I’ve been reading Thoreau’s Walden in the Yale edition (2006) with an introduction, notes, and a beautifully-designed cover. It’s a satisfying chunk of a book, fitting easily to the hand, and a good price at less than ten dollars. I went back to Thoreau because I’m also reading Michael Pollan’s A Place of My Own, the story of how he built himself a writing hut in the woods behind his home. Pollan, a journalist for the New York Times and the author of In Defense of Food, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, and Food Rules, among other books, wrote two of his books there and probably would have written more had he and his family not moved from Connecticut to California in the years after it was built.

Pollan cites Thoreau’s opening sentence to ‘Where I Lived, and What I Lived For’ as he describes the reasons that compelled him to plan and to build: “At a certain season of our life we are accustomed to consider every spot as the possible site of a house.” Elsewhere, Pollan notes that Walden can be read as Thoreau’s exploration of foundations for life, what it takes to build a character deep and strong.

Digging down below the frostline, weary with the labor, and allowing himself the fantasy of slacking off, Pollan is brought up short by his co-worker, a sometimes laconic, sometimes obstreperous day worker, who quickly reminds him that houses fall out of ‘true’ when subjected to the upheavals of frozen ground straining at a foundation. Later, quietly exultant as he stands on the footings he himself poured for his place, Pollan muses about the nature of foundations, the need to plant ourselves on solid ground, and the architectural metaphors we freely borrow for the blueprints of our lives.

Michael Pollan built his writing house because he wanted to grapple with material, feel the roughness of the wood and stone in his hand, and turn ideas into something with weight and heft. He’s a master at the reflective moment like Thoreau, both of them hewing the blank stone of experience into a textured wall of meaning. Thoreau’s sturdy independence is not exactly Pollan’s way; he is under no illusions about his ability to put up a house in the woods all by himself. But he reaches back to Walden as a touchstone, it seems, to capture Thoreau’s sense of being in a site and to fit the words to the experience.

Thoreau’s prose in Walden is spare and as lean as the man himself. At times, when he is describing the color of the water in the pond or the thick pleasure of feeling one’s way through a forest in a night without stars, his sentences become poetic, though always with a lightly bemused air. This is a man for whom words are gems in the rough to be cut to refract light in a hundred directions. He renders experience, shapeless and dark, into bright moments you can hold in your hand.

It’s that ability to dig deep into remembered experiences and form them into something that can be experienced by others which makes Thoreau such an exemplary teacher. In a letter written to a friend in 1857 he suggests a theme for an essay recounting a hike up Mt. Washington. State to yourself, he urges, exactly what that experience meant to you and why. Keep coming back and back to it until you are sure you’ve gotten to the real heart of the experience. “Not that the story need be long,” he advises, “but it will take a long while to make it short.” Climbing a mountain and getting blown all over the summit isn’t unique: it happens to many people. “It is after we get home that we really go over the mountain, if ever. What did the mountain say? What did the mountain do?” In other words, until we interpret our actions they are simply occurrences. Reflecting on them shapes them into experiences filled with meaning.

There are days in which we enter the classroom brimming with intentions and plans and it all seems to fall to the floor as lifeless as last year’s leaves. And there are days in which the air in the room seems charged and there’s a grandeur shining through each face before us. Those are the times in which Thoreau’s—and Pollan’s—incandescent ability to see the foundations rising to life from the ideas on the page become an inspiration.

To state it plainly: reflection on our practice gives meaning to our actions. It is the foundation upon which we may ‘build to true.’

Photo: Travis Grossen, Unsplash.com

“Writing is hard work. . . .If you find that writing is hard, it’s because it is hard. It’s one of the hardest things that people do.” — William Zinsser, On Writing Well

“How long do you want this paper to be?”

It’s an annoying question from a student. It assumes that the subject assigned can be measured out like twine and cut to the desired length. But even worse, it puts the burden of responsibility on you, not the student. The student is merely the supplier trying to fulfill the customer’s order.

That order can be filled by copying and pasting, pulling together a quilted arrangement of unattributed quotes, stitched throughout with a few original but insipid transitional sentences. Or if the hour is late and the need is high a paper in the proper style and length can be bought.

The machinery for grinding out such fodder is well-oiled, maintained with precision, and apparently provides a lucrative return-on-investment for the entrepreneurs in the business—and many universities have installed anti-plagiarizing software, anti-cheating hardware, and student-monitoring devices in classrooms.

We can look at this another way. While the outcome may be framed as plagiarizing or cheating, the context in which this plays out can lead to other conclusions. People act out of character when they are afraid or unsure; they try to reduce the odds of failure by any means necessary. If they’re afraid of writing they’ll do almost anything to avoid it.

Writing is hard, says William Zinsser, and he should know. During a career as a journalist, critic, editor, and teacher he has written over 15 books, many of them on writing. His best-known, On Writing Well, now over 30 years in print, has been revised, updated, and expanded through four editions. Each time Zinsser returns to it he reworks, rewrites, and cuts. What makes it so hard? Making it simple, making it clear.

