“Walden,” a book by American transcendentalist writer Henry David Thoreau, first published in 1854. A reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings. The work is part personal declaration of independence, social experiment, voyage of spiritual discovery, satire, and—to some degree—a manual for self-reliance. This book details Thoreau's experiences over the course of two years, two months, and two days in a cabin he built near Walden Pond amidst woodland owned by his friend and mentor Ralph Waldo Emerson, near Concord, Massachusetts.
Many are captivated by Thoreau’s “precise scientific observations of nature as well as metaphorical and poetic uses of natural phenomena.” And so on and so forth. Yet this fascinating book cuts like a journey to the vast unknown when contextualized in present time. Sure, it is so mesmerizing, just the thought of a similar adventure, or was it an adventure? Solitude, escape, social distancing?
However, wait up. “Walden” was written or experienced at a time when it’d seem so “no brainer” to live exactly that way.
There was no electricity yet on that year, 1854. The first American home, when a house in Appleton in Wisconsin, was the first to be powered by hydroelectricity. Year: 1882. The station that powered the home used the direct current (DC) system developed by Thomas Edison. It was only in 1893 when the first running, gasoline-powered American car was built and road-tested by the Duryea brothers of Springfield, Massachusetts.
And definitely no television. Electronic television was first successfully demonstrated in San Francisco in 1927. The system was designed by Philo Taylor Farnsworth, a 21-year-old inventor who had lived in a house without electricity until he was 14.
No internet, okay? No Facebook. No cellphone. So what’d you do in those “Walden” years? But then, as I said, this book is recommended reading. Read as though it is 1854. You know what I mean? Lose the gadget! 📚✍️📚
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