Birth of Transcendentalism

Facebook post by Richard Smith that explains it better than I can.

Emmerson ruffled the petticoats at Harvard with his graduation address at Harvard July 15 1838, some consider to be the foundation of Transcendentalism in America. 

Emerson was the center of the movement, an essayist, benefactor, publisher. His shucking off Puritainism for Nature was pure genius in early America. It's hard to be upstanding and righteous when you reject the religious ethos of the times. It was also hard to be for abolitionism, but he was. Over all cool dude on the right side of history. 

I read Emerson among the Eccentrics: A Group Portrait by Carlos Baker, and quite enjoyed it. I recommend it. 

I like "Self Reliance" and I've listened to Nature. I need to learn more about his writings. 

Railroads

In June 1944 the railroad functioned in Concord with 4 trains a day to and from Boston, 8 in total. As he sat in his white pine home, he could hear the train go past 8 times every day.

My sons loved Thomas The Tank Engine and watched hours and hours of it growing up in the 00's, the noughties. 

"What demon possessed me that I behaved so well."

 

"Thoreau found alienation oddly liberating" is a proposition of the biography by Walls.

I am fairly alienated. I've washed up in middle to late middle life with a daughter to take care, difficulty finding work, and my partner left me, and it's not easy dating really poor. I've also been fairly attractive, I realize that now, and a tubby middle aged man, isn't quite as lucky. I feel pretty authentic and true to my ideals, I express my truth, but it got me fired after 3 days in one job I had, and quickly a new girlfriend dumped me.

My friend copies my blog posts into ChatGPT and then regurgitates it back to me in poetry, playing with the various options. It's kind of funny but weird, and he didn't tell me, I had to guess, which was difficult because I didn't want to offend him if he really wrote them. He says that's the modern issue, you don't want to accuse people. He's retired and does edibles, and plays with ChatGPT. Sends me videos of him dancing on the beach. He's the one I've done so much backpacking, canoeing and camping. 

I've been thinking a lot about how with no clear thing, pleasure becomes the guiding principle. The problem is aiming for pleasure, is that often unpleasurable sections create pleasure. Pleasure is the result of something but when you target it, it evaporates quite a lot. Pleasure is derived also from pain in a yin and yang of life. I took a class on Taoism and really enjoy it, but think it's shamanism, there is no creed really, though there is some metaphysical palaver. Shamanism is great because you can develop your own truths, and you can reject all the other truths society tries to put onto you. I think Hinduism is so large there is room for shamanism, so you can get J. Krishnamurti quotes like this: "It is a waste of energy when we try to conform to a pattern. To conserve energy, we must be aware of how we dissipate energy." There's a Hindu ashram in Encinitas where my friend lives. He uses the bathroom on long runs.

Part of the eruption of joy watching soccer is built on boring hours of passing the ball around, the fight for possession. Part of the joy of opera is long endless arias that don't strike you. Part of the joy of jazz is after hours of garbled near chaos, there's some clarity, a riff that does make sense. He does take breaks from edibles and runs, which is something we also used to do together. We would run to Coney Island, jump in the ocean, and eat a hotdog and take the subway back. Talking running is great, and we would have great conversations. He calls me when he's on a run and sometimes I go for a walk to talk to him. He helps me relate to my ex who is angry and difficult in my experience of her, and has legitimate grievances. I'm sure it's all my fault, is a kind of mantra that doesn't help.

"What demon possessed me that I behaved so well." When you reject behaving well, it's hard to fold back into society. I do quite enjoy solitude, so I'm OK with being alone a lot in a crowded city. I'm friendly and would talk to anyone. Spending hours in the park watching my daughter, I get bored and just talk to everyone. I live in an immigrant neighborhood, and I really love learning about all over the world. I read about China, Ukraine and Latin America. I recently met a fellow who was the son of a Iranian diplomat, and stayed. He opened for Ramones and Iggy Pop, but his band broke up on the brink of a record contract. He sells rugs now. He went to Billy Joel's house, to install some rugs.

I really enjoy being thrifty. Being poor is a good way to reduce your carbon footprint. I see myself as a bachelor for the rest of my life. I love nature, and thinking and writing. Thoreau had the women in his life to take care of him, and he would go wandering and exploring and rough it.

