Thoreau's "Life Without Principle", and the Ideals of Indivi

             In Henry David Thoreau's "Life Without Principle", Thoreau speaks of separating ourselves from society as a whole and living life according to our own works, not society's. He speaks of the ways people earn their living and the many trivial things people will do just to get more money. He believes that we should not get caught up in the ways of money and society. Instead, we should take time throughout the days of our lives to enjoy the very life we spend as a slave to money instead of breaking our backs trying to earn what we think will be a better life. He makes a very strong statement of this when he says "If I should sell both my forenoons and afternoons to society, as most appear to do, I am sure that for me there would be nothing left worth living for."(Thoreau 1193) Therefore, by breaking away from the "multitude" and realizing that toiling our life away for the love of money is meaningless, we in a sense take the "higher way" when compared to the ways of contemporary society.(Thoreau 1195)
             Ideally, It would be a welcome change if we, the "multitude", could adopt this non-conformist attitude and follow all of our own inner passions and ambitions.(Thoreau, 1195) However, this is only applicable in a perfect world. Regardless of whether people would actually rather fit in or follow their own path, it is simply human nature for us to want to impose our ideas forcibly onto others. For example, we can think of the non-conformists as the leaders of society and then we have the followers who conform to the ideas of these non-conformists, which becomes the mainstream. Simply put, having too many "leaders" would result in far too many people giving orders and thus lead to the destruction of any organization in society. Not everyone can be their own boss or have authority over others. Leaders are leaders because they have their own original and revolutiona...

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Thoreau's "Life Without Principle", and the Ideals of Indivi. (1969, December 31). In MegaEssays.com. Retrieved 11:54, March 29, 2024, from https://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/7403.html