Rousseau: Diogenes 2.0

Jean-Jacques Rousseau 

For the many crazy ideas and philosophies that Rousseau was known, and also disliked, for, the fact still remains, that his view on the "noble savage," the State of Nature and walking are undisputedly reasonable and relatable, to some degree and people. Everything I will speak about Rousseau will be from my point of view and my words.  

Rousseau was an intelligent man and practical at that. His views on walking and its' effects on him are outstanding. He would walk for multiple hours a day. On his younger days he would walk from city to city and into forests; walking was his passion and deliverer. He would enjoy it so much that he decided, in his older days, to purely walk in the forest only. He believed in relying on just yourself to the point that he was referred to as "a doggish man of the Enlighten;" Rousseau was Diogenes 2.0.  

In his long walks he learned self –love, which is what he thought of as the ultimate and first skill for human happiness. He said, "the natural man instinctively loves himself, but never favors himself. Only in society do you learn to do that. And you have to walk a long way to relearn self-love." Rousseau learned that society corrupts our nature and thus he left to be a hermit in the woods and, again, enjoy walking for the rest of his life.  

I love the view he has about walking and society. I myself have experienced a small fraction of that self-love feeling while waking and have felt caged in society; in the woods, in nature I feel free, like nowhere else.