In Jenny Odell's book, “How to Do Nothing”, she mentions many writers and artists that help to support her claims through their work. One of these writers that Odell mentions in her book is Henry David Thoreau with his book, “Walden”. Walden is a story that details Thoreau’s life as he decided to isolate himself within a cabin along the shores of Walden pond in Massachusetts, just a mile away from the nearest town of Concord. Thoreau’s work is mentioned by Odell in the third chapter of her book, Anatomy of A Refusal, where she mentions the similarity of Tehching Hsieh’s performance called Cage Piece where he isolated himself in a cage for one year, to Thoreau’s story of Walden. The two stories have a common idea within them, both Hsieh and Thoreau sought deeper understanding of life and wished to purge themselves of outside influence.
Odell also mentions Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, which tells a story of prisoners that are chained together in a dark cave, and behind them is a wall, and behind the wall are people standing in front of a fire using puppets to cast shadows in front of the prisoners. The story goes on to state that one prisoner could possibly see through the ruse of the shadow puppets and look behind them to see it was all fake, then break free of the chains and manage to escape the cave. When the prisoner escapes the cave and sees the real world, he attempts to return to the other prisoners to convince them to follow him, but his eyes have been blinded due to him not being used to natural sunlight. This causes the other prisoners to believe his blindness was the doing of the outside world and instead choose to stay in the cave. Odell links this story to Thoreau’s idea of imagining truth being dependent on perspective because much like the other prisoners believing blindness to be caused by the outside world based on what they have seen, Thoreau believes that people will believe what they think to be true based on their own thoughts and opinions. Though Odell never explicitly states why she chose to use Thoreau of all people in her example, I believe the reason why Walden was mentioned was to connect the messages and ideals portrayed by both Hsieh, a Taiwanese performance artist, and Plato, an ancient Greek philosopher, to American culture through Thoreau’s writings.
Jenny Odell seems to have taken a lot of inspiration from Thoreau’s writings when she was writing How to Do Nothing because both Thoreau and Odell have a very similar way of achieving peace in this world, which is doing nothing. In Walden, Thoreau is outraged at the idea of supporting a government that still allows slavery to persist in the southern states. As Well as go to war with Mexico with the sole intention of claiming more territory to satiate its imperialist need to conquer. Because of his opinions, Thoreau refuses to pay his taxes, which he was punished for by being arrested for tax delinquency. After this Thoreau went on to perform his self isolation at Walden as a way to show the benefits of living simply in a frustrating and disagreeable world. This is where Thoreau starts to implement his way of doing nothing, which is farming, practicing economics, and enjoying the serenity of nature. In Walden, there are a few segments that catalog Thoreau’s financial account while at Walden. One of these parts is in the first chapter titled “Economy”, which states, “The exact cost of my house, paying the usual price for such materials as I used, but not counting the work, all of which was done by myself, was as follows; and I give the details because very few are able to tell exactly what their houses cost, and fewer still, if any, the separate cost of various materials which compose them:- Boards-$8.03, mostly shanty boards, Refuse shingles for roof sides-$4.00, Laths-$1.25…” Thoreau primarily does this throughout Walden as a way to mock the economy which he believes to be a shameless and extortionist system. Another inspiration that Odell may have had from Thoreau is the fact that these parts of the book seem to be like a self help guide if anyone wishes to perform the same experiment that Thoreau is committing. The slight self help tones are similar because Odell’s “How to Do Nothing” is seen as a self help book by many as a way to relieve ourselves of stress. This relates to the “Cage Piece” by Tehching Hsieh because much like Hsieh who isolated himself from all outside influence for a year, Thoreau chose to isolate himself from society for two years to show the importance of self reliance.
