Beyond Thoreau's Grave

                                  “Beyond Thoreau’s Grave"
                                    Written by M.D Martin
         
         I was walking around the park one day and I walked towards three strange men. One carried a dagger drenched in blood; it smelled of crude gunpowder and burnt smoldering skin. I stopped near him and asked him what was the dagger for. The man gripped the messy weapon proudly and proclaimed,” It is to make peace.”  I nodded, although I’m not quite sure I fully understood. I then got distracted with the second man who was wielding a tattered whip. It was pure black with a cat-o’-nine-tail, and by the looks of the item it seemed to have been used quite frequently, almost everyday to my guessing.  I pointed to the whip and asked the man politely what it was for. The man’s fingers clenched the whip, as if ready to use it at any moment, then sternly replied,” It is to insure peace.” I made no reply, but I had a feeling of déjà vu, and I simply faced the next man. The next man held out an empty palm. His hand was tough from hard work, and his fingernails were dirty from hard toils. I smiled at the man and I wondered how come he didn’t carry anything unlike the other two men. The third man smiled back at me, then he smiled at the two men I previously visited. He put his hand onto my shoulders and squeezed gently. The man simply replied,” To have peace.”  I did find out that all three men were wonderful readers, but had different interests. The first man has read The Diary of Che Guevara. The second man has read Mein Kampf. The third man read Walden and that has made all the difference.

              “If you have built castles in the air,
                your work need not be lost; that is where they should be.
                Now put the foundations under them.”
                      -An Excerpt from Walden


Words are very powerful. Henry David Thoreau’s Walden is living proof and within its lines it has proven itself.  The above quote is from the very book and it deals with the strength of words. To build a floating castle you will need a foundation, a way to build it, and there are many ways to build it.  You need both a way to build and the tools to do it. Thoreau has inspired many with just words. His sections of non-violence, mainly his refusal to pay poll taxes and accepted jail time, in his book has inspired Martin Luther King to march against segregation and Gandhi to peacefully protest his government. His influence was beyond his life because he chose to speak. If King never read Walden then he may have read an anarchist book. He may have not been the peaceful man many love him as.  The quote wants to demonstrate that you need to take every word you say and write serious because those words will live beyond you. They will build castles you didn’t want built.  Malcolm X for many years spoke on making things happen by force, and was opposed to peaceful protests. It has been a couple decades later and there are still thousands of anarchists chanting him as their idol. Most that chant it do not know that a year before Malcolm X died he refuted his violent claims and became a man of peace. He became an example and believed in equal brotherhood until his assassination by the Nation of Islam.  The words he later in life did not mean now is the bible to a new generation of people who do believe the only answer to force is to push back.  Another example is Adolph Hitler who used charming charisma and deception to sway his people into genociding thirty thousand scapegoats. His very words, not clenched fists, made an entire nation to do something so horrible that they had to create a word for it: Holocaust.  Before that, Hitler dreamed of becoming a painter until a teacher suggested that he should try his hand into politics. It only took that one suggestion to cause a big impact. Look at every dictator, world leader, and tyrant. It was their charisma that inspired people to die and murder for their cause.  The quote is saying that words are the reason the how people act as they do. Influence is the strongest ideology in history. Thoreau has influenced Gandhi, which influenced Martin Luther King, which influenced suppressed African Americans.  The chain is undeniable and every word is connected. The things I write, at this very moment, is because my teacher assigned us to write it based on the book he read, that was published by a man who read the manuscript by the man who wrote it whom was influenced by an untraceable amount of sources. If you start, right now, a list of what influenced you to believe a certain way and what made them believed that very belief then you would see the power of words and their influence. 
         Hitler was inspired by a teacher to do politics, then he inspired a nation to eradicate Jews based on false Germanic tribe mythology, then that inspired the world against anti-Semitism, which inspired the Neo-Nazis to be formed to battle the opposition of anti-Semite belief.  This is the link of words. The castle in the sky is Hitler’s and the foundation is his following. Neo-Nazism, old Nazism, anti-Semitism, anti-Nazism, and history keep the castle from crumbling down.  This has happened repeatedly in history, for example, look at the Oklahoma City Bombing.  The bombers were influenced by The Turner Diary, which was written by a white supremacist named William Luther Price.  He was influenced to write the book based on the ideals he saw as president of the National Alliance, a large white supremacy club.  This club was an influence of the Nazism of Adolph Hitler.  Nothing is ever over as long as what people see, read, and hear are their influences. It is a link of carnage and it cannot be stopped. I can’t tell you that the Oklahoma City Bombing would never have happened if the Holocaust never happened, but I can assure you that the evidence does point towards that.  The great Fidel Castro in his famous speech has even stated the power of words and history:

            “I warn you, I am just beginning! If there is in your hearts a vestige of 
              love  for your country, love for humanity, love for justice, listen carefully...
              I know that the regime will try to suppress the truth by all possible means;
              I know that there will be a conspiracy to bury me in oblivion. But my voice
              will not be stifled – it will rise from my breast even when I feel most alone,
              and my heart will give it all the fire that callous cowards deny it...
              Condemn me. It does not matter. History will absolve me.”

  This speech was the defense of Fidel Castro in his 1953 trial where he was sentenced to fifteen years in prison. Fidel’s words spoke true and he became the charismatic infamous leader of Cuba.  His words have influenced many people and will do so even after he is buried in dirt.  His quote speaks true that what you say may not matter at the moment but may matter beyond time. Your words and everybody’s words ring a deafening ring. Thoreau has proven, within his book of Walden, that words are not simply inked symbols of language. It is a deeper complex human psychological conditioning. The words you spoke yesterday, today, and tomorrow will affect someone else’s yesterday, today, and tomorrow.  Hitler was just an artist, Martin Luther King was just a preacher, and you’re just a being. When you fully realize all of this, oh, what castles you may build.