"have you practis'd so long to read?
have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of a poem?"
All the time we spend learning things that wont matter when we are older just overcomplicated things. we must remember things for tests only to forget them. in Waldon Thoreau says "keep your accounts on your thumb nail" meaning keep only what is really necessary. Forget about all the details, they just complicate every thing. Emerson says "He acts it as life before he apprehends it as truth." We don't need to understand every thing because it will happen any way. Why must we know every thing, if we are only to die.
I think you should talk about why our lives are better when they are simple.
ReplyDeleteNick,
ReplyDeleteThis sounds like a good approach to this assignment--a catalog of the many ways in which our lives have become too complicated, and a defense of Thoreau's injunction to 'Simplify! Simplify! Simplify!'. Be sure that you include a lot of specific and appropriate examples, so that your reader can better understand your argument. This ought to be an interesting (and fun) essay. I'm looking forward to seeing your first draft!