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1A) Quote - "Walden – 'Where I lived and What I Lived For'"

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1A) Quote - "Walden – 'Where I lived and What I Lived For'"

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“Then there is least somnolence in us; and for an hour, at least, some part of us awakes which slumbers all the rest of the day and night. Little is to be expected of that day, if it can be called a day, to which we are not awakened by our Genius, but by the mechanical nudgings of some servitor, are not awakened by our own newly acquired force and aspirations from within, accompanied by the undulations of celestial music, instead of factory bells, and a fragrance filling the air- to a higher life than we fell asleep from; and thus the darkness bear its fruit, and prove itself to be good, no less than the light. That man who does not believe that each day contains an earlier, more sacred, and auroral hour than he has yet profaned, has despaired of life, and is pursuing a descending and darkening way. After a partial cessation of his sensuous life, the soul of man, or its organs rather, are reinvigorated each day, and his Genius tries again what noble life it can make. All memorable events, I should say, transpire in morning time and in a morning atmosphere.”

The inherent beauty of the morning sunrise, which can be studied both through sensual experiences as well as intellectual and analytical thought, provides ample opportunity for intellectual growth and curiosity, allowing one's Genius to show itself as brightly as the sun itself.

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"Nowadays almost all man's improvements, so called, as the building of houses and the cutting down of the forest and of all large trees, simply deform the landscape, and make it more and more tame and cheap. A people who would begin by burning the fences and let the forest stand! I saw the fences half consumed, their ends lost in the middle of the prairie, and some worldly miser with a surveyor looking after his bounds, while heaven had taken place around him, and he did not see the angels going to and fro, but was looking for an old post-hole in the midst of paradise.”

The contrast between the green rolling hills of London and the stress and bustle of city life offers a glimpse into the importance of using nature as a form of escape from the stresses of daily urban life.

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“To speak truly, few adult persons can see nature. Most persons do not see the sun. At least they have a very superficial seeing. The sun illuminates only the eye of the man, but shines into the eye and the heart of the child. The lover of nature is he whose inward and outward senses are still truly adjusted to each other; who has retained the spirit of infancy even into the era of manhood.”

The above image reflects the importance of human thinking in respect to understanding reality, communicating the idea that each person can achieve their own version of reality and "correctness" by relying on their own thinking based on their own senses, as it is only through individual thought that one's surroundings can be truly appreciated.

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“The intellectual and the active powers seem to succeed each other, and the exclusive activity of the one, generates the exclusive activity of the other. There is something unfriendly in each to the other, but they are like the alternate periods of feeding and working in animals; each prepares and will be followed by the other. Therefore does beauty, which, in relation to actions, as we have seen, comes unsought, and comes because it is unsought, remain for the apprehension and pursuit of the intellect; and then again, in its turn, of the active power. Nothing divine dies. All good is eternally reproductive. The beauty of nature reforms itself in the mind, and not for barren contemplation, but for new creation.”

Even though both the brain and body are individual and carry unique traits, reflecting the individualism espoused by transcendentalism, both are also tied together into a common human being, with the safety and well-being of the human being depending on both and with the safety and well-being of one affecting the other, making the brain and body both separate and unified simultaneously.

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“Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. Society is a joint-stock company, in which the members agree, for the better securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater. The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs.”

Apple's 1984 ad highlights the importance of nonconformity, a vital transcendentalist virtue, in light of serious injustice, with the individual, with their inherent self-worth, revolting against the evening out and collectivism of centralized authority.

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By emphasizing the necessity of one contributing a verse to the play of existence, the poem strongly implies that reality does continue to exist after death, with the reader being able to draw the meaning, intended or not, that one can continue to live on by living in the minds of others through their contributions. This belief in the inherent worth of one's contributions is derived from Whitman's faith in the inherent worth of each and every person, with those disregarding their self-worth being referred to as faithless fools. In addition, in commenting on life as a play that people contribute to, a meaning can be derived, applicable to modern and pre-modern life, that people will attempt to craft a persona of themselves in order to appear as a worthy enough actor to allow for their verse to ultimately be featured in the play.

