Henry David Thoreau continues, “for there I could best see the moonlight amid the mountains. I do not wish to go below now.” This beautiful image of Thoreau watching the stars from the deck of a boat comes right after he says that he decided to leave his cabin at Waldon’s Pond because he has “several more lives to live.” He did not want to settle down and risk getting too comfortable and complacent. His restlessness appeals to me, especially as autumn begins, when I am most drawn to his ideas of “going confidently in the direction of your dreams.”
Thoreau, Henry David. Walden. Edited by Jeffrey S. Cramer, Yale University Press, 2004, p. 313.