Walden Lake is a collection of essays by American writer Thoreau, which records his life and feelings of living by Walden Lake for more than two years.
He built a wooden house and lived alone. Everything was done slowly, but he enjoyed the process. He came to the quiet Walden Lake from the noisy city, but he didn't just want to seek peace.
The clear and transparent lake, lush green hills and the agile nature of animals are the objects of his observation and thinking. A person's life may only need a meal and a night. Other substances have another name, called desire.
Thoreau met an Irishman whose family lived in a simple wooden house. Thoreau influenced the couple with his thoughts and saved them from poverty. He failed.
The Irishman is a farmer. He puts on heavy clothes and shoes every day and goes to work in the fields in exchange for the things he needs, including tea, coffee, cream, milk, fresh meat and so on. His working environment is hard and his clothes and shoes are consumed quickly. Economically, his income was reduced by his expenses, which made their life more and more difficult.
However, they do not realize that this is the root of poverty, but continue to go back and forth in this cycle, day after day, year after year.
The only way to jump out of the cycle is to let go of unnecessary substances and return to the original world. Just like Thoreau's life, he earned a week's living expenses or two days' food in an hour or two. Because he doesn't need much, he doesn't need special clothes and shoes as necessary expenses, and he doesn't need to pay too much physical strength, which also needs more food to supplement.
Therefore, in the eyes of Irish couples, Thoreau's life is clean and carefree, and a happy life is probably like this.
However, they can't. Instead of farming, the farmer went fishing with Thoreau, but only one was caught. Thoreau had already caught one.
Farmers refuse to change their original concept of life, but do new things according to their habits. Naturally, it is difficult to change much. This may be the main reason why they fall into poverty.
Many people think that Thoreau described this story to tell people that his philosophy of life is to live a simple and happy life by reducing desires and simplifying needs.
However, Thoreau's original intention was not so. He once mentioned in his book that how a person views himself is the key to decide or reflect his fate.
Thoreau described many of his behaviors and thoughts in the whole book, and described the surrounding environment and his own psychological changes in detail, which made people feel as if they were incarnated as him and experienced everything from his perspective. But his purpose is not to make readers accept his thoughts and choices.
Thoreau made a series of reflections on life, and practiced and changed it in his own way, in order to find a suitable life concept and live a unique little life with Thoreau's imprint.
His book actually tells us all the details of his thinking and practice, as well as the results. The purpose is to let everyone think and change in their own way, so as to find their own mark and happiness.
There is an old saying in China that it is better to believe in books than to have no books. This not only means that people should not accept all the contents in the book, but also means that people should not only see the meaning of the text itself, but should think more about the unfinished meaning in the book. Maybe this is the essence.
When reading, many people like books with clear answers. They can use it when they have problems. However, most of those books are called reference books, but no matter how good the reference books are, the methods in them will be useful to some people and useless to others.
If you read Walden and only pay attention to the scene and the event itself, you will misunderstand the author's original intention.
Some people say that they disagree with Thoreau's idea of living alone. People are social animals and need to live with others. Others say that Walden Lake in Thoreau is a kind of loneliness.
In my opinion, Walden has launched a profound and tortuous spiritual journey to people. Whether it's loneliness, quietness or the simplicity of desire, it's just appearances. What Thoreau really wants to tell us is that everyone is unique, and everyone's happy life is different, but there are many similarities in finding their own way.
Thoreau once said, love your life, no matter how poor it is, even in the slums, you will have some pleasant, surprising and brilliant times.
This is a book with a soul. Reading it is like talking to a wise man. If you can calm down and read the whole book, you may find a better self waiting for you not far away.
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