# 2026-05-22 - Walking, and the Wild by Henry David Thoreau
Recently i read an essay by Henry David Thoreau titled
Walking, and the Wild. It was in an anthology on walking titled
The Footpath Way [1], which comes from Autolycus's song in
A Winter's Tale by Shakespeare:
Jog on, jog on the footpath way
And merrily hent the stile-a;
A merry heart goes all the day,
Your sad tires in a mile-a.
Hent means to grab. Stile is a series of steps to go over something.
Tires is used as a verb, not a noun.
This isn't the first time i've read Thoreau's essay. I also read it
in 2011 after my eldest sister recommended it. It seems to me that
when a person or a writing has depth, then repetition only improves
the experience. So i was able to enjoy and understand this essay
better because i had read it once before.
Thoreau's writing generally goes in the direction of my own thoughts.
I don't agree with all of his premises, but i'd say he was ahead of
his time. He made an interesting correlation between the depletion
of the topsoil and the decline of a nation.
> In Wildness is the preservation of the World. ... From the forest
> and wilderness come the tonics and barks which brace mankind. ...
> The story of Romulus and Remus being suckled by a wolf is not a
> meaningless fable. The founders of every State which has risen to
> eminence have drawn their nourishment and vigour from a similar
> wild source. It was because the children of the Empire were not
> suckled by the wolf that they were conquered and displaced by the
> children of the Northern forests who were.
> Life consists with wildness. The most alive is the wildest.
> In Literature it is only the wild that attracts us. Dullness is
> but another name for tameness. It is the uncivilized free and wild
> thinking in Hamlet and the Iliad, in all the Scriptures and
> Mythologies, not learned in the schools, that delights us.
In these passages he equates wildness as being near to goodness.
What is wild is what is most alive, attractive, and free.
Civilization, on the other hand is dull, tame, and out of touch.
> English literature... is an essentially tame and civilized
> literature, reflecting Greece and Rome. Her wildness is a green
> wood, her wild man a Robin Hood. There is plenty of genial love of
> Nature, but not so much of Nature herself. Her chronicles inform
> us when her wild animals, but not when the wild man in her, became
> extinct.
This was an interesting point to ponder. A species is clearly
defined. It is easy to test whether something is a member of a
species, so it is relatively easy to declare a species extinct.
A wild person is not a species. How do you test whether a person is
wild? It's a subjective evaluation. If you find a person remarkably
alive and free, then they are wild.
Thoreau wrote that exposure to wild foods and wild places engender
wild thoughts, which creates wild people. I agree with this idea.
You are what you eat, and you are what you pay attention to. The
trends of deforestation, extinction, topsoil depletion, and such
produce a scarcity of wild food, wild places, wild thoughts, and
wild people. The extinction of wild people lagged not far behind
the extinction of wild animals.
Life, even "tame" life, has the potential to develop new species.
People have the potential to form new thoughts and ways of being.
Hope exists in our natures and in the geological scale of time.
There is a substance called shilajit that extrudes from rocks in
the Himalayan mountains. It tastes bad to me, but it's nutritious
and good for health. It has its origin in primeval forests that were
buried, pressurized, and raised by plate tectonics to high altitudes.
Now, 30+ million years later, our bodies can benefit from those
extinct forests. Mystics wandered into the mountains and ate
geological goop seeping out of a rock and it helped them not starve
for a few more days. This planet is full of surprises.
> That is active duty, which is not for our bondage; that is
> knowledge which is for our liberation: all other duty is good only
> unto weariness; all other knowledge is only the cleverness of an
> artist. --Vishnu Purana
Quoted like a true Transcendentalist. :) Knowledge itself can be
classified "by its fruits" so to say.
I read that in ancient Egypt, they used pairs of opposites for a more
broadly encompassing meaning. For instance "of life & death" would
mean "of all everything". A Tree of Knowledge of Good & Evil, then,
would mean a hierarchy of knowledge of everything. But i think the
Good & Evil, as opposed to Life & Death, would imply an evaluating
kind of knowledge, judging everything but being disconnected from it.
The truth which can be spoken is not the true truth. Articulation is
like a pin that pierces through a butterfly, fixing its body to a
definite spot, but killing the actual butterfly.
A person who values wildness would do well to pay attention to
wildness. For an introvert, it would be that which is wild within.
Thoreau provides the beacon to follow. What makes you feel more
alive, attractive, and free?
I'll name one thing that does it for me: acceptance. I give my
subconscious permission to think whatever it thinks. I give my body
permission to assume whatever posture it wishes. I give my mind
permission to feel whatever emotions it has, or to not feel whatever
emotions it hasn't. This body and mind are beautiful and have served
me well. I give myself leave to revel in glorious thoughts, or
glorious reverie, as i see fit. I would like to expand this to
include more of the world and the beings around me.
author: Thoreau, Henry David, 1817-1862
(TXT) detail: gopher://gopherpedia.com/0/Thoreau
(HTM) source: ftp://ftp.mirrorservice.org/sites/ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/1/0/2/1022/
tags: philosophy,outdoor,transcendental
title: Walking, and the Wild
# Footnotes
(HTM) [1] The Footpath Way (gutenberg)
# Tags
(DIR) philosophy
(DIR) outdoor
(DIR) transcendental