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What I Lived For By Henry David Thoreau

483 Words2 Pages

What I Lived For Life; this one very word has many different meanings to different people based on their experiences in life. To a historian, life is a story that one must write for themselves, however a biologist will view life as the combined work and systemic organization of many biotic and abiotic factors within an ecosystem. Furthermore, a philosopher views life as the ultimate puzzle, desperate to put the pieces together, yet hesitant to begin in fear of connecting the wrong pieces. Throughout all of this, the question remains: What is life? Outside of the academic circle of complex definitions, life can be defined as what we do and how we behave on a day-to-day basis. Or is it? This complexity that increases the more one attempts to unravel it, is where Henry David Thoreau, a 19th century philosopher, comes in to “save the day” as it were. …show more content…

Thoreau saw the complexities of life all around and realized that Life itself was not complicated, rather it was mankind’s ever changing “civilization” that had made life so “complex.” As a result, he noticed that to realize what Life really is, he must go out into the real world and experience it himself. This is a feat not possible within regular human society; therefore, Thoreau did the only thing that he believed would truly bring him one with nature, he left human civilization to be in the center of life itself. He moved into the woods so that he may finally define what is life, by experiencing it in all of its raw

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