If you could have a conversation with anyone..

[Alan V]

Is nature brutal though? Or are we mere mortals prejudiced against a natural world that contains intense pain and suffering?

Well, nature would not meet human standards for preventing animal cruelty, with so many predators eating other animals alive and with population growth controlled by starvation. We may ourselves run up against the indifference of nature to our well-being with climate change and its effects.

And what other moral standards besides human standards are there? Apparently none.

I'd love to read Thoreau's late journals with you. I've always found it useful to bounce ideas of others when reading a deep work. You might even start a thread in the journal subforum (or better yet, philosophy subforum) so other interested members could read along and discuss Thoreau's points. Just an idea.

Unlike the philosophy in A Week and Walden, Thoreau's journal entries are largely about his day-to-day observations of nature.

Of course, there is always a lot to discuss about Thoreau's ideas from his books and at least some journal selections.

There's a journal subforum?

WHAT DID YOU THINK OF THE POEM?

The poem was interesting. It started well but it did lose me at the end. "If these be vague words, then seek not to clear them." Thoreau expressed a similar sentiment in Walden, but I'm afraid much is unclear to mystics exactly because they assume what they shouldn't: "God works in mysterious ways" and all that.