Thinking Thoreau

"The millions are awake from physical labor; but only one in a million is awake for effective intellectual exertion, only one in a hundred million to a poetic and divine life. To be awake is to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was quite awake."-- Henry David Thoreau



My middle daughter Ondrelique posted this quote on her Facebook profile;

How appropriate! How much more life is than this; the endless scramble for a roof over one’s head, a shinier new vehicle to drive, or a few more coins in one’s pocket! It is in essence about experiencing the sights, and scents, sounds and sensations around us—learning from and about ourselves and others, reveling in the surrounding beauty, even finding the significance of the “ugliness” we encounter in order to grow stronger, even wiser, from the lessons it all teaches us. Life is about love and joy. Laughter. Appreciating all that we discover. Reveling not only in sunshine, but taking hedonistic pleasure in the rain. This world, this universe was put together as a series of balances; plants emit the oxygen that human beings need as we exhale carbon dioxide for them; herbivores are nourished by the grass yet they are gone their decomposing shells are nourished by the grass. On and off we go in this marvelously delicate symbiosis which is far more valuable, far more wondrous than anything that we as human beings might obtain, reshape, or create by our own hands.

When did we lose it…

The joy and awe that results from beholding, in this being apart from this glorious spectacle we call existence? None of us can be certain of what lies beyond this dimension, this tier of supervening beings known as human life. In many cases, we think we know. We share notions or ideas which may or may not be correct; however, it is both arrogant and foolhardy to believe that within this finite scope of our current perceptions we can conceptualize “accurately” the Infinite.

Thus, what we have are the wonders abounding here and now; and those should be enough to feed the ravenous minds, to pique even the most sluggish imagination, and to sustain even the most battered of souls....

Why can’t we, as human beings, recognize that????