Walden by Henry David Thoreau

I spent two weeks on Walden Pond, figuratively, but it felt like I spent two years, literally, as Thoreau did. It wasn't a bad time, though. In fact, it was quite enlightening. It is not often a book actually alters the manner in which I think. It is also not often I consider a classic novel worthy of the adulation it is showered with by the academic who wrote the introduction. Walden is an exceptional book.

Thoreau employs a loose, meandering, but ultimately cohesive style. He expounds upon all the elements the time he spent on Walden Pond, essentially just living. He proved his assertion that one could easily provide for himself through subsistence farming and living simply. He was exceedingly quotable: "As if you could kill time without injuring eternity!" Or, "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." When he said he could be satisfied anywhere as long as he had his thoughts, I read in awe.

I appreciated Thoreau's perspective immeasurably. I find applications for it everywhere I go. Driving down the 91 recently, I marveled at the sheer number of people in southern California, and I thought of how few take the time to immerse themselves in nature for a few hours. Goodness knows I don't do so enough, and I do it far more often than most.

Thoreau's thoughts pervaded mine as I toured some acquaintances' new tract home. It was profane, truly. The house was so large, and yet not big enough. There was never a better example of Thoreau's house-as-a-prison concept. It was all so generic. The same house was repeated for miles, squeezed immorally close together. The neighbors' windows faced each other directly; the builders had not even the courtesy to stagger them. From the second story, one could see all of the surrounding yards, and the people in them. There was a convenient ledge situated underneath the windows, ostensibly to assist one when one desired to jump off.

When my acquaintances suggested we buy the house for sale down the street, I almost choked. The thought of exchanging our twenty undeveloped acreas for a concrete box with barely a patch of sky visible between towering masses of manufactured nothingness...