Henry David Thoreau said that. We heard it repeated by Professor John Keating (played by Robin Williams) in “Dead Poet’s Society.” Indeed, John Keating seemed to be the embodiment of Thoreau in that film. Along with teaching English, Keating taught his young men philosophy, and then he showed them by example how to live a philosophical life.
The art of philosophy eludes most people. That is what Thoreau meant when he said, “Most men live lives of quiet desperation.” Hear the words. Understand the meaning, but do something about it in your life. That was what Thoreau wanted. He also said, “Live your beliefs, and you can turn the world around,” and “Things do not change. We change.” While he spent his life searching for the meaning of his life, he wrote his thoughts down. We read them, consider what he had to say, and perhaps we will make changes in our lives, changes that might truly matter, not just to us, but to many people. That is philosophy in action.
Thoreau let his mind run wild and free beyond the point of reason, some think. While he took on some of the key social issues of his day, he also came to believe that people would live better if they all went about doing their own thing. In that sense, he saw little value and much harm in government. He said something like this, “Any fool can make a rule, and every fool will follow it.” Actually, he did not say it exactly that way. I used my philosophy to change it up to fit my time, since I do not live in Thoreau’s time. You see, that is OK. Thoreau likely would approve that. What about you?
When he described a world of people who live their lives in quiet desperation, I think of steers moving in a herd from their grasslands to the slaughterhouse. They do that because they are steers. They move in a herd because steers do that. Suppose one of them had the thought to leave its herd in the dead of night during the cattle drive. That steer would not change the fate of the others, and its life would not likely improve greatly. But a philosopher would appreciate the steer’s thought, and action, to conclude that the steer mattered.
