“Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life as simple, and I may say innocent, with Nature itself” (Thoreau, 2 , 3). Thoreau begins this statement by referring to each morning as a cheerful invitation; which, I believe, means that he sees it as a welcome opportunity to achieve his goal of making his life “equally simple.” This means he doesn't need the luxuries associated with today's life. Instead, to be happy, he only needs the necessities that nature itself can provide him. Continue fighting for the innocence provided by nature, without the corruption of the ever-progressing world. Thoreau ends by capitalizing Nature, I feel he is showing his great respect towards Nature and making it clear that he does not take it for granted. Through his experience of living in the forest I believe he discovered how pure nature was and how society has corrupted the world. Thoreau then goes on to explain his reasoning for going into the forest which further supports his earlier criticism of society and his respect for nature. “I went into the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to face only the essential facts of life, and see if I could learn what it had to teach me, and not, when I was about to die, discover that I had not lived.” In other words, he went into the woods to learn to live with a purpose other than the common belief that life must be lived to advance society. By embracing the answers that nature had to give, he shifted the way of living with the essential facts of life, rather than with what society has promoted, such as money and possessions. This led to another example of the lack of independence of thought produced by people in society. “Millions of people are smart enough for physical work; but only one in a million is smart enough for the
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