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Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Saunter Into Fantasy: A Response to Thoreau's "Walking"


Saunter into Fantasy

            In Henry Thoreau’s ebook, Walking, where he describes the sensation of sauntering. Sauntering, Thoreau describes as one being able to a “Holy Land.” It is where the mind and body goes when one simply walks through the wilderness, where one can escape the inauthenticity of manmade crap. It is, seemingly, a divine transcendence from the synthetics of societal constructions.
            I cannot exactly say that I enjoyed reading the passage. It was a bit…irritating. His writing was, I mean, and his repetitious reference to the Holy Land. He said something along the lines of, only true saunterers can reach the Holy Land. What the hell is the Holy Land though? Is it some kind of fantasy world where dreams are like rainbows that shoot out of your ass? What is it? Okay yeah, I understand that walking and appreciating the beauty of nature before industrialism, or where industrialism has not hit, yet, is perhaps a wondrous experience. Enveloping oneself in the trees and animals, and rivers, yadda yadda yadda…. that’s all fine and well and I totally agree, but what really is this Holy Land that Thoreau is so adamant about?
            I like taking walks. They soothe me. I can escape sometimes and notice things that, in the midst of my everyday routine, I probably wouldn’t normally have noticed before. So yeah, I rather enjoy walks and getting lost, finding new things, and experiencing something new, but does it take me to a “Holy Land?” Well, I don’t know because the question still remains: what is the Holy Land? Do we all individually possess our own or is it just a vast city of unleashed grandeur fantasies?
            Honestly, what it sounds like to me is some sort of make-believe world people make up so that they won’t have to endure reality. Sort of like a Narnia, or Atlantis. I like the idea. I really do. I just don’t like Thoreau or his diction, plain and simple.

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