In the first paragraph, Thoreau states that he wants to find a higher purpose in his life. He decides to live in the woods so he can lead a simple life but dig deeper into the details that normal people overlook. He wants to absorb everything life has to offer him. Thoreau states: “I would not live what was not life, to live is so dear; nor did I want to resign myself, unless it was absolutely necessary.” In this statement he is trying to distinguish between the life he already has and the life he wants in solitude away from civilization so that he has time to think about the deeper meaning of life. The antithesis in the 1st paragraph is "I went into the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to face only the essential facts of life, and see if I could learn what it had to teach me and not, when I was about to die, find that I had not lived .Here Threau states that if he did the opposite, he would regret the outcome.He would regret not going into the woods and knowing life better lived. It should be lived to the fullest. "Bad" means that if life turns out to be mean, then he wants to witness firsthand the harshness of life and share it with the world. The similes in paragraph 5 compare humans to ants and pygmies as our lives are full of details and they are very busy but in the end these actions really serve no purpose. By having something to compare with, humans are able to better relate to and understand Thoreau's argument about human life. Thoreau explains how humans believe we are above nature and would not dare give up our place in the hierarchy and behave as “lesser” creatures… at the center of the card… meaning that even in extreme moments we should strive for a life without burdens. This phrase helps demonstrate the author's argument that we should all find a common state in which we are happy and which is not influenced by external factors. The first metaphor is “Time is nothing but the river where I go fishing". Through this metaphor he demonstrates his idea that time is “shallow”. Human beings only look at the fact that we never have enough time to do something but we fail to enjoy the flow or the time we have .The second metaphor is “I have always regretted that I was not as wise as the day I was born.” With this metaphor, he is trying to show how time and days are more complicated than human beings are. The past leaves us with so many unanswered questions but we cannot dwell on the past or worry about what will happen in the future. We just have to enjoy life in the present.