Keillor's plaza

From the Garrison Keillor essay I mentioned...

...I look at the ­plaza and see the runners jouncing along, women in black tights, deliverymen whizzing down the bike lanes trailing the smell of oriental spices, dogs striking ballet poses as they walk their owners, the sun glinting on apartment buildings. You can simply watch it happen, no need to inveigh against the evils of man or the perils of the city.

Thoreau already did that. He came to New York, lived on Staten Island, walked miles and miles around town, felt there were simply too many people here, and his loathing of New York inspired him to go to the woods and write Walden. I believe a person could write a better Walden sitting in this ­plaza. I sat in the ­plaza because I wished to deliberate humanity, to witness the essence of society, and learn what it had to teach, and not retreat to the woods and there discover only my own reflection in the pond. The mass of men lead lives of quiet resolution. What appears to be indifference is confirmed resolution. From the introspective country you go into the adventurous city, and inspire yourself with the bravery of cops and teachers and the ingenious games and amusements of mankind. Greet the day with joy, share your space with strangers, be astounded by the secret lives around you. Beware of all enterprises that involve sleeping on the ground. Breathe the air, drink plenty of water, taste the pastries, and resign yourself to the presence of pigeons. Harper's

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Compare Thoreau:

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion. For most men, it appears to me, are in a strange uncertainty about it, whether it is of the devil or of God, and have somewhat hastily concluded that it is the chief end of man here to “glorify God and enjoy him forever.” Walden