REDRESS

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, to discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and to be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.-Henry David Thoreau.

Oh would I take such words to savour on a sunny day. Did you, Mr. brave Thoreau, pen these words in blood when the moon's crimson reflected your heart's state? If so, I commend your integrity and passion. If not, I am glad to know you were human.

Either way, I lay jaded, feeling flaccid, flattened, bewildered, angry, expendable. Your words make me cry because I wish I had the courage to say them the way I did last year. I wish I had the guts to live.