Walden

by Henry David Thoreau

I started reading this book last Saturday... the day it snowed at Nana's. So now, for me, the book is forever associated with snow. Naturally, I was inclined to (theoretically*) pick the book up when the "wintry mix" started falling today. Wintry mix, by the way, is when they can't tell if it's freezing rain, sleet, or snow so they cover all their bases with this blanket term. Whatever the case, it means it is cold outside, the roads are bad, and one has a perfectly good excuse to call their best friend over for some hot chocolate and a movie marathon... while both tool away on their computers under warm blankets. While on my computer, I decided to reread H.D. Thoreau's escapist piece, which reads surprisingly like a blog for a guy living 100 years before commercial use of computers... and who would most likely advocate for people to go without them. Eh, disregarding that fact, I wanted to just post of few of his ideas-- the kind that are especially poignant as the "wintry mix" ices us in and reminds us of the joy that comes from forced seclusion. The simple fun of just dwelling... and watching all 4 Die Hards. Though at this rate, we'll probably call it quits after Die Harder. Shame. It's just starting to get good. Now for Walden...

"But men labor under a mistake. The better part of the man is soon plowed into the soil for compost. By a seeming fate, commonly called necessity, they are employed, as it says in an old book, laying up treasures which moth and rust will corrupt and thieves break through and steal. It is a fool's life, as they will find when they get to the end of it, if not before...

Most men, even in this comparatively free country, through mere ignorance and mistake, are so occupied with the factitious cares and superfluously coarse labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be plucked by them. Their fingers, from excessive toil, are too clumsy and tremble too much for that. Actually, the laboring man has not leisure for a true integrity day by day; he cannot afford to sustain the manliest relations to men; his labor would be depreciated in the market. He has no time to be anything but a machine. How can he remember well his ignorance—which his growth requires—who has so often to use his knowledge?...

Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind...

Granted that the majority are able at last either to own or hire the modern house with all its improvements. While civilization has been improving our houses, it has not equally improved the men who are to inhabit them. It has created palaces, but it was not so easy to create noblemen and kings. And if the civilized man's pursuits are no worthier than the savage's, if he is employed the greater part of his life in obtaining gross necessaries and comforts merely, why should he have a better dwelling than the former?"

*I say theoretically because I'm too cheap to actually buy the book, so I downloaded a pdf file. "pick up the book" just sounded better than pull up my pdf, ya know?