Exploring Coelho, Sleeping in Leax Woods

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
-Henry David Thoreau

First, let me say I did not go to the woods as Thoreau did in "Walden", I have no fear of realizing at the end of my life that I have not lived. In fact that is where I think Thoreau was stupid, going to the woods was not "living", it was being a moron. So this isn't about "Walden" this is about Maine,"The Maine Woods", I might have gone up into "Leax Woods" To explore that quest of Thoreau.

Talk of mysteries! — Think of our life in nature, — daily to be shown matter, to come in contact with it, — rocks, trees, wind on our cheeks! The solid earth! the actual world! the common sense! Contact! Contact! Who are we? where are we?
-Henry David Thoreau

But really, I went because I respect Paulo Coelho thoughts and he seems to think that in the spaces in normal lives, in the time when we don't know what is going on, we can find what is wrong with us.

Anyway, here is what I wrote during my last night in the woods. To see pictures from my time in Leax Woods, click here.

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I remembered a pen tonight, which is good as I think this is my last night. Really, I'm not sure what to think about the woods anymore, or better, myself. I slept well last night, but I slept in fear not solace, I slept as I write now, trying to distract my emotions from the cracks of twigs all around me. How did the citizens of European cities stand this wilderness? After these night out here I am starting to think that walled cities weren't first built to keep foreign armies out, but rather to keep at bay the fear of a "beast".

As I write this I am starting to see, it is more my own inability to control my imagination than the honest prospect of death by "beast" that puts fear in me. The chance a bear is going to attack this tent right now is so slim but still my mind is playing out great tragedies time and time again. I can see headlines with each branch crack, I can hear morning prayers with each acorn tossed louse by the breeze. I am so...

A horse just whinnied and I almost wet my pants.

I am the"Beast" behind the headlines. It is my soul which lends me fear, my soul not reality, my soul is causing me to feel weak and yellow and stupid... there is no bear, no wolf, no demon except me.

I will leave the woods, tomorrow at sunrise. I hope its nice like yesterday...

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I think Coelho is right, and I'm not sure what to do about it now.