Walden Essay

            Compared to present times, a simplified life was much easier to obtain during the time period in which Walden was written.  Life nowadays moves at a rapid speed, overloaded with information and technology at an often overwhelming pace.  The struggle to achieve more, possess more, and learn more is human nature.  These instincts encourage us to progress in order to try and improve our lives.  Desire for a better life pushes humanity irreversibly into a world of complexity and modernization.  The advances humans make cannot be taken back, they only add to the already complicated culture.  The condition of modern humanity makes simplification of an individual's life a rare and nearly impossible feat.

             Complexity and technology are a human passion.  People thrive on the hope of the latest advancement that would effect their lives.  Simplicity seems like a far-fetched dream for many.  The thought of abandoning structured lives for a solitary cabin in the woods would be a joke to most.  In the writing of his book, Henry David Thoreau describes the structure of many lives in the one sentence. "We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us (Thoreau, 491)." He means that people make the things that shape their lives. They strive to create and build, while simplification would pull humanity away from an individual's natural want to progress.  Instincts tell people that simplicity is a form of deterioration of the progress they have made.

             Progress sends humanity down a path of no returns.  Simplicity is the road going in the opposite direction.  Even the most basic modern lives have passed the point of simplicity.  Once a level of complexity is reached in a society, there must be regulations or laws set in place to control what they have gained.  These restrict the ability for the people to return to the simple lives they might have led before.  Everything a person does is to either progress, or secure that progression.  Anything achieved by a person cannot later be undone.  It is not possible to take away progressions that are already successful.  In order to lead a simple life, a person cannot progress.  Continuous progression is a characteristic that makes a person a human being.

            Humans don't want to give up what they've achieved in return for simplicity.  It seems that it is human nature to want.  Desire keeps humans from  being able to attain simplicity.  Modern advertising and new technology make it even more difficult.  If a person's basic needs are met, including food, water, and shelter, then they are left with a desire for more.  Contentment leaves people with a feeling that they can achieve even more.  Modern culture is shaped by these desire, making it so much more diffucult to achieve simplicity than ever before.  Thoreau writes in Walden, "We are determined to be starved before we are hungry" (Thoreau 491). He means that no matter how much an indiviudual possesses, they convince themselves that they need more. The only way to achieve simplicity would be to not have desires, and that is not a realistic human attriubute.

             The characteristics of humanity do not allow for simplification of human lives.  Life is one way, things cannot be taken back or reversed.  Our passions and obsessions with modernization discourage a simple life.  A natural desire pushes humanity away.  We thrive on progress, which also discourages simplicity.  Only a person who has no desires, no interest in progression, and has never progressed can simplify their life.  And none of those are characteristics of a human being.  A person in modern times cannot simplify their life.

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