
32:48once in a while.
32:49You need
32:49a booster shot.
32:51And his essay
32:52provides that
32:54even this late
32:55in the 21st century.
32:57How do we
32:58talk about
32:58problems of conscience
32:59when you're
33:00in the minority
33:01and you feel like
33:01your country's
33:02moving in the wrong direction?
33:04He said,
33:05I feel called upon
33:06to right the wrongs
33:07of my country.
33:14The tops of mountains
33:16are among the
33:17unfinished parts
33:18of the globe
33:19where there is
33:20a slight insult
33:21to the gods
33:22to climb
33:23and pry
33:24into their secrets
33:25and try their effect
33:27on our humanity.
33:30Their tops
33:31are sacred
33:32and mysterious
33:33tracts
33:34never visited.
33:38On August 31st,
33:401846,
33:42Thoreau left
33:43Walden Pond
33:44to join his cousin
33:45George Thatcher
33:46on an excursion
33:48to Katahdin
33:49in Maine,
33:50the highest mountain
33:51in the state.
33:54He brought along
33:55a small notebook
33:56and pencil
33:57to write about
33:58what he discovered there.
34:04He wanted to time travel
34:05to see
34:07what Massachusetts
34:08looked like
34:09a few generations
34:11before.
34:12And then come back
34:13and tell the tale
34:14of what he'd seen.
34:15That feels
34:15like the exact opposite
34:17of what he has
34:18at Walden Pond.
34:19It was a frontier
34:21that was very nearby.
34:24At the same time,
34:25he recognizes
34:25that it's not
34:26a pristine,
34:28untouched wilderness.
34:30You see
34:32industry.
34:34Bangor is the
34:34lumber capital
34:35of the world.
34:37Thoreau describes
34:38Bangor in 1846
34:40as this
34:41cosmopolitan
34:43city
34:44right on the
34:45edge of wilderness.
34:46He also recognized
34:48that he was going
34:49through spaces
34:50that people
34:51had worked,
34:52traveled,
34:53and lived on
34:54for thousands
34:55and thousands
34:56of years.
34:5713 miles
34:58north of Bangor,
34:59Henry stood
35:01on deck
35:02as their steamship
35:03passed a Penobscot
35:04reservation
35:05on Indian Island.
35:09He watched
35:10a native hunter
35:11get out of his canoe
35:12carrying a bundle
35:14of fur skins
35:15and an empty keg
35:17and an empty keg
35:17of alcohol.
35:19This picture
35:20will do
35:20to have put
35:22before the Indian's
35:23history.
35:23That is,
35:24the history
35:25of his extinction.
35:28I observed
35:30I observed some new
35:30houses among the
35:31weather-stained ones
35:32as if the tribe
35:34had still a design
35:35upon life,
35:36but generally
35:37they have a very
35:38shabby,
35:39forlorn,
35:40and cheerless look.
35:43The church
35:44is the only
35:45trim-looking building.
35:47Good Canadian
35:48it may be,
35:49but it is
35:50poor Indian.
35:52These were once
35:53a powerful tribe.
35:55I even thought
35:56that a row
35:56of wigwams
35:57with a dance
35:58of powwows
35:59and a prisoner
36:00tortured at the stake
36:01would be more
36:02respectable than this.
36:06Oh,
36:07they're always
36:08saying that
36:09we're the last
36:10of this,
36:11the last
36:11of that.
36:13If you knew
36:14what the hell
36:14we had to go through,
36:17yeah,
36:18we look
36:18woebegone.
36:20This was
36:21our homeland.
36:24These are people
36:25who have been
36:25robbed of their
36:26territory
36:27and forced
36:27to live
36:28a very impoverished
36:29existence
36:29on the margins
36:30of society.
36:31And what Thoreau
36:32cannot see
36:33is that he's
36:33part of this
36:34world as well
36:34and part of
36:35the process
36:36that makes
36:36this happen.
36:37Standing there
36:38with that
36:38postcard view
36:39of Indian Island
36:41looking for
36:42that noble
36:43savage,
36:45he's disappointed
36:47all his life.
36:48He's looking
36:48for relics.
36:50He's looking
36:51for relics
36:52and people
36:54too.
36:55Thoreau
36:55is not
36:56coming to
36:57Maine
36:58really to
36:58engage
36:58with Native
36:59people
36:59at this
36:59point.
