Question

In preparation for a group discussion, read about Henry David Thoreau’s passion for nature and the outdoors.

Answer 1

Answer:

While I agree that sometimes getting a ride can be easier, there are many benefits to walking that cannot be experienced with other modes of transportation. For example, walking outside allows me to breathe in the fresh air, get some exercise, and appreciate the outdoors, all at the same time. Thoreau points out that walking can make us feel free.

Answer 2

Henry David Thoreau was an American essayist, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, and historian, two of his greatest works are: "Resistance to Civil Government" (also known as "Civil Disobedience") and "The Mask of Anarchy". His ideals can be summarized by this statement: “the Government should not have more power than the bestowed by its citizens”.

Henry David Thoreau was even imprisoned for refusing to pay taxes in protest for the Mexican-American War and the slavery.

Thoreau was an idealist; he opposed the oppression and tyranny from the government and I think that more people like him should exist for we need more free thinkers to defend the common citizen from the oppressive government we sometimes have.

But for now let us focus on his naturalist points of view, he loved nature and all contact with it, he spent a very long time in isolation in a cottage in the woods to get in contact with nature in a deeper sense.

I think walking is an excellent exercise, but we need to be specific about the kind of walking we can get. There is walking inside of the house in a walking machine of any kind, there is walking on the streets, there is walking on the park, on the beach. I think the best place to walk is a good, away from the city forest, where you can hear yourself breathing, where you can concentrate on nothing more than the nature surrounding you, or as Thoreau would say: "I wish to speak a word (with) Nature, for absolute freedom and wildness". Walking as a means of exercise is good but walking to become, for a couple of hours at least, a part of nature, is the real thing. As Thoreau would put it : I want to become "a part and parcel of Nature, rather than a member of society. "