People must identify the aspects of themselves so they can begin to know who they are. They cannot allow other people to identify themselves for them. "Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate." (Thoreau 4) When people become locked into an opinion of themselves, further change becomes impossible. As beings, we must identify our background to begin to understand who we are; however, we must also learn to experience our lives for ourselves and not for others. By doing this we can truly learn the true meaning of who we are and where we want to be. Although most modern Americans know where they were born and what their ethnical background is, they really don't know the very "who" they are. Without the genuine contemplation of their inner being, they haven't really established their true self. This establishment comes from the context of solitude.
To find out who we really are we must experiment with freedom. To do this we must experience a time of solitude. This does not mean that we become isolated from people. Quite the contrary. We must experience solitude so that we can begin to think about the real person that we are and the true person that we want to become. "I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude." (Thoreau 88) To be suffocated by another's presence day in and day out is much like slavery. Without the ability to reflect on the very passions in life one cannot truly find themselves. "Apart from sleep, the only time a prisoner lives for himself is ten minutes in the morning at breakfast, five minutes over dinner, and five at supper." (Solzhenitsyn 28) To know and begin to understand takes long hours of personal reflection.