Thoreau didn't have high quality spiritual practitioners to distinguish between the various traditions of the east, and might have seen them all of one. I'm not sure if he had the keys to unlock Buddhism the way I did. 

I don't like the Beat writers now, they're almost as bad writers as Transcendentalists, but they too hard a kind of spirit to them that I appreciate, and I enjoy the drama of the literary scene. 

Willow lake is my Walden pond. I meditate, but it's overgrown now, and the bugs get to me. They're building a drainage down there, and there are surveyors there every day, with ribbons on trees, I hope they don't cut them down. Cutting down trees really hurts me, I love trees so much.

Yesterday when I took these photos, I was thinking about mental formations. One of the instructions in anapanasati is to calm mental formations. I really like to excite my mental formations. Sitting so many years in meditation digs out these insights, there's always a counter force to every aspect of the path. 

I've been to Walden pond. Next time I go, if I go again, I'll do some hikes now that I know more about them.

I'm in the Walden section of the biography of Thoreau. 

Thoreau day

July 12 is the day Thoreau was born in 1817. He would be 206 today.

Reading the biography today:

Thoreau took a hike around and met Channing in Pittsfield. He slept rough and had adventures he didn’t write about. 

Back in Concord Emerson came out against slavery after meeting Frederick Douglas (1817-1895). Douglas's birth year is uncertain, so he may be the same age as Thoreau or a year younger. 

Isaac Hecker befriended Thoreau and invited him to travel with him in Europe. Thoreau declined. The first thought that comes to my mind was his mother's thriftiness. He probably couldn't imagine spending that much money on himself. In his travels with Channing he looked pretty wild on the boat mixing among the ladies and gentlemen. 

Climate Change

I think these whack jobs in politics that are into distracting culture wars are really working hard to ward of climate anxiety. The greater denial, the larger the toll the mind is that it disconnects from reality. Not totally. But more so. 

I read that the more oppression of women, the more the society uses denial to cope with the horrors of oppression. 

It's pretty dire, but you can channel your emotions towards good. Read the New Yorker article by Jia Tolentino. It's brilliant writing as it flows from the personal to the subjective to the science of climate change, and one person's journey to try and channel his feelings.

"Still, Davenport’s advice about the Serenity Prayer reminded me of Andreas Malm’s assessment, in his book “How to Blow Up a Pipeline,” that the climate movement thus far has been “gentle and mild in the extreme.” The luxury I had of pondering my emotions at length was evidence of how much closer I was to the problem than to the solution: climate change’s worst effects will always fall on the poor and disenfranchised, both locally and globally, and in this context it was hard to believe that the project of teaching the world’s most fortunate people how to feel was more than another form of self-absorption. I wondered whether I was getting the wrong lessons, however right they seemed."

There are great examples of organizations started, like Kids for Kids in Manila. They would raise money for typhoon impacted kids. That is an excellent example of how to channel your climate anxiety. Or perhaps write a brilliant article in the New Yorker that inspires people. I sent it to my children. Who knows who's going to be triggered to come up with a brilliant organization to channel emotions. 

Tolentino mentions the orange haze in New York, where she writes. She has lovely quotes:

Learning to Die in the Anthropocene by Roy Scranton: “We can continue acting as if tomorrow will be just like yesterday, growing less and less prepared for each new disaster as it comes, and more and more desperately invested in a life we can’t sustain. Or we can learn to see each day as the death of what came before, freeing ourselves to deal with whatever problems the present offers without attachment or fear.”

I really feel like this article provided some therapy on me, allows me to read this article:

Guardian: why climate tribalism only helps the deniers

"The nuclear zealots want to go all-in on building new power stations. The renewable zealots want no nuclear at all. Some promote electric cars; their opponents want car-less roads. Vegans advocate for cutting out animal products; flexitarians feel judged when they eat their weekly roast chicken."

"These cracks can start at an even higher level. For some it is not about the specific technology we deploy, it’s about the fact that we see technology as a solution at all. There are those who believe that technology will fix everything. Their detractors think this techno-optimism is naive; only radical economic and social change can save us."

"The American economist Michael Munger wrote about this very same tension in economic policy, describing how the world is split into “directionalists” and “destinationists”. Directionalists back any solution that takes us towards the final goal."

