He was Merely Mentally Alive
I recently came upon a hitherto unknown to me book by Henry David Thoreau. The book is entitled, “Cape Cod,” and it’s just his commentary about his wanderings about the cape with his brother in the mid-19th century. Who would really care about Thoreau’s vacations on the cape?
Glancing through a few of the pages, I discovered what was remarkable about the book: the mind that produced it. It is clear that Thoreau had read extensively before his first trip, and had memorised facts about the places he was to visit. During the journey, he made notes of plants, waterways, houses, and people. You can see what it means to be hyper-aware; he notices every detail; he is making hypotheses, drawing conclusions, and forming new questions. His mind is active, engaged, and luminous.
For example, he notices a dearth of trees on the cape. He receives folk-wisdom answers from residents that make little sense, but through careful observation, comparison of trees of the same species at varying distances from the coast, and even by tasting the bark of trees, he comes up with an answer to satisfy his curiosity. There is no practical goal; he is merely mentally alive.
We live in a world that is created by capitalists for the purpose of increasing their wealth. There is very little we may do about it. Our understanding is not required, nor is our consent. So we shuffle about aimlessly, looking something that might taste nice or which might amuse us for a while.
Thoreau’s time was quite different: they were much more in contact with nature — and much more imperiled by it. They needed to understand the forces they faced, and their weak regulatory environment allowed them to react without consultation. This was also the heyday of the New England town meeting, where political decisions were made on the spot by the citizens concerned. They therefore had the habits of agency.