Thoreau-ly Simplified

Thoreau-ly Simplified

Thoreau-ly Simplified

So, this week’s derby celebrates Nomads and Hermits, right?

Well, who is one of the most celebrated hermits in American Literature?

Henry David Thoreau.

In Walden: Or, Life in the Woods, he famously said, "Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify, simplify! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail.”

Before I point out the obvious—that alpha-keratin is not an effective storage medium for important financial records—let’s recall that Walden’s subtitle is Life in the Woods and then remember that the woods he lived in were less than a thousand feet to the main road into Concord and that he went into town “every day or two.”

Therefore, I dedicate this simple design to that prankster hermit.

Yep. I am just not feeling the love for Thoreau here.

It reminds me of the old story of when Thoreau was arrested and jailed for protesting the Mexican American War.

Ralph Waldo Emerson was supposed to have visited Thoreau in jail and is said to have asked, “Henry, why are you in there?”

Thoreau, allegedly, looked at Emerson—who didn’t believe in the war any more than Thoreau did—and said, “Ralph, what are you doing out there?”

Now that I think about it, I’m not really sure why this situation reminds me of that.

Geez, Henry, you let me down again.