Anyone considering doing what Thoreau did?

[Vicky]

After finishing this book I want nothing more than a few months in a natural environment.
- Vicky Agami Walden

[One's]

Since reading Walden, and watching TV shows like 'Little House on the Prairie', living in the woods, in a self-sufficient way has been on my mind.
Recently, I watched 'Alone in the Wilderness(2004)'. It's about Dick Proenneke who spent some decades living in Alaska, until he decided that the winters were too hard to handle for an old man like him.
Doing what Thoreau did, is something I always wanted to do, not as something I'm sure would suit me as lifestyle, but as something that I had to experience. As Thoreau said: “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. "

[Ron]

Vicky wrote: "After finishing this book I want nothing more than a few months in a natural environment.
- Vicky Agami Walden"
Wonderful Read - I take it out every few years to reread it to try to gain a little perspective on life

[Ptera]

I read the book in highschool. A few years ago, I reread it, thinking it couldn't be as boring as I remembered.

It was.

He extended the inspiration of Alexander von Humbolt downward to the local level, so it is an important milestone book, but I found Thoreau to be hypocritical. After extolling the simple life (done on Emmerson's property and largely, I presume, at his expense), Thoreau returned to civilization as he knew it, and discontinued his experiment with the simple life. He had a lot of good (if dull) things to say, but I doubt he had as much faith in them as his readers.

[Ajay]

I 🙋‍♂️

[Ajay]

Ptera wrote: "I read the book in highschool. A few years ago, I reread it, thinking it couldn't be as boring as I remembered.

It was.

He extended the inspiration of Alexander von Humbolt downward to the local..."

*HELLO. I am quoting a passage from Walden regarding your thought*:

“I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there. Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live, and could not spare any more time for that one. It is remarkable how easily and insensibly we fall into a particular route, and make a beaten track for ourselves. I had not lived there a week before my feet wore a path from my door to the pond-side; and though it is five or six years since I trod it, it is still quite distinct. It is true, I fear, that others may have fallen into it, and so helped to keep it open. 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! I did not wish to take a cabin passage, but rather to go before the mast and on the deck of the world, for there I could best see the moonlight amid the mountains. I do not wish to go below now.”

Citation: Thoreau, Henry David. “Conclusion.” Walden. Maple Classics. 2023. p. 271.

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*This is its 'simplification', if required*:

In this passage, Thoreau reflects on his decision to leave the woods where he had been living. He suggests that he left the woods for a good reason, perhaps feeling that he had more to experience in life and couldn't dedicate all his time to that particular way of living. Thoreau then talks about how easily people fall into routines and habits, creating well-worn paths for themselves. He mentions that, even though he lived in the woods for a short time, a distinct path had formed from his door to the pond.

Thoreau uses this observation as a metaphor for how people create mental paths or habits in their minds, following well-trodden routes of thought. He expresses concern that these mental paths, like physical ones, can become worn, dusty, and conformist. Thoreau then uses nautical imagery, expressing a desire to be on the deck of the world, avoiding the well-traveled paths below. He wants to experience life fully, without being confined to established ways of thinking or living.

[Ptera]

Nope. Still dull. I'm not saying it isn't good or well-written. Just dull. Walden is immensely important as a book. It took Alexander von Humbolt's insights into nature and ecology which weren't even on the radar yet) and extended them to the local level. But I just can't get into his pros.

(Plus, he was so disingenuous about his convictions. After his short stint at Walden, where he was largely enabled by Emmerson, he went back to his old lifestyle. Despite his retreat, I credit him with inspiring the modern small-house movement, so good did come from his experiment.)