9 Reasons Thoreau is the Ultimate Hipster

Henry David Thoreau was a man of many opinions and views. He was able to live out his ideas by separating himself from people and living off of Walden Pond and then writing about what he learned and what he experienced. He talks, and almost lectures in some scanerios, on how people should let go and live the lives they want to and be free from social constructs. Thoreau also lets his readers know how God impacts us on the daily and where God is in life, spoiler alert He's everywhere at the same time that he is nowhere. Thoreau just wants everyone to be free and be themselves.

“The exact cost of my house, paying the usual price for such materials as I used, but not counting all the work, all of which was done by myself, was a follows…” -Henry David Thoreau

Thoreau is a man of many talents, and one for sure would have to be his extensive book keepings. He budgeted out exactly how much he was working off, and how much he was spending. He wanted to know his exact cost of living and he found it. There was no question with this guy on if he was overspending or overindulging in that ever-minimalistic lifestyle he lived.

“When I have met an immigrant tottering under a bundle which contained his all… I have pitied him, not because that was his all, but because he had all that to carry” - Henry David Thoreau

Speaking of checking himself with his budgets to avoid overindulging. Overindulging was not a life he believed in. Thoreau is all about the getting rid of what you do not need and not needing what you want. He borrows before he buys, he sells for necessity and not for more money and only to buy more unnecessary things, just what he needs to survive.

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what I had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” - Henry David Thoreau

Thoreau wanted people to do what they wanted, not what they need to do. He talks about how we went to live in the woods for himself and no other reason. This is something he chose to do and wants others to do what they want to do for themselves before they find themselves on their death bed without ever really living. He's wanting Walden to teach him how to live.

“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation” - Henry David Thoreau

Thoreau does not care about your feelings. He sees people as living in their own little worlds so focused and just miserable and he will gladly let you know your life sucks. He admits that everyone is different and their ultimate desires are different, but when you are living in just plain sadness, he will let you know to shape it up. He does not want everyone to go to their grave without leading the lives they wanted to live and not the lives they were forced to live in misery and dejection and in order to prevent that he's gonna call you out on your bull.

“I have never felt lonesome, or in the least oppressed by a sense of solitude” - Henry David Thoreau

Homie Thoreau did not believe that being by yourself was lonely or bad. He used this as a time to connect with his surroundings and be who he wants to be and remain undistracted. He valued that when living at Walden. Thoreau mentions how at one point he was worried about being alone but saw the insanity in his thoughts before it could consume him. Solitude can be a sense of comfort instead of an enemy working against you.

“The owner of the axe, as he released his hold on it, said that it was the apple of his eye; but I returned it sharper than I received it.” - Henry David Thoreau

He ain't gonna owe you no debts. Thoreau was not one to spend money, so he would borrow. However, he was not going to remain in someones debt, he will borrow but he will give it right back and in better shape than when he took it. This is key when looking at what he did with the axe when building his house on Walden pond. This is a lesson we can all take on, not just the hipsters of the world.

“God himself culminates in the present moment” - Henry David Thoreau

Thoreau talked about and understood a greater power in the world other than himself. He was about the self, while still being aware of an overarching figure that is seen in nature and all that is around him. He talks about how God is not just this unknown figure that watches from above, but in the air we breathe, the leaves on the trees and ground, and the ants around us. Everything we see, touch, experience is God. God is the world around us, not the being above us and nature is the way to get with Him. Where Thoreau says this he also believes and discuss how many is in charge of himself and taking his own life into his own hands. If you want a change, you cannot wait for it to come to you, you must go and get it.

“Let us spend one day as deliberately as Nature, and not be thrown off the track by every nutshell and mosquito’s wing that falls on the rails.” - Henry David Thoreau

As a writer for Romanticism it is impossible to forget about the love and appreciation of nature when talking about Thoreau. Homeboy lived, slept, and breathed nature. Nature being almost the whole reason for doing what he did and why he wrote Walden. When looking at what he said Thoreau wants everyone to live their lives with purpose, like nature. Nature doesn't just do things to do something, everything has a reason. Also, that something so small in the grand scheme of things shouldn't be allowed, by yourself, to throw you off course.

“Why should we live with such hurry and waste of life? We are determined to be starved before we are hungry” - Henry David Thoreau

Part of his whole deal is that Thoreau preaches of every second in life counting. As people, we waste too much of life focusing on other small things and thinking about what is next, not what is happening now. We are constantly obsessed with what we don't have instead of what we do. Thoreau embodies and radiates the 'stop and smell the roses' mantra. You can probably expect him to never be on time either with this mindset either.

“How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book.” - Henry David Thoreau

Thoreau might have been the #UltimateHipster, but he also had a big trait that made him different. He did not believe in learning from past writers and from books. He acknowledges and talks about what can the past teach us since we are facing the future and the present. The past is exactly what it is, the past. He differs from his hipster lifestyle for this, but seeing as how otherwise Thoreau is the #UltimateHipster we can forgive him for his one hipster flaw.