"Destinationists are less flexible: they have an ideal outcome in mind. They block and reject anything that doesn’t fit their perfect vision. If they want to see a car-less world, they push against electric vehicles (EVs), even if they would cut emissions by a lot."

"Destinationalism is a problem. Sure, we all have our favourite solutions. But the reality is that we can’t afford to be choosy. The answer to almost every climate dilemma is “We need both”. We need renewables and nuclear energy (even if that means just keeping our existing nuclear plants online). We need to tackle fossil fuels and our food system; fossil fuels are the biggest emitter, but emissions from food alone would take us well past 1.5C (34.7F) and close to 2C (35.6F). Not everyone can commute without a car, so we need electric vehicles and cycle-friendly cities and public transport networks. We can’t decarbonise without technological change, but we need to rethink our economic, political and social systems to make sure they flourish."

"we need to be honest about what is and isn’t true about the solutions we don’t like. “EVs emit just as much CO2 as petrol cars” is simply wrong. They emit significantly less, even if they emit more than the subway or a bike (and yes, this is still true when we account for the emissions needed to produce the battery). “Nuclear energy is unsafe” is wrong – it’s thousands of times safer than the coal we’re trying to replace, and just as safe as renewables. It’s fine to advocate for your preferred solutions, but it’s not OK to lie about the alternatives to make your point."

Some good book recommendations:

A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World by Katharine Hayhoe 

Speed and Scale: A Global Action Plan for Solving Our Climate Crisis Now by John Doerr

Wildfire

On April 1845, Thoreau was with Edward Hoar and they were on the river. They pulled over and started a fire to cook some fish, but the fire got out of hand. The fire raged quite a lot, and in the end the whole town turned out to battle the fire. Thoreau was mortified, and couldn't write about it for 5 years in his journal. Forest fires were an issue in those days and this wasn't the first or the last forest fire that threatened Concord. He imagine collective action, where the town would have a volunteer fire department.

One farmer had cut 60 cords of wood to sell, and it burned in the conflagration. His daughter would never forgive him. She would go to school with charcoal smudge because when she collected wood, there was so much burnt wood. Some would hold it against him, but others would recognize that him not hiding and telling everyone immediately was a good move. It ended up being 100-150 acres burnt. The newspaper estimated $2k worth of damages, a huge sum in those times. Because Edward Hoar was Samuel Hoar's son the incident was downplayed. 

When it came out when his unpublished journal was read by a journalist, he was against chastised for pretending to love nature. And in this day and age when people find out about it they can be shocked. I was shocked the first time I heard about it. This nature lover was careless and started a wildfire. 

Thoreau was hard on himself for the incident. He expresses guilt, shame and regret, but also beauty at the powerful force of nature. He saw humans as part of nature, and similar to lightning when it comes to starting forest fires. A force of nature. 

There's a kind of sharp talk when you go camping about having campfires. Usually they have metal or rock pits to help contain the fire. Getting humans to really grok the potential of spreading fire isn't easy. 

In a way, they are unavoidable, if you prevent them, the load of fuel in woods increases, and just lead to bigger fires later. 

There are currently wildfires in Canada that impact New York City where I live. There was that day where the sky was orange and you could look at the sun. (One, two)

When I was a little kid growing up in Madison Wisconsin, I was unsupervised, I played outside quite a lot, and would start leaf pile fires. I'm so glad nothing ever came of it. I played with fires as a 4 and 5 year old. When my parents smelled it near the house, I just moved my fire making to the woods around Eagle Heights and University Housing. I would push together leaves and then set them on fire. Luckily nothing ever spread. 

Later when I was training to be a social worker psychotherapist, I saw on an assessment that they asked if the child ever set fires. I felt horrible for a moment, but then realized setting fires in the city is a different thing that a kid setting small fires in the woods. And yet I knew the instinct of being curious about fires. I've taken my sons camping and they liked the fires quite a lot, I think fascination with fires in a natural thing. The destruction of fire is very important to understand a child. It's one of those things it's hard to understand, or get an understanding without experience. Thoreau certainly was adult enough to understand what he had done, and must have been mortified. The town may have judged him, but he was honest about it and sought help. 

Edward Hoar would go on to be a district attorney in California from 1850-1857. 