He points to Thoreau’s Walden as a model of plain and orderly simplicity. On every page we see the deliberate and patient stride of the celebrated walker from Concord who rid his life of clutter by reducing it to the essentials. And we, says Zinsser, can free ourselves from clutter by thinking clearly. “Clear thinking becomes clear writing,” he says. “One can’t exist without the other. It’s impossible for a muddy thinker to write good English.”

E. B. White agreed in The Elements of Style, saying, “Fortunately, the act of composition, or creation, disciplines the mind; writing is one way to go about thinking, and the practice and habit of writing not only drain the mind but supply it, too.”

Writing is hard because clear thinking is hard. This is a surprise only to those whose writing originates from their inner mud-puddle. “Do you have the patience to wait till your mud settles and the water is clear?” says the Tao Te Ching. Simplify and clarify.

Which brings us back to the question we began with: “How long do you want this paper to be?” They are the words of someone acutely aware that the teacher holds most of the power in the classroom. They are the words of someone trying to minimize pain and maximize benefit. Someone who has learned to hide a lack of meaning behind a pile of clutter.

At times, as a teacher, I have answered that question with Sphinx-like equivocation: ‘How long? As long as it takes to make your point persuasively.’ There is a cloud of assumptions behind that answer. It assumes that the student knows a persuasive answer from a hole in the ground. It does not show that writing is a process. And it can encourage the confusion of length with erudition and spontaneity with creativity.

If we want students to write well we need to help them learn several things. First, clear writing is a product of clear thinking. Second, clear thinking usually begins as a social process of ideas thrown together, pressed down, shaken up, and poured out. Third, clarity and simplicity emerge through subtraction, not multiplication. We get to the meaning of the idea by throwing away everything that doesn’t advance the story. Finally, all of this takes time. Simple is harder because simple takes time. Better to do one long paper well than to do three short ones badly.

“I have made this letter longer than usual, only because I have not had time to make it shorter,” said Blaise Pascal, the 17th-century French philosopher and mathematician, in a letter to a friend.

And with that gentle reminder I shall cease.

Photo: Dmitri Ratushny on Unsplash.com

They were astounded at his teaching, because he spoke with authority. In the synagogue there was a man who had the spirit of an unclean demon, and he cried out with a loud voice, ‘Let us alone! What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.’ — Luke 4: 32-34

If you can believe the sign in the parking lot, the church is a demon-free zone. Just who certified this isn’t exactly clear. But up to now there’s never been a demon there in all the years I’ve been attending, at least not one that was visible.

If I’d wanted to see a demon, the church would be the last place I’d go. Yet there it was. And where there is one, there are many. It’s like switching on the light in the kitchen and seeing a lone cockroach scuttling across the floor. You just know there’s never just one.

That man was carrying one in his gut like a parasite. That’s the only explanation I can think of. To look at him you’d never think he was host to a Legion of devils. In fact, he was the one who talked the most about them. “There could be one among us today!” he’d exclaim. You could hear him out in the narthex, grilling the visitors. I guess he thought they could wipe their feet before they came in and that would somehow do the trick.

Do we think the demons avoid the church because there is some magical aura that rebuffs them, some force-field against which they cannot hurl themselves? Don’t be silly. A church is like any other building, just quieter when it’s full. Not much happens at our church; perhaps that is why the demons have always left us alone.

But he wouldn’t let it alone. “We’ve got to stand together,” he’d say. “All of us in unity. If we give the Devil an opening he’ll crack us like a walnut. If you harbor thoughts otherwise you will not stand in that day! You’ll be the one who lets the Devil in amongst us. Do you want to be that person? Really?”

In a meeting someone finally said, “Pastor, why do you think we’re demon-bait? Have we ever given you reason to think we are?”

“Can you prove you’re not?” said one of the men next to him. “Do you really think you’re qualified to know the signs? Don’t you think the best thing is to trust those of us who’ve had some experience in these things?” He waited.

In the silence the pastor cut in. “We’ve argued about this long enough,” he said with a frown. “There are doubters among us.” He pulled out a form and laid it on the table.

“We’ve got to be unified,” he said. “We don’t have any time to lose. I want you to put aside your doubts and join me in a pledge to stand against the Devil and his hordes. That’s what this church has always stood for: unity for the mission.”

He tapped the form in front of him: “This is your day of decision. Sign this or forfeit your right to speak.”

“But you can’t do that,” someone protested. “Besides, signing a piece of paper doesn’t prove anything. What matters is what we decide in our hearts. It’s between us and God.”

The pastor stood. The late afternoon sun poured redly into the room, casting him in both light and shadow. His hands balled into fists.

“Do not oppose us,” he said softly.

Photo: Ian Espinosa, Unsplash.com