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Neil was able to utilize his own acting skills and own willpower, in the face of significant negative pressure from his father, to achieve the acting role that he had long hoped for, exemplifying the qualities of self-reliance as a result.

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In contributing my verse to the play of life, I seek to work to research matters relating to economic, tax, healthcare, and housing policies, preferably as an economist or within a think tank or other similar institution, to create the policy solutions necessary to craft a more equitable society with equality of opportunity for all. In a time in which racial and economic inequities worsen, dramatic reforms, especially in light of this global pandemic and future global pandemics that, like this one, shall lay bare and expand human suffering, shall be necessary to guarantee citizens an equal opportunity at success and a minimal standard of living to fall back on in times of hardship. We must resist simple and impossible promises oft made to cheaply appeal for votes and make the tough shared sacrifices necessary for shared benefits, with the social contract necessitating the creation of more generous labor laws and a more generous social safety net off of the backs of all Americans, and not merely a small minority happening to hold the greatest purchasing power.

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The pain builds up

From the scalp to the heart

It doesn’t want to stop

It doesn’t need to stop

My dad told me:

You’ll get used to it

Other people get used to it

Everyone gets used to it

The world runs on it

Society depends on it

The medication is there; it is prescribed

But it fixes the outside, not what’s inside

The damage has already been done at this time

Other victims fall by the wayside

But after the deal was done

After all was forgiven, but not forgotten

My spirit slowly faded away

Into the mist of a hundred thousand who were also assuaged

They got used to it

I got used to it

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The lone artist may rely on his own independent thinking in crafting his protest songs, but the crowd, which appropriates them, loses their own individuality, and desire for liberty, in the process.

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Polish Anti-Communist Solidarity Song - Mury

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I will engage in my own research and come to my own conclusions following the utilization of credible sources, showcasing my degree of self-reliance as opposed to working and living for other's interests and hobbies.

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I was able to transcend by enjoying time with my family, including my brother and my father, as our time together allowed us to realize what truly mattered in our lives, that being our families and friends regardless of where we might find ourselves.

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Being able to graduate from school directly taught me the value of working hard and relying on my own thinking above all else, which is precisely why I had some of the highest grades in the school as well bring in third for the number of books read in one of my years.

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By embracing discomfort, such as when my entire body was being rolled around in the machine shown in the image, I was able to work towards self-actualization by acquiring a better view of who I was as a person by, via lived experiences, ascertaining what my limits were, thereby embracing my unique personality in the process.

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The individual and unique traits of every person are collapsed by the education system into quantitative ratings that fail to reflect or accommodate for students' differences.

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Thesis: "The movement acquired prominence in New England among writers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, who was inspired by Emerson and who refined the ideals of transcendentalism into a more coherent philosophy espousing the belief that nature was vital in teaching the values of simple living and of continual spiritual and intellectual growth, with such simple living and intellectual growth, in confluence with independent thinking, allowing for individuals to better society by becoming self-reliant and by having the flexibility necessary to avoid participating in injustices."

Quotes:

"This human nature is just as inherently true and valuable as the natural world and, like the natural world, can teach man valuable lessons on the path towards self-actualization."

"After all, those who let respect for the law override moral judgments end up engaging in blatantly immoral acts that they actively recognize as such, with such contributions to injustice being one of Thoreau’s main complaints against armchair anti-war or abolitionist activists."

"And while each individual must have their own unique thoughts, all individuals shall be unified in their diversity, allowing for the creation of a self-reliant society able to question those in power and able to pursue justice and the truth above all."

Caption: These anti-war and anti-draft activists, during the Vietnam War, were able to utilize their own independent thoughts and feelings towards peace to oppose what they viewed as an unjust war, placing their own morality above the laws of society.