Thoreau at Walden Pond

Thoreau’s Walden: Reality or Romance?

The part (or, “one" part) that confuses me is whether this land experience becomes easier as my knowledge and skills improve. When I search for guidance on that topic, I find conflicting stories.

Where I live on the west coast of British Columbia, there are a large number of individuals and couples who moved here in the 1960s and 70s as part of the U.S, draft dodge, or a “back-to-the-land” movement. Many of these people eventually abandoned the physical part of that dream, remaining concerned with the same values and politics, but taking on full-time or seasonal wage-work to live more easily inside a cash economy. I have heard second-hand accounts that concluded the early experiment “was just too much work.” I’ll have to talk directly to some of these people to get a clearer picture.

One of the best known accounts of an individual attempting to opt out of the frantic pace of “modern life”(in the mid 1800s) is Henry David Thoreau’s book "Walden." He spends two years and two months in his cabin by Walden Pond, and during that time he questions and passes judgement on most of the dominant economy and the society that supports it. His conclusions concerning quality of life have inspired many dreamers, discontents, idealists, and misfits, both young and old, during the last century and a half since its publication.

Thoreau states that “I maintained myself thus solely be the labor of my hands, and I found that, by working about six weeks in a year, I could meet all the expenses of living.”

A couple pages later he writes, “to maintain one’s self on this earth is not a hardship, but a pastime, if we will live simply and wisely… It is not necessary that a man should earn his living by the sweat of his brow, unless he sweats easier than I do.”

Much more recently, Eric Brende wrote about his back-to-the-land experience in his 2005 book "Better Off." He describes the eighteen-months the he and his partner Mary spent in a semi-Amish community at an undisclosed location in the U.S. During that time, they benefited from the help and advice of the neighboring family, the Millers – who were also the owners of Eric’s rented home.

Eric and Mary arrive in the community with little money or practical gardening and construction experience, yet the food grows, vegetables are canned, surplus produce is sold, albeit with difficulty. While Brendte tries to temper the romantic tone of the message in his book by writing some rational advice in the final “P.S.” chapter, much of his story creates the impression of an ease of existence that this life choice might offer.

I arrived at this property five years ago. I have a lot of construction, mechanical, and other trades skills to draw on. I had dabbled with gardening, hunting and fishing, but in those areas especially I have a lot to learn.

For the first few years, Tova and I did little on the property other than machete back the encroaching blackberries, build a few raised-bed gardens beside the house, and prune the existing fruit trees. There were also a few emergency repairs done – such as a new roof on the house and replacing most of one wall and part of the floor after I discovered major carpenter-ant damage. Beyond that, we were both consumed with writing and academic projects on one hand, and finding enough cash work to pay basic bills and the mortgage.

As I wrote about in the “September” post, I am sometimes overwhelmed with the volume of small chores that can consume days or even years. That is a reality that I find missing in the two books mentioned above. I wonder about that discrepancy of experience between their accounts versus those of my unpublished neighbors and my own past few years. Was it really that much easier for Thoreau to find self-sufficiency and contentment strictly because of his wise choices? Is it actually possible in this present time to arrive in a rural community and begin with little skill or finance and yet sustain yourselves with small-scale agriculture?

I think that both accounts leave out some critical factors – Thoreau’s in particular. Thoreau was given free use of cleared land that had lay fallow for some time so that he was able to rely on its existing fertility for that short time period rather than using soil inputs. In the second year he decides to plant only 1/3 acre rather than the 2 ½ he did in the previous year.
“...if one could live simply and eat only the crop which he raised, and raise no more than he ate, and not exchange it for an insufficient quantity of more luxurious and expensive things, he would need to cultivate only a few rods of ground.”

In this way, he concludes that he can simply move from one location to the next without returning manure or other inputs to the soil.

He partially justifies this plan by observing that he wasn’t the owner, but merely a “squatter.” Of course, this in turn might lead to a discussion of the “Tragedy of the Commons” debate, wherein free access to common land can be a huge benefit to a wider community until that population rises beyond a certain point, or an individual or group decides to profit from the common land without returning to it at least as much as was harvested – even if that return is in the form of manure.

Another major missing element in Thoreau’s account is his pattern of almost daily meals at his mother’s house in Concord. There is nothing wrong with that reliance on the generosity of family and friends to supplement our own production, but that economic input needs to be emphasized rather than leaving the impression of the ease of rural life – i.e. a few hours in the garden, and the rest of the time lazy fishing, writing, feeding crumbs to a cabin mouse.

I thought that Brende also creates an the impression of relative ease to sustain the physical part of life necessities – food, shelter, etc. in the main body of his book. That said, I did appreciate his last few pages of post-experience reflection where he gave some more sober words of advice to would-be pioneers. However, in many ways, the two messages seemed to be in conflict.

Perhaps, in both of these books, the contradictions result mostly from the desire to paint a picture that is more uplifting than the complete experience would give – either because an optimistic flavour would more attract a publisher and subsequently sell in the book market; or because that is the message that the authors felt a reading public needed to hear at this point in time. Some breath of hope.

Whether or not I accept their message as a whole, a few of their simple wisdoms are critical and apply no matter how we choose to live.

-Brende repeats in both words and actions, “Never bring in more technology than necessary.”

Is it the novelty of the item and or desire to not miss out on what others are doing? Or is it the advertiser’s convincing portrayal of the easy life that will follow your purchase? … because eventually we have to recognize that very rarely do we actually gain that promised life-of-ease, contentment and satisfaction simply by buying the next piece of hardware.

As a starting point, we can use Thoreau’s self-interest equation – …the cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.
We have to consider the time it takes to earn the funds to purchase the item; the effort to learn to operate it, and often unquestioningly changing our life patterns to accommodate the technology (such as accepting the distraction sending and receiving text messages rather than being completely engaged in the face to face interactions with family and friends we once relied upon).
And beyond that – we also have to consider the effects outside our immediate experience with this technology. The cost to the environment of this industry – past, present, and future. The cost to quality of life – in our own personal experience, to those workers poisoned by the industry, to those who have never used these technologies but still suffer from the toxic fallout. And the effect it has on society – shifting from direct interaction (human touch, physical presence, etc) to that of Facebook friends and digital relationships.

This isn’t to say that these technologies are wrong or evil, but rather – returning to Brende’s simple point of advice – consider and question all of these new toys and technologies before inviting them into your life. And think beyond your immediate diversion and novelty experience.
What am I truly missing in life, if anything, and will this technology satisfy that need or desire? And simultaneosly we have to ask, Can I justify the real and complete cost of that item - financially, politically, socially, environmentally?

In response to the latter question, people often impatiently and defensively reply that it is impossible to get at any real answers - not knowing where to start; too time-consuming; nit-picking, etc. However, I believe that, especially at this point in time and technology, ignorance is a concious choice fueled by laziness and selfishness.

As always, I welcome any comments from other groups or individuals who are working through these questions in their own way.