Walking

This week we had to read a paper about "walking" written by one of my least favorite authors ever, Thoreau. His topics are alright, but his writing style is absolutely attrocious. Someone should have taught that man that every sentence doesn't have to have a minimum of 6 commas in order to be grammatically correct. When I was reading his paper it was almost impossible to understand his point half the time. I spent so much time trying to reconstruct his fractured sentences in my head, that by the time i did, I had forgotten what they were actually about.
But enough ranting, time to get back on topic. Even though it could be tough to read at times, he did make some interesting points about the value of "walking". The walking itself isn't as important as the need to slow down and simply enjoy whatever it is that's happening around you. There are a few points where Thoreau, as he's walking, passes other people as they work or live adn wonders how it is that they can be happy existing without ever seeing and enjoying everything that's around them. The value of observation is something that Thoreau praises in several of his works, but it's also one of the reasons why I, personally, can't ever really enjoy them. His writing has a heavy feeling that he's just that, an observer, and nothing more. He walks past beauty or fun or life and none of it ever involves him. As if he's watching the world inside a fishtank. Always looking at everythign happening but never geting involved himself. Observing the world around you and seeing what there is to see can be rewarding at times, but if you never accomplish anything with what you learned from your observations then what was teh point of observing it in the first place?