Today's soundtrack is Lights: Skin and Earth.Â
This morning's reading is the second part of my journey through the first chapter of Henry David Thoreau's Selections from Walden, "Economy." While I was reading the first part of it last night, I started getting sleepy and didn't want to continue if I was too drowsy to understand what I was reading.Â
Thoreau put his hand to farming; he was influenced by an Arthur Young, who posited that a man could live off of a very small tract of land if only he did not buy more than he needed, sow more than he needed, or try to sell off an excess.Â
Thoreau found that he was able to live off the land for very little cost, eating only plants. He worked as a labourer six weeks each year and spent the rest of his year studying. Thoreau learned that "to maintain one's self on this earth is not a hardship but a pastime, if we will live simply and wisely" (p. 48). Thoreau believed most philanthropy to be misguided; he thought that often the philanthropists were giving things to the poor that were either useless or encumbering.Â
