Selected Cronicas

LEARNING TO LIVE

Thoreau was an American philosopher whose profound thoughts cannot be summarized in a newspaper article, but he wrote many things which might help us to lead a more rational, useful and agreeable life with rather less anguish.

Thoreau found it distressing, for example, to watch his fellow-men devote all their energies to making money for some distant future. That people should give some thought to their future was no bad thing. But ‘Do try to improve the present’, he would exclaim. Before adding: ‘We are living now.’ Thoreau sadly observed: ‘Men spend all their time hoarding treasures which will be eaten by worms, eroded by rust, or fall into the hands of thieves.’

The message is clear: do not sacrifice today for tomorrow. If you are unhappy at present, do something about it now, because we only exist from one now to the next.

Besides, if we examine our consciences, we can all remember moments that were lost nevermore to return. There are moments in all our lives which we regret having ignored, allowed to pass or refused, and that regret is as painful as the deepest sorrow.

Thoreau was anxious that we should lose no time in doing what we wish to do. All his life he preached and practised the need to waste no time in doing the things we believe to be important.

For example, he would urge all those young men and women who dreamed of being writers to start writing at once instead of making excuses that they were either too busy or lacking in talent and inspiration.

Nor did he have any patience with those people who waste so much time studying life that they never get down to living. He wrote: ‘It is only when we discard all knowledge that we begin to know.’

And he offered these bold words of encouragement: ‘Why not abandon ourselves to the torrent, why not open the flood-gates and put our whole mechanism into action?’ Those words are enough to send the blood coursing through my veins. And now, dear friends, means this very minute.

Thoreau believed that fear prevented us from exploiting the present. And our lack of self-confidence. He once wrote: ‘Public opinion is a feeble tyrant when compared with the low opinion we have of ourselves.’ It is true: even those people who give the impression of being self-assured have such a low opinion of themselves that they are simply concealing their fear. And this worried Thoreau, who believed that ‘how a man sees himself determines, or rather reveals, his destiny.’

And, surprising as it may seem, he would urge his readers to ‘take pity on yourselves’ whenever they were leading a life of quiet despair. He would counsel them not to be too hard on themselves at such moments. Fear, Thoreau argued, provokes unnecessary cowardice. In that situation, people should not judge themselves too harshly. ‘I believe,’ he wrote, ‘that we should have much greater confidence in ourselves. Nature conforms as much to our weakness as to our strength.’ Appalled at our common tendency needlessly to complicate matters, he repeated incessantly: ‘Aim for greater simplicity! Aim for greater simplicity!’

Not so long ago, I opened a newspaper and in an article by someone whose name I have alas forgotten, I found several quotations attributed to Bernanos which truly complement those of Thoreau, whom the French writer probably never read.

The author of the article comments at one point that Bernanos was ever prepared to castigate the falseness of the so-called ‘free world’. For he was seeking a ‘Salvation achieved by taking risks without which life is worthless, and not by senile withdrawal which is not only practised by the elderly but by all those who defend their positions whether ideological or religious.’

Bernanos, the article went on, considered greed in all its forms to be the greatest sin of all. ‘Greed and apathy are destroying the world.’ And ‘both of these vices stem from egoism’, the author of the article concludes.

Overcome with the joy of living, I repeat: Salvation is achieved by taking risks without which life is worthless!

Happy New Year.