Modern Day Transcendentalist Post

Modern Day Transcendentalist

                The world is a very different place compared to the days of Henry David Thoreau. Thoreau was not too far off when he predicted what our world would be like today. We live in an age of technology, a world where man’s creations cover large tracts of the habitable Earth. Our lives are connected at a global level, and conformity is alive and flourishes. Transcendentalism is not very widespread today, but it is still found in some people. One of these people is Barbara Kingsolver. Barbara Kingsolver is an author and essayist, whom I have met personally, and is a modern day transcendentalist because of the time she spent removed from society to write her book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. Barbara Kingsolver simplified her life in the modern age. Her book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, is a chronicle of a year she and her family spent living on a farm with very minimal connections with the outside world. Kingsolver and her family spent a year on a farm growing their own food, and buying all else they needed from their neighbors. Outside of a few items, such as coffee, they were completely self-sufficient and disconnected from the outside world. This is an act of transcendentalism because in the world we live in we buy our food and interact with many people in many places all the time. Growing your own food on a farm, secluded from the outside world is an action that does not conform to the majority of the society we live in. People in this world complicate their lives with technology, and Kingsolver was able to simplify her life from all of this technology. Simplifying your life in this day and age is extremely difficult, and not something many people try to do. Kingsolver bucked this trend when she and her family spent a year away from society. That is why she is a modern day transcendentalist.