Today's soundtrack is John Fogerty: Centerfield.
This evening after work, I did some yardwork in the backyard. I'm tired now. The Randomizer hasn't done anything to help me out today, so I'm going to do whatever I want to do, and what I want to do is read the next chapter of Selections From Walden, by Henry David Thoreau, titled "Reading."
Thoreau found that his cabin was better for reading or thinking than any university. He kept a copy of Homer's Iliad, and when he was too busy with his work to keep up with reading anything heavy, he read some light books about traveling.
A book is the most valuable thing that anyone can have, because it is both more universal and more intimate than any other form of art.
Reading the classics is essential for anyone who would understand the history of mankind, says Thoreau. He believed that reading the great thinkers' works was important; he said, "I do not make any very broad distinction between the illiterateness of my townsman who cannot read at all and the illiterateness of him who has learned to read only what is for children and feeble intellects" (p. 71). I can relate on a personal note to the sentiments of this statement; I know some people who will only read romance novels, and others who will only read young adult fiction. When say that they love reading, secretly I think that it's like seeing an overweight child eat a whole tub of ice cream, then call himself a foodie.
Thoreau proposes a reform: "It is time that we had uncommon schools, that we did not leave off our education when we begin to be men and women." (p. 72). We should not become complacent in our knowledge when we reach adulthood; we should always be striving for more understanding.
