The Self-Reliant Entrepreneur

September 17Into the Wild

Think of our life in nature,—daily to be shown matter, to come in contact with it,—rocks, trees, wind on our cheeks! the solid earth! the actual world! the common sense! Contact! Contact! Who are we? where are we?

Henry David Thoreau—The Maine Woods (1864)

When you think of Thoreau, you likely think of nature, wilderness, and preservation. After all, shortly after his death Atlantic magazine published his essay “Walking,” in which he boldly states, “In Wildness is the preservation of the world.”

But Thoreau lived most of his life in a city; even as he retired to Walden Pond, he still made the short walk to Concord for his mother's cookies and chances to dine with friends.

The point is that, although Thoreau advocated the preservation of wilderness, he also acknowledged that nature is as much a part of us as we are of it. In a journal, he mused, “It is in vain to dream of a wildness distant from ourselves.”

So for Thoreau, wilderness was a point of view as much as a place. How we think about new adventures allows us to create our own wilderness. Our job is to explore the unknown and to “come in contact with it,—rocks, trees, wind on our cheeks! the solid earth!”

Fight through the fear and enter your unknown wilderness just to discover what's there.

That is how we continue to know who we are and where we are.

Challenge Question

1. What's something you'd like to do now but have been afraid to try?