The life in us is like the water in the river.

"The life in us is like the water in the river. It may rise this year higher than man has ever known it, and flood the parched uplands; even this may be eventful year, which will drown out all our muskrats. It was not always dry land where we dwell. I see far inland the banks which the stream accidentally washed, before science began to record its freshets.......to enjoy its perfect summer life at last"(Walden, 271). 

Thoreau in this paragraph talks about this story about a bug that dropped his egg in a tree years ago. It hatches you can hear it as it gnaws through the tree that it was trapped in for years. At first I was confused but then realize that he uses this story to shed life to his use of the aphorism because when you think about it the hatching of the egg after all those years and surviving in the tree was unexpected. A bug still needs to see light and needs food so how it survived for all those years in the tree is beyond me.  But it’s like the river and people; unexpected. It goes by its own flow and it shows that you will never know what will happen in this life.

Thoreau starts the paragraph begins with the aphorism and then starts elaborating what the aphorism means. To me what I got from the paragraph is that are life is like the water in the river because it is so unexpected. You will never know where life will take you or what will happen in your life. Just like with a river the water can go to many places and you never know what will happen with the water one day it might be shallow the next deep.  We need to explore like the waters in the river. They never stay in one place and they never started off as rivers. They had to start off as dry land at some point. So like the river we have changed to and should continue changing.

To me the greatest part about this paragraph was when he asked the question “who does not feel his faith in resurrection and immortality strengthened by hearing of this?” After this question you really start to think what the significance of this story is and how you feel about the story.