37:00He's going
37:01to find
37:01the biggest,
37:02wildest mountain
37:02he can find
37:03and see
37:04what's on top
37:05and bring
37:06that back.
37:08Once
37:09they reached
37:10the wilderness,
37:10they continued
37:11under the
37:12guidance of
37:13two white
37:13settlers
37:14who knew
37:15the terrain
37:15well.
37:21On September
37:225th,
37:2373 miles
37:24north of
37:25Bangor,
37:25they paddled
37:26across
37:27Quakish Lake.
37:30We had our
37:31first but a
37:32partial view
37:33of Katahdin,
37:34its summit
37:35veiled in clouds
37:36like a dark
37:38isthmus
37:38in that quarter,
37:40connecting the
37:41heavens
37:41with the
37:42earth.
37:45After three
37:46more days
37:47of paddling,
37:48they arrived
37:49at the base
37:49of the mountain.
37:51At the summit
37:52of Mount Katahdin,
37:53it's unpredictable
37:55weather up there.
37:57If you're up
37:58there,
37:58be ready for
37:59anything.
38:00You're going
38:00to be tested.
38:02While the
38:03others set
38:04up camp,
38:05Henry tried
38:05to reach
38:06the summit
38:06alone,
38:07but failed.
38:09The next
38:10morning,
38:10the party
38:11set off
38:11together.
38:13Thoreau
38:13scrambled
38:14upward
38:14in earnest,
38:15leaving his
38:16fellow travelers
38:17far behind.
38:20I was deep
38:22within the
38:22hostile ranks
38:23of clouds,
38:24and all
38:25objects were
38:26obscured by
38:27them.
38:28The cloud
38:29line ever
38:30rising and
38:31falling with
38:32the wind's
38:32intensity,
38:33the mist
38:34driving
38:35ceaselessly
38:36between it
38:36and me.
38:38It was
38:39vast,
38:41titanic,
38:41and such
38:42as man
38:42never
38:43inhabits.
38:46He's freaked
38:47out.
38:48He was
38:49scared up
38:49there in
38:50a way that
38:50he had not
38:51been scared
38:52anywhere before.
38:55Henry never
38:55made it to
38:56the summit.
38:57He was
38:58forced to
38:58turn back.
39:00His companions
39:01were waiting
39:02for him
39:02below,
39:03and following
39:04the stream,
39:05they made
39:06their way to
39:06a meadow
39:07farther down
39:08the mountain.
39:10There,
39:11Thoreau made
39:12an exhilarating
39:13discovery,
39:14far more
39:14transcendent
39:15than what he
39:16had hoped
39:16to experience
39:17on the
39:18summit.
39:21He has
39:23this eerie
39:23feeling of
39:24displacement
39:25that really
39:26throws him.
39:28He's
39:29thinking about
39:30the fields
39:31in Concord
39:31and the field
39:32on the side
39:33of Mount
39:34Katahdin.
39:35These two
39:36places together,
39:37familiar and
39:38strange.
39:39I'm not even
39:40sure he quite
39:41understood what
39:42had happened
39:42to him at
39:43the time,
39:43because it's
39:44not until
39:45he's down
39:45the mountain
39:46and really
39:47letting it
39:48sink in
39:49and reflecting
39:49on it
39:50that he
39:51actually writes
39:52the memorable
39:53passage,
39:54Contact,
39:54Contact.
39:57I most
39:58fully realized
39:59that this
40:00was primeval,
40:02untamed,
40:03and forever
40:03untameable
40:05nature.
40:07Here was
40:08no man's
40:09garden but
40:10the unhancelled
40:11globe.
40:13It was the
40:13fresh and
40:14natural surface
40:15of the planet
40:16Earth, as it
40:17was made
40:18forever and
40:19ever.
40:21I stand
40:23in awe of
40:24my body.
40:25This matter
40:26to which I
40:27am bound
40:28has become
40:29so strange
40:30to me.
40:31talk of
40:32mysteries.
40:33Think of
40:34our life
40:35in nature,
40:36daily to be
40:37shown matter,
40:39to come in
40:40contact with
40:41it.
40:42Rocks,
40:43trees,
40:44wind on our
40:45cheeks,
40:46the solid
40:46Earth,
40:47the actual
40:49world,
40:50the common
40:51sense.
40:52Contact.
40:54Contact.
40:56Who are we?
40:58Where are we?
41:01You can see
41:02thorough
41:03finding language
41:04failing him.
