Thoreau is the Holy Son member of the Holy Trinity of American Transcendentalism. He is the challenging one...challenging to action...saying “Here’s how you do it,” “Here’s how you live it,” “Why aren’t you living it?” That’s what he said through jail bars to Emerson, The Father. It was his “Why hast though forsaken me?” line.
So on this his birthday, I offer an answer to the question, “Might Thoreau blog?"
In most books, the I, or first person, is omitted; in this it will be retained; that, in respect to egotism, is the main difference. We commonly do not remember that it is, after all, always the first person that is speaking. I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well. Unfortunately, I am confined to this theme by the narrowness of my experience. Moreover, I, on my side, require of every writer, first or last, a simple and sincere account of his own life, and not merely what he has heard of other men's lives; some such account as he would send to his kindred from a distant land; for if he has lived sincerely, it must have been in a distant land to me.
From Walden
Eye Blog
I know myself best.
I write about what I know.
I write about me.