Henry David Thoreau might well have been thinking of Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist when he wrote that "the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." While the transcendentalist philosopher wrote long before Annie Proulx wrote the short story upon which Ang Lee based his film of "Brokeback Mountain," Thoreau is as relevant today as when "Walden" was published in 1854.

Much of the focus of comment about the film – which in January 2006 won Golden Globe Awards from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association for best picture (drama) and best director – has been on the transgressive love story. But I think that if "Brokeback" speaks powerfully to gay and non-gay audiences alike, it is because the film articulates not only the tragedy of true love constrained and ultimately defeated by homophobia, but because it speaks to the tragedy of life not truly lived.

In the conclusion to "Walden," Thoreau could well have been describing
the “Brokeback” Wyoming of the 1960s when he wrote, "The surface of the
earth is soft and impressible by the feet of men; and so with the paths
which the mind travels. How worn and dusty, then, must be the highways
of the world, how deep the ruts of tradition and conformity!"