41:05Who are we
41:06and where are
41:07we aren't
41:09questions you
41:09want to answer.
41:10They're questions
41:10you want to
41:11live.
41:14not till we
41:15are lost.
41:17In other
41:17words,
41:18not till we
41:19have lost
41:20the world
41:20do we
41:21begin to
41:22find
41:22ourselves
41:23and realize
41:24where we
41:25are
41:26and the
41:27infinite
41:27extent
41:28of our
41:29relations.
41:30The
41:31membranes
41:32between him
41:33and nature
41:33are completely
41:34dissolved.
41:35That
41:36sort of
41:36mystical,
41:37scary
41:38experience,
41:39he brings
41:40with him.
41:41After two
41:42weeks in
41:43Maine,
41:44Henry
41:44arrived home.
41:46As he
41:47looked upon
41:47the familiar
41:48landscape
41:49that surrounded
41:49him,
41:50he realized
41:51what he
41:52had experienced
41:52at Katahdin
41:53could be
41:54experienced
41:55everywhere.
41:57And it
41:58was a feeling
41:59of wildness
42:00and his
42:01writing starts
42:02to bubble
42:03with all the
42:04extraordinary
42:04observations
42:05he's able
42:06to make.
42:07Nature
42:08is all
42:09around us.
42:10It's
42:11right in
42:11the tree
42:11that you
42:12have walked
42:12by every
42:13day of
42:13your life.
42:14And then
42:15you see
42:15something new
42:16that you've
42:16never seen
42:17before.
42:18It blows
42:19you away.
42:23Speaking
42:24of autumn
42:24leaves,
42:25he said,
42:27if this
42:28had happened
42:28only once,
42:29it would
42:30have gone
42:30down in
42:31mythology
42:31as one
42:32of those
42:32events we
42:33read about
42:33in Greek
42:34myth or
42:34whatever.
42:35That suddenly
42:36all the
42:37leaves turn
42:37red and
42:38yellow,
42:39and the
42:40forest was
42:40on fire.
42:42But of
42:43course it
42:43happens every
42:44year and
42:45we take it
42:46for granted.
42:47This is the
42:48wonderful way
42:49in which Thoreau
42:49sometimes shocks
42:51you into an
42:51awareness that
42:53you should have
42:53had yourself
42:55but you
42:56didn't.
42:56love.
43:11He did some
43:13of his most
43:14brilliant writing
43:14in the winter.
43:17It was the
43:18time he went
43:19to his journal
43:20with new
43:20inspiration and
43:21a sense of
43:22digging in,
43:24exploring inner
43:25worlds.
43:26And then he'd
43:27go out and
43:28do things like
43:28study ice
43:29crystals and
43:30come to great
43:31cosmic realizations
43:32from the
43:33smallest of
43:34things to
43:34the largest
43:35of things.
43:36He loved
43:37cold.
43:41In the
43:41winter of
43:421847,
43:44Henry ventured
43:45outside not
43:46only to take
43:47long walks
43:48and ice skate,
43:49but to drill
43:50hundreds of
43:51holes in the
43:51ice to collect
43:52data about
43:53Walden's
43:54temperature and
43:55depth,
43:56culminating in a
43:57unique map of
43:58the pond.
44:00That same
44:01winter, a team
44:03of Irishmen
44:04came from
44:04Cambridge to
44:05harvest 10,000
44:07tons of ice to
44:08sell for
44:08refrigeration.
44:11Henry studied
44:12the ice,
44:13noting the
44:14gradations of
44:14color, its
44:16changing texture,
44:17and how quickly
44:18it melted.
44:19And imagine just
44:20how far it
44:21could be shipped.
44:23Perhaps the
44:24inhabitants of
44:25Madras and
44:26Bombay and
44:27Calcutta will
44:28drink at my
44:29well, he wrote,
44:30so that Walden
44:31water is mingled
44:32with the sacred
44:33water of the
44:34Ganges.
44:36This is a way
44:37for him to say
44:38profound sacredness
44:40can be found
44:40anywhere if you
44:42commit to seeing
44:43it.
44:46March 26th,
44:49suddenly an
44:50influx of light
44:51filled my
44:53house.
44:54I looked out
44:55the window and
44:56lo, where
44:57yesterday was
44:58cold gray ice,
45:00there lay the
45:01transparent pond,
45:02already calm
45:04and full of
45:05hope.
