The importance of simplicity is another of Thoreau's recurrent themes. By keeping his needs and wants few, the individual may realize spiritual aims instead of devoting his energies to the material. Thoreau urged economy and self-reliance, the stripping away of luxuries and comforts down to the bare essentials. He wrote in "Economy," the first chapter of Walden, "Most of the luxuries, and many of the so called comforts of life, are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind." Thoreau deplored the "waste of life" through the brutalizing manual labor that was required to lay railroad tracks, operate mills, and accomplish the manufacture of items of questionable necessity. If a man spends all day in mind-numbing work, he has no life left for the pursuit of higher understanding. By doing for himself, the individual maintains his freedom to live deliberately, to cultivate himself, and to explore nature and divinity.
At Walden, Thoreau achieved the simplicity that allowed a rich and meaningful life:
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 it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear. . . . I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life. . . .
Just as Thoreau understood that living simply in nature allowed a man to live fully, he also recognized that society impeded both simplicity and the inner life.
In "Life Without Principle," Thoreau cautioned against the conventionalism of business, church, state, politics, government, law, even of established science and philosophy, all of which encroached upon individual freedom and the ability to think clearly for oneself. He exhorted, "Read not the Times. Read the Eternities. Conventionalities are at length as bad as impurities. . . . Knowledge . . . [comes] to us . . . in flashes of light from heaven." Civilized life not only creates artificial needs but also provides pat answers to questions that individuals should confront directly. Through simplicity and self-reliance, we may get beyond the conventional and come face-to-face with the universal. In "Walking," Thoreau pointed out the degeneracy of villagers, those who lived in the worldly commotion of town life: "They are wayworn by the travel that goes by and over them, without traveling themselves." Confined by social demands and strictures, they never seek the eternal. Thoreau himself assiduously avoided superficial social involvements and occupations, which he felt took "the edge off a man's thought."
