Taos, NM. The other day I remarked how odd it is that I never see other mountain bikers on dirt roads in public lands. Years ago, this would have been a complaint, but now I pretty much accept it. No sooner had I written this than four mountain bikers appeared in as many days.
But I did appreciate running into someone who appreciates my point: Henry David Thoreau, in Walking. What he says about walking could apply to mountain biking or travel in general. Here are a few excerpts:
“I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who understand the art of walking, that is, of taking walks—who had a genius for sauntering......but equally at home everywhere. For this is the secret of successful sauntering. He who sits still in a house all day may be the greatest vagrant of all.We should go forth on the shortest walk in the spirit of undying adventure.We have felt that we almost alone hereabouts practiced this noble art...”
The modern image of Thoreau is that of a humorless, solitary hermit. But he mentioned that he actually had a companion from time to time in his walks. He meant a human being, presumably. I don't think that Thoreau ever mentioned a canine walking-companion. Were dogs too ebullient and unruly for earnest Henry?
Maybe Thoreau wasn't nearly as interested in nature as he pretended to be. By the time Thoreau went to Harvard, it barely pretended to be Deist or Unitarian anymore, let along Puritan. Thoreau, like others of his age, needed to fill the emotional void, but with what? German romanticism was too silly for flinty New Englanders. Socialism was hardly the ideology for a commercial Yankee culture.
Perhaps the Transcendentalism of Thoreau's coterie failed because it lacked what the frustrated Puritan soul really needed: a battle of Good versus Evil. And maybe they found it in Abolitionism.
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