While at Walden, Thoreau would gain an appreciation for the natural world around him, specifically the numerous sounds he would hear while going about his day farming or fishing at the pond. In the chapter titled “Sounds”, Thoreau states, “As I sit at my window this summer afternoon, hawks are circling about my clearing; the tantivy of wild pigeons, flying by twos and threes athwart my view, or perching restless on the white-pine boughs behind my house, gives a voice to the air; a fishhawk dimples the glassy surface of the pond and brings up a fish; a mink steals out of the marsh before my door and seizes a frog by the shore, the sedge is bending under the weight of the reed-birds flitting hither and thither; and for the last half hour I have heard the rattle of railroad cars, now dying away and then reviving like the beat of a partridge.” This shows that while Thoreau was surrounded by nature and the natural environment, he took it in and appreciated it for its beauty, much like how Odell supports and practices the idea of Deep listening when she explains her experience bird watching. Both Thoreau and Odell have practiced in one form or another deep listening and have both learned how to truly take in the surrounding environment.
Another activity that Thoreau finds enjoyable during his solitude to society, is entertaining guests. Despite Thoreau being isolated in the woods, he was still just a mile from town and travelers would sometimes pass by the woods and Thoreau would occasionally invite them into his cabin where he entertained them. Thoreau has stated that he has had nearly twenty five or Thirty people under his roof during his time in isolation. Thoreau shows his distaste for the wealthy elites and their large and spacious houses by attributing them to vermin, “Their huge halls and their cellars for the storage of wines and other munitions of peace, appear to me extravagantly large for their inhabitants. They are so vast and magnificent that the latter seem to be only vermin which infest them.” Odell emphasizes on spending time with those closest to us, much like Thoreau seeing the importance of spending time with whoever is willing to stop by his cabin during his isolation.
Odell and Thoreau both share many similarities, like separating yourself from a stressful environment or preoccupying yourself while avoiding stressful situations. But one similarity that Odell and Thoreau both share the most is their emphasis on the economy. Odell's focus is primarily on the attention economy and believes that people should resist it in order to live a happier and less stressful life. “In that sense, the creek is a reminder that we do not live in a simulation, a streamlined world of products, results, experiences, reviews, but rather on a giant rock whose other life forms operate according to an ancient, oozing, almost chthonic logic.” While Odell stresses for people to resist the attention economy, Thoreau takes a different approach. Thoreau doesn’t exactly agree with the economy because of the state of the wealthy and the poor at the time, but he does understand how it works and believes that the best way for the poor to pull themselves out of poverty is to economize. This is best shown when Thoreau takes shelter from the rain in a farm he believes to be abandoned, but instead finds an impoverished Irish immigrant named John Fields and his family, where Thoreau then attempts to convince Fields to get more involved in the economy to help his financial state. “I told him, that as he worked so hard at bogging, he required thick boots and stout clothing, which yet were soon soiled and worn out… and in an hour or two, without labor, but as a recreation, I could, if I wished, catch as many fish as I should want for two days, or earn enough money to support me a week.” This shows that Thoreau deeply understands how the economy works and how people can become successful through it and by him explaining this to John Fields shows that he cares about other people’s wealth and wellbeing. Thoreau wants to see the Fields family succeed, but is distraught in the end when they refuse to take his advice and decide to continue living their harsh lifestyle. This relates to the message portrayed in Plato’s Allegory of the Cave because John Fields doesn’t trust Thoreau’s advice because he believes he is wrong because Fields would prefer to live in his current lifestyle, much like the prisoners in the cave.
Much like Odell’s “How to Do Nothing”, Thoreau’s lifestyle while at Walden could be applied to the current situation of the pandemic. Odell stresses the importance of removing oneself from a stressful environment, such as media of the pandemic, and Thoreau demonstrates the pros of isolation and self reliance, which are two traits that are incredibly useful during the pandemic.
In conclusion, Jenny Odell’s mention of Henry David Thoreau’s “Walden” was done to connect the examples of Plato and Hsieh and their ideals to American culture through Thoreau’s experiment in isolation and self reliance and Thoreau’s knowledge of the economy and his attempt to help the Fields family. As well as to further support Odell's claims due to the similarity of the messages portrayed in “How to Do Nothing” and Walden, such as spending more time with those around us, taking in the surrounding environment through deep listening. However, their views contrast when relating to economics, where Odell believes that in order to live happier and healthier, one must ignore and resist the attention economy, where Thoreau sees the importance of being involved in the economy as to not become impoverished and sees it as a possibility for those in poverty to lift themselves out of it.
