Out of all the readings we've had to read for this unit so far, I've liked the Thoreau ones the best. He was a brilliant man, and revolutionary too, going into realms of thought that hadn't even crossed anyone else's mind. His time at Walden and in jail, like we read in our book, were two prominent experiences in his lifetime that helped him to develop his thoughtful opinions about the world. I especially like Walden. I used to live in Lexington, 20 minutes away from Walden Pond, and we would go swimming there. It's really a beautiful place, isolated but not too isolated, and you could really see how Thoreau would choose there to be alone with his thoughts. I think, in today's day and age [and also back then because that was the middle of another time of great change, the Industrial Revolution], it's important to remove yourself from your fast-paced life once in a while and just be alone and think about things, which is exactly what he did. A lot of his philosophies agree with my personal ones, such that the individual has the power and it's important to recognize this in order to create a functioning society.
Although Civil Disobedience seemed more serious than Walden, his idea that we are all cogs in the machine of the government is one that still holds true today I think, and has since the time he wrote it. One can really see the path his life takes- he went into the woods because he wanted to be self-sufficient, to not be a cog for a brief period of time.
I think we can all learn something from Thoreau, and his view on what it means to be an American is a very unique and though-provoking one.
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