45:06I heard a
45:07robin in the
45:08distance, the
45:09first I had
45:10heard for many
45:10a thousand years.
45:13It was no
45:14longer the end
45:14of a season,
45:16but the
45:16beginning.
45:19Spring rain
45:21brought new
45:21life to the
45:22woods and
45:23fields around
45:24Thoreau's cabin
45:25and revealed
45:26an intriguing
45:27phenomenon that
45:28appeared in what
45:29he called the
45:30deep cut, a
45:32man-made
45:32excavation carved
45:34into the earth
45:35so that railroad
45:36tracks could be
45:37laid flat.
45:39When there was
45:40just the right
45:40amount of water,
45:41it would burst
45:42forth on the
45:42surface and
45:44start giving
45:44miniature rivulets
45:45of sand flows.
45:48He could see
45:49what looked like
45:50leaves of ferns,
45:52the leaves of
45:52trees, that
45:53would just be
45:54created on the
45:54bank.
45:56I'm affected as
45:58if, in a
45:59peculiar sense,
46:00I stood in the
46:01laboratory of the
46:02artist who made
46:04the world and
46:05me, had come to
46:07where he was still
46:08at work, strewing
46:10his fresh designs
46:11about.
46:13What is man
46:15but a mass of
46:17thawing clay?
46:19There is nothing
46:20inorganic.
46:22He sees life
46:24organizing itself
46:25through matter,
46:26and he realizes
46:27that there is not
46:29only no divide
46:30between human and
46:31natural, there's
46:32really no divide
46:32between organic
46:34and inorganic.
46:35So we are in
46:36there, we're
46:37like the dirt,
46:39we're like the
46:39trees, we're
46:41matter.
46:42We have been
46:43created by this
46:44world, and we
46:45are of it and
46:47part of it.
46:48He's starting to
46:49recognize the
46:50interconnection of
46:52everything.
46:53even though we
46:54may not all
46:55speak the same
46:56language, we
46:58ultimately all
46:59depend upon the
47:00same air, the
47:01same water, the
47:01same soil.
47:03So the whole
47:04idea of a
47:04kinship with
47:06nature puts us
47:07in a place where
47:08we're responsible.
47:22why I left
47:23the woods, I
47:25do not think
47:25that I can
47:26tell.
47:28I've often
47:29wished myself
47:29back.
47:31Perhaps I
47:32wanted a
47:32change.
47:33There was a
47:34little stagnation,
47:35it may be.
47:38Perhaps if I
47:39lived there much
47:40longer, I
47:42might live there
47:42forever.
47:44One would think
47:45twice before he
47:46accepted heaven on
47:48such terms.
47:51On September
47:526th, 1847, after
47:55two years, two
47:56months, and two
47:57days, Henry David
47:59Thoreau left
48:00Walden Pond.
48:02He had completed
48:04the first draft of
48:05a manuscript about
48:06his river trip with
48:08John, and he had
48:09also begun drafting
48:10a second one about
48:12his experiences at
48:13Walden.
48:15Over the next
48:16seven years, he
48:17would revise it
48:18multiple times.
48:20incorporating ever
48:21deeper insights with
48:23each draft, and
48:24combining his two
48:25years of experiences
48:27into one cycle of
48:29seasons.
48:32Walden, or Life in
48:34the Woods, would be
48:35released in 1854.
48:38The book would
48:39eventually sell
48:40millions of copies,
48:42reaching into every
48:44corner of the globe.
48:47He's not someone who
48:48turned his back on his
48:50society to go live in
48:52the woods.
48:53He was writing a
48:54critique of the world
48:56he was born into.
48:58And he thought that
49:00what nature gave us was
49:02a firmer place to
49:03stand.
49:03land.
49:05I think there's a sense
49:06that if you walk and
49:08travel thoughtfully, then
49:10the land will tell you
49:11things about what it
49:13means to be part of this
49:14rhythm of life that feels
49:16very different from the
49:17frenetic pace of the
49:18village.
49:21I learned this, at least by
49:24my experiment.
49:25If one advances
49:27confidently in the
49:29direction of his dreams
49:30and endeavors to live the
49:33life which he has
49:34imagined, he will meet
49:36with a success unexpected
49:38in common hours.
49:41He will put some things
49:42behind.
49:43He will pass an invisible
49:45boundary.
