Marking the day: Thoreau

 The Great Awakening happened to everyone else in the early 19^th century. But for me, it happened in 11^th grade English class. I read Henry David Thoreau, James Baldwin and Richard Wright before I dropped out.

Dropping out was a declaration of independence. Those writers convinced me that I must form an independent mind and live by my own decisions. Going along with the crowd doesn’t work in this country. Thoreau railed against slavery. Baldwin and Wright railed against Jim Crow. All three railed against the peculiar kind of communal thoughtlessness that runs like a mountain range through the landscape of our shared intellectual history.

Part of an active intellectual life is conversation and correspondence. I check in with friends often, asking what they’ve been thinking. I like thinking their thoughts, trying to make them mine. Here’s Thoreau with a caution:

In proportion as our inward life fails, we go more constantly and desperately to the post-office. You may depend on it, that the poor fellow who walks away with the greatest number of letters, proud of his extensive correspondence, has not heard from himself this long while.

So I’ll spend a little time with Henry today but not the whole day. I’m marking his birthday, July 12, 1817, as a way to honor someone who influenced my thinking.

• Sources: The quotation comes from “Life Without Principle.”For more on “Marking the day,” see “An activity in lieu of making resolutions,” Dec. 31, 2021.