Have you ever reread a book and found something new? Some undiscovered line or thought that you’ve somehow missed in subsequent readings? This weekend it happened to me and I’m better for it.
When our friends Tom and Kate invited us to go camping this last weekend, and being the nerd that I am, I decided to raid my bookshelf for something appropriate to read in the woods. This led me to rereading Thoreau’s Walden, after a morning sunrise over the lake, and for the first time in years.
Buried in the book by a fire I found the line, “I believe that men are generally still a little afraid of the dark, though the witches are all hung, and Christianity and candles have all been introduced” and sat thinking as the embers seemed to crack and hiss their approval of my fresh discovery.
As much as I would like to argue the belief, I think that we need fear to feel alive; it is the curse of being mortal. So many things we have done are aimed at controlling the fear of death, but nothing every really seeks the root. It is the one disease that we will all get, suffer with, and eventually die from. Moreover, no one has, or will, ever come back to tell tales of eternal light. So we sit in the dark, warmed by the glow of our little advancements, safe in the knowledge that evildoers are being hunted, encouraged by passing tales of myth and guesses, all the while knowing we will someday find the darkness, and are complete.
Happiness comes in all forms, most of which are denials. So it is reassuring to see mortality for what it is, because that is the only true way in which to learn to enjoy the sun as it warms us for one more day.
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