49:47new, universal, and
49:49more liberal laws will
49:52begin to establish
49:53themselves around and
49:55within him.
49:57And he will live with the
49:59license of a higher order
50:01of beings.
50:04He says you will cross an
50:06invisible boundary.
50:08Crossing the invisible
50:09boundary is the experiment
50:10that he was in.
50:12Thoreau is trying, I think,
50:14to show us that he's
50:15the divide that we assume
50:17is out there somehow
50:19dividing us from the
50:20natural world really
50:21doesn't exist.
50:23We must learn to
50:25reawaken and keep
50:27ourselves awake, not by
50:30mechanical aids, but by an
50:32infinite expectation of the
50:35dawn.
50:36To carve and paint the very
50:39atmosphere and medium through
50:42which we look to affect the
50:44quality of the day, that is
50:47the highest of arts.
50:50His insistence on practice, it
50:54wasn't enough to have an idea.
50:55You had to live it.
50:57And if you wanted to reduce
50:58Walden to its essentials, I would
51:01say its message is, wake up.
51:04We're sleepwalking through life
51:06a lot of the time.
51:08We have technologies for the
51:10avoidance of what's important.
51:13Look around you.
51:14Pay attention to what matters.
51:17Be conscious.
51:18Be.
51:21He never is asking people to
51:23go put up a shanty by a pond.
51:27He's saying each person is an
51:29individual, so his message is
51:32to wake you up to your own
51:34life, and then you follow it.
51:38Shortly after leaving Walden,
51:41Thoreau wrote to his Harvard
51:43class secretary in response to a
51:45survey marking the 10-year
51:47anniversary of their graduation.
51:51I confess that I have very
51:53little class spirit.
51:54However, I will undertake, at
51:58last, to answer your questions
52:00as well as I can.
52:03I am not married.
52:05I am a schoolmaster, a private
52:09tutor, a surveyor, a gardener,
52:13a farmer, a painter, I mean a
52:15house painter, a carpenter, a
52:17mason, a day laborer, a
52:20pencil maker, a writer, and
52:23sometimes a poet.
52:25For the last two years, I have
52:28lived in Concord Woods, alone,
52:31something more than a mile from
52:32any neighbor, in a house built
52:34entirely by myself.
52:37I have found a way to live
52:39without what is commonly called
52:41employment or industry,
52:43attractive or otherwise.
52:46Indeed, my steadiest employment,
52:48if such it can be called, is to
52:50keep myself at the top of my condition
52:54and ready for whatever may turn up
52:56in heaven or on earth.
52:59Isn't the whole point of living an
53:01experiment just to try something
53:02out, and if it works, you can then
53:05take it out into the world?
53:07I think maybe he understood that the
53:10problem of how to live was not
53:14something he was going to solve once,
53:16that that was going to be an ongoing
53:19problem, and that he was going to
53:21solve it different ways on different
53:23days in different experiments through
53:26the rest of his life.
53:27It seemed to me that I had several more
53:30lives to live, and could not spare any
53:34more time for that one.
54:33Next time on Henry David Thoreau.
54:35I had several more lives to live.
54:38The point was to take Walden back out into the world.
54:42New pursuits.
54:43Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine.
54:47And new discoveries.
54:48To hear this unaltered Indian language, it took me by surprise.
54:53The thing he models for us is a life committed to ongoing investigation.
54:58Rustling leaves, they teach us how to die.
55:01Don't miss the conclusion of Henry David Thoreau.
55:05Scan this QR code with your smart device to watch the whole series
55:09and learn more about Henry David Thoreau.
55:14The Henry David Thoreau DVD is available online and in stores.
55:19The series is also available with PBS Passport and on Amazon Prime Video.
55:25The digital companion soundtrack is also available online.
55:30music plays
55:30...
55:30The...
55:30...
55:58...
56:13Major funding for Henry David Thoreau was provided by
56:17The Better Angels Society
56:19Jeff Skoll
56:21The Mansueto Foundation
56:24Tyson Foods
56:26And the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations
56:28Funding was also provided by
56:31The Tyson Family Foundation
56:33The Neil and Anna Rasmussen Foundation
56:35And by the Better Angels Society members
56:38The Keith Campbell Foundation for the Environment
56:41And Mark A. Tracy
56:43Additional funding was provided by
56:46Roxanne Quimby Foundation
56:47Jim and Mona Milan through the HeartSpace Fund
56:51And Elizabeth Kenney
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