notes on thoreau

“Many an object is not seen, though it falls within our visual ray, because it does not come within the range of our intellectual ray, i.e., we are not looking for it. So, in the largest sense, we find only the world we look for.” -Henry David Thoreau, Journal

i used to wonder how people could be so disparaging and dissatisfied when surrounded by the beautiful earth. i now suspect they simply were not seeing the same world that i see. when i was a child, we all desperately wanted to play outside: to explore, to imagine, to be wild. back then. our eyes glistened with the expectation of mystery, and our hearts soared with possibility. 

today, i do not see that yearning for wildness burning behind the irises of my peers. instead, i barely see their eyes at all; they do not search for answers in the world but are instead glued to books and screens, glancing up only when absolutely necessary. though surrounded by nature, they seem to see only obstacles along their distracted journeys toward success and achievement.

growing older, i have witnessed the blinding of my peers over time. those who were once set alight by the sun’s luminescent rays are now unable to see them as anything more than a light source—a way to see only things that serve them. as we have grown, we have been taught not to see the natural world but instead to look past nature and into the anthropocentric world of civilization. nature is a spectacle, wrapped up in a tiny package and called a park. parks have become museums putting earth on exhibit.

this is how we are taught to look at the world: a globe dominated by human infrastructure speckled with well-contained areas of wilderness designed for us to enjoy when we have time to take a break from our priorities. society paints nature as unnatural, something to watch videos about or flip through pictures of, which is only seen when we decide to look for it on screens or within fences. nature has become something of a fairytale, elusive and enchanting—never truly experienced.

today, i take a walk through a wooded park. looking around, my mind wanders and i wonder what it would be like to be one of these objects we place on display. i begin to put myself in nature’s shoes. 

first, i fill the tiny feet of a small bird that rests his weight gently upon a thin branch. to him, i must be a hulking monster, yet perhaps less terrifying than the bitter cold of winter, which he likely feels lucky to have evaded today. from his tree branch, i am as strange and intriguing to him as he is to me. he cannot know; he does not understand any of my thoughts. the priorities of human life are lost to him. to him, i am simply the object of observation.

next, i morph into a gentle giant: an oak tree. i feel invigorated by the sun as my branches stretch out toward the warmth and energy it offers. towering high, i look down on my human-self in pity—what a short lifespan almighty man is cursed with and such a fragile body. yet, my human-self trudges so destructively, so heavily over the smaller creatures of the woods, careless. to the tree, i am simply another human, an animal who thinks herself more significant than the rest who pass through the trees’ home; by species, i am an enemy of the forest. yet the tree doesn’t fear me, but instead pities me for my quick transition from life to death, my quick turnover to fertilizer on which his roots can feed.

after taking over the tree’s persona, i imagine myself as the squirrel who relies on the tree so heavily, the lake whose permanence is of greatest contrast to my mortal being and finally the sun whose light and warmth give life and enchantment to every child. renewed and humbled, i picture the world from their point of view.

i begin to see the world not speckled by nature but instead as the embodiment of nature. i am empowered to see the fantasy world of wilderness as the real world and the only world. i am invigorated to be again captured and swept away by the planet’s power. if this were the world we looked for, maybe this would be the world we see.

by Abby Sullivan