The danger of fire is shown by this nature loving and mindful Thoreau causing one. I am really lucky that none of my fires got out of hand. I could see a gust of wind and dry weeds spreading the fire fast. You really have to think about these things. 

I think wildfires as a metaphor for the spread of misinformation is also interesting. 

Thoreau would wander through the burnt woods and see things grow back. Native Americans would sometimes start controlled fires as part of land management. 

NYC forbids even attempting controlled burns inside the city limits. There was a fire down by Willow pond, which was small and contained, I thought it was a controlled burn, but it wasn't. It grew back pretty quickly. No larger than a baseball infield.

Things are different out west where it sometimes doesn't rain a lot. There are almost deserts. I'd be a lot more careful with fire in a desert, really make sure the fire pit is lined, and watch sparks that fly off. Make sure the fire is really small and banked when you go to bed, I'd probably pour water over it if I had extra. 

In Concord, the effected area was quickly green again. Thoreau was surprised at how quickly nature snapped back. I remember driving out west in a park where a wildfire didn't snap back the arid landscape. Again, I think things are different everywhere and you should know where you are. Fire out west is different. 

Then there's the Chicago fire in 1871. They even name the local soccer team fire. 

One of my many part time jobs was to be a fire marshal. I worked in at a bible society when they were cleaning out the tanks on the roof, and I would walk around a building watching out for fire. Since the library had many priceless bibles they had tanks on the roof that would quickly squash out any fires. It was a regular office building and there shouldn't be any fires anyway, but you know humans, they're a force of nature, unpredictable. Pretty quickly the tanks were cleaned and my job was over. NYC is considered a Sodom but there's a bible society with a library and displays in NYC. There are endlessly preachers trying to save the secular society. Thoreau had a secular preacher's kind of ferver about self development. 

Reading the news today (7/11/23), there's a wildfire in Wisconsin. (Source, source, source)

Civil Disobedience

When you ask people what they know about Henry David Thoreau, this is what they cite most, Civil Disobedience. He influenced Gandhi and Martin Luther King.

After coming back from Staten Island, Wendell Phillips spoke again in Concord, and Thoreau was beginning to see the importance of resting unjust laws.

The cause is slavery. His method of protest would be to not pay taxes to a corrupt government. There was no federal tax in those days. 

I'm thinking about how people feel like it's going to far to fight animal slaughter. There are vigilantes who take videos of slaughter house, and one recently was closed down because of an expose video. When the information gets out there, things happen, but it's against the law to go in and video. That seems like a law that could be broken out of principle to convictions. 

Things can easily get out of control, and protesting can be about forces beyond control. Protests can be about sour grapes about losing a presidential election, that lead to death and injury. The right has whipped itself up into quite a grievance frenzy. I don't think it's righteous. It's weird because they're really getting their way quite a lot with the corrupt supreme court, gerrymandering, voter intimidation and other dirty tricks. Trump made it OK to be the smallest self, most greedy self, your most regressed and hateful self. That's his vision of America. Manifest destiny and rugged individualism is about nobody telling you what to do. It's hard to see virtue in these fights, but sticking up for one's political convictions isn't bad. I just think when you're fighting for public change, it should be about reaching higher, not the right to be lower. I'd rather have the freedom from Covid than the freedom to spread Covid. I'd rather have the freedom to not get shot up at school, instead of the right to shoot up schools. 

Was Trump the anti-social right's John Brown, with an estimated 40-80% of the deaths from Covid being attributed to his non-policy. 

Indeed Peter Singer thinks we should do more to help people, in his Famine Affluence and Morality article in 1971.

Greta Thunberg tried to blockade oil in Malmo (BBC). I'm a huge fan of hers, and think she's great. She could face up to 6 months in jail. I'm pretty sure she doesn't care. She's doing it for principles, and has a clear vision about the importance of addressing climate change.

There's also a big emphasis on what you can do, and not just talk about. He wasn't as into collective action, he seems to want people to fundamentally change themselves to make a better world.

I'd say taking spiritual turns to tune into yourself is a good first step. Being vegan is great. Reducing your carbon footprint is important. Personal jets are something that really gets me annoyed. Thoreau wasn't really into trying to reform others, he wanted you to reform yourself, it seems based on his annoyance of fantasies for developing society. 

Links:

15 Examples of Civil Disobedience