Misadventures of the Monster Librarian

For all the nit picky flaws that people find with Thoreau's Walden experiment, there is still something that I love about what he was trying to do. He tried to give up some of life's conveniences so that he might better see the changing world around him, might try to appreciate nature; isolating himself for some parts of the human experience, and aiming for simpler means. When I lived at the Farm parts of the below quote were in my title box on this blog, because, like Thoreau I made the active choice to leave my conventional lifestyle and move to a very alternative place, to live in community, giving up some of the "necessities" of mainstream culture, i.e. cell reception, internet at home, privacy (in some senses). What I did gain, was the ability to see the world around me in a totally different light, to really experience life differently, becoming a stouter, heartier person in the process. And that is really what Walden is about, not ju...

I am finally living the Thoreau dream...well, kinda..I am not totally apart from others...though was he really? More on this soon, but it is late and I work at 6:30am and need some zzzs!! "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. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my n...

"Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains. I would drink deeper; fish in the sky, whose bottom is pebbly with stars. I cannot count one. I know not the first letter of the alphabet. I have always been regretting that I was not as wise as the day I was born." ~ Henry David Thoreau, Chapter 2: " Where I Lived, and What I Lived for," Walden There is so much to mull over on a birthday, no? I spent the latter part of the (Thursday) evening decorating the house a little for my birthday party, which will be tonight (Friday), and now the house is silent and I find myself unprepared for sleep. I am wide awake in a quiet house: TSO is at another house dogsitting and RugbyGirl is upstairs sleeping, even Bravo cat is lurking around trying to find some entertainment in this waking time for us both. At a little after midnight I rang in ...