A lesson for all Steemians
The picture that Thoreau's novels paint of American life is not a flattering one, and much of what their characters have to complain about, Thoreau talks about, too: “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” It’s probably the most famous line in Walden and describes Bartleby and Ethan Frome and Bellow’s Tommy Wilhelm and even Pynchon’s Oedipa Maas pretty well.
Unlike the novels, however, Walden tries to offer a solution to the problems they describe – a carefully planned and precisely costed working-out of Bartleby’s famous motto “I prefer not to”. Walden is a book about what your life would look like, how you would fill your days, how your relation to the world would change, if you didn’t have to spend money on real estate. “The necessaries of life for man in this climate may, accurately enough, be distributed under the several heads of Food, Shelter, Clothing, and Fuel…”
Bare necessities
For food, he recommends a vegetable diet and tells you how to grow what you need. Fuel is easily gathered and, if you don’t follow fashions, it shouldn’t be hard to acquire and maintain a decent set of working clothes. But shelter is really what we spend our money on – in other words, it’s what we spend our lives on. And as soon as you get the need of a house off your back (“such a house as your neighbours have”), the world looks like a very different place:
"Formerly, when how to get my living honestly, with freedom left for my proper pursuits, was a question which vexed me even more than it does now, for unfortunately I am become somewhat callous, I used to see a large box by the railroad, six feet long by three wide, in which the labourers locked up their tools at night; and it suggested to me that every man who was hard pushed might get such a one for a dollar, and, having bored a few auger holes in it, to admit the air at least, get into it when it rained and at night, and hook down the lid, and so have freedom in his love, and in his soul be free."
Part of the power of this passage comes from the fact that we can’t help associating that toolbox with a coffin – and the life he seems to recommend, with something like death. In the two years that Thoreau spent living in the woods, America was going through a golden age of experiments in communal living, some of them run and organised by people he knew. (Brook Farm, probably the most famous, burned down and eventually failed while he was at the lake.)
An alternative of alternatives
Walden was pitched as an alternative to these alternatives. It was designed to leave a lot of life out, not only kids and family but everything that comes with them – competitive dinner parties, the struggle for promotion. Because when we buy or rent a house, when we work the job it takes to afford it, we’re striving not just for shelter but a whole range of ordinary ambitions.
What would we spend our love and freedom on if not on those things? Answering this is the real challenge Thoreau sets himself – and it’s more difficult than explaining how to build a hut. The opening of Walden includes one of the great first pages in American literature, but the book that follows is often harder to like. It never quite lives up to the standard he sets himself:
"Moreover, I on my side, require of every writer, first or last, a simple and sincere account of his own life, and not merely what he has heard of other men’s lives; some such account as he would send to his kindred from a distant land; for if he has lived sincerely, it must have been in a distant land to me."
Thoreau is the man, I personaly have Walden, and couple of his essays. Brilliant ideas, so different from what we see today. Upvoted 8)
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Thanks Olaf ... by the way your the current leader in my photo competition today :) ... so far!!
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Thank you, great to know that haha ;)
I think I'm gonna write sth about thoreau too, but probably in polish though or on one of his other essays, like him very much
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Permission to translate this into Polish, use the pics, and I'll resteem it for you in Polish too ... I can't say easier than that @grski! :)
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All done mate, it took me a while to find the proper verses in the book, but I managed. Thanks in advance :)
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This post is doing v.well now! I hope the Polish one is as successful Olaf. Do forward me the link when your all formatted and done :)
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Oh, it's already up https://steemit.com/writing/@grski/wiekszosc-ludzi-prowadzi-zycie-w-cichej-rozpaczy-czego-mozemy-nauczyc-sie-o-zyciu-od-henriego-thoreau
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This post received a 0.7% upvote from @randowhale thanks to @mindhunter! For more information, click here!
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That's interesting! Upvote from @rtdcs
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So glad you enjoyed the article @rtdcs - Steem on!
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I recommend looking at some forthcoming posts by Andrew Mount that discuss these issues in depth. I am encouraging him to bring over some of his Youtube posts under the title of "8 minutes of enlightenment".
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Sounds good @vric88 - we need to work on all these youtubers to get them to come over to the platform. I've dragged a couple over with 30,000+ subscribers so far!
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Good Idea. I am going to pull over my youtubes.
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Bring the whole world to our door please @vric88 - many thanks :)
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Leading lives of quiet desperation however according to Thomas Campbell in his trilogy "My Big Toe" (Theory of Everything), there is a purpose for that which is to help us to evolve into kinder more loving people. We learn best from our challenges. No pain, no gain as the jocks say!
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The older I get, the more I seek kindness in people @vric88 :)
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Very good post Shane :) Simplicity uh? you do write well, you weren't kidding:)
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#1 Rule of Steemit: Improve writing.
#2 Rule of Steemit: Improve writing.
:)
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rule 3 and 4 of Steemit: improve writing!
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No!
Rule #3: Press buttons
Rule #4 : Drink wine!
:) Hee-hee!
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you got me at wine but ill try for the writing soon!
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[Shares wine :)]
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Smile for you and a good mood
(ᵔᴥᵔ) aaaand little ApVote from @burundel
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Smiles always welcome here @burundel :)
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Man has made life into something it wasn't meant to be. Now man has to deal and adapt and make hard choices in order to recapture "freedom".
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Our decentralized Steemit is but one small step @csmit :)
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Keep it simple as possible, less stress.
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Correct.
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interesting post really thnks
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It made me think writing it @mahaelsayed :)
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Great post! Keep it up :)
By the way, I'm following you now
Cheers
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I'll do my best to keep you happy @brnofre :)
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Food, Shelter, Clothing, and Fuel
Do this
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The best link sent to me all day! BRILLIANT!! :)
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P.S. I might need to create a post out of that one!
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help your self
we're buds.
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Simple life helped humanity to go further!
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Much further @hebro
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Okay. I definitely have to put Walden on my reading list. I've been thinking about reading it for a while, but man do these ideas resonate with me!! I often think that at my work when I see people happy to just work the same job their whole lives and spend their free time just doing retail therapy. I always wonder...how is that enough for them? Thanks for this!
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I'm glad the article has touched you like that @blizzylizzy :)
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