Existence

January 5, 1857

"A man asked me the other night whether such and such persons were not as happy as anybody, being conscious, as I perceived, of much unhappiness himself and not aspiring to much more than an animal content. “Why!” said I, speaking to his condition, “the stones are happy, Concord River is happy, and I am happy too. When I took up a fragment of a walnut-shell this morning, I saw by its very grain and composition, its form and color, etc., that it was made for happiness. The most brutish and inanimate objects that are made suggest an everlasting and thorough satisfaction; they are the homes of content. Wood, earth, mould, etc., exist for joy. Do you think that Concord River would have continued to flow these millions of years by Clamshell Hill and round Hunt’s Island, if it had not been happy, - if it had been miserable in its channel, tired of existence, and cursing its maker and the hour that is sprang?”

In this journal entry by Henry Thoreau, he states something that approaches a theological insight -- [existence 'pours out' of love] -- as well as (not surprisingly) a poetical insight. When people look at Henry's portrait, they often see a dour looking man. I think that he was continually in love with the world, and was constantly amazed by its beauty.

As a 'secular contemplative', Henry's writings in his journals remind me deeply of Thomas Merton's journals. In one journal entry, Merton reports watching the sun rise, and suddenly being in awe of sheer existence. And this of course resonates with Ludwig Wittgenstein's remark --

"It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists. . . . it is this that is mystical." --Wittgenstein, Tractatus, 6;44.

--o--