The 19th century American anarchist Henry David Thoreau stressed "the business of living."

Although most libertarians know Thoreau through his short essay "On Civil Disobedience" or perhaps through his short book Walden, the vast majority of Thoreau's work dealt with nature -- flora and fauna -- rather than politics. No one in his circle thought his political writing would last. Indeed, "On Civil Disobedience" was reluctantly added by his sister to Thoreau's posthumous collected works. And, had it not been for a young crusader named Gandhi, the essay may have remained an oddity among Thoreau's writings on nature. Gandhi read "On Civil Disobedience" while he sat in a South African prison; the book galvanized him and, through Gandhi, the essay was transmitted to admirers like Martin Luther King and others within the American civil rights movement. Thoreau's politics took a strange and circuitous route back home.

I have been thinking about "the business of living" that Thoreau not only advocated but eagerly practiced; he gloried in wandering the woods and fields surrounding his home. No detail was too small...a broken blade of grass, berries hidden behind a leaf, a new tone to a bird call, the movement of an insect. A pure and simple joy in life jumps out of Thoreau's journals.

In a sense, it was appropriate for his sister to treat "On Civil Disobedience" as the publishing equivalent of an afterthought; I believe Thoreau felt the same way. The title of the essay is sometimes incorrectly published as "The Duty of Civil Disobedience" but Thoreau did not consider resisting the state to be a duty. Quite the opposite. He considered the business of living as deeply and honestly as possible to be the duty that every person owed to himself.

Thoreau's famous act of civil disobedience -- the refusal to pay a tax that supported war -- was not the act of a determined political dissident. His one night in jail came about only because the state literally knocked on his front door in the form of a tax collector. At that point, Thoreau had to make a choice; he believed the Mexican-American War was immoral, violating both decency and rights. As long as he was not forced to participate in the 'evil', however, Thoreau seemed content to go about the business of living. Participation, including financial support, in the oppression of others was where Thoreau drew his line. He felt no great urge to confront the State but neither could he become a partner in its wrong-doing; to do so would go against the business of living deeply and honestly.

When Thoreau was released from jail, he immediately went on a berry hunt with a swarm of young boys. No bitterness. No follow-up disobedience. (Or obedience, for that matter.) Just a return to living...and the occasion of my favorite line from Thoreau. In the quest for berries, Thoreau found himself standing at a high point in a field. He glanced about at the continuous beauty that is nature and observed "Here the state was nowhere to be seen."

Lately, I've wondered if I direct too much of this blog toward confronting the State rather than toward the practice of life itself. It is not in my nature to be silent when I see injustice so I will undoubtedly remain "the loyal opposition" but I think I'll devote more space to discussing how to live deeply and honestly so that the state is nowhere to be seen. Alas, it is a much more difficult goal these days than it was for Thoreau.