Walden

I found myself oscillating between thinking “what a wanker” and “this guy's a genius!” several times per page.

Sympathetic to message, horrifically bored by delivery. Used audiobook as white noise for last few chapters.

about 35% of this is like wow 5 stars - super profound, incredible philosophical insights. the other 65% are (in my opinion) pretty boring musings on the depth of Walden Pond, instructions on how to farm beans, cost accounting, etc etc. I'd only really recommend this if you are really interested in Thoreau and his way of living

recommended album pairing: Hiroshi Yoshimura - Green (SFX Version)

bonus section: favorite quotes! (mainly for my own future reference)
“if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.”

“What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate.”

“I desire that there may be as many different persons in the world as possible; but I would have each one be very careful to find out and pursue his own way”

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn from what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived”

“I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude”

“Not till we are lost, in other words not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations”

“If the day and the night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, is more elastic, more starry, more immortal - that is your success. All nature is your congratulation”

“Direct your eye right inward, and you'll find / A thousand regions in your mind / Yet undiscovered. Travel them, and be / Expert in home-cosmography”

“Say what you have to say, not what you ought. Any truth is better than make-believe”

“However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names ... Love your life, poor as it is”