SIMPLIFY! SIMPLIFY!
Condensed from "Walden" by Henry David Thoreau

WHEN I wrote the following pages, or rather the bulk of them, I lived alone, in the woods, a mile from any neighbour, in a house which I had built myself, on the shore of Walden Pond, in Concord, Massachusetts, and earned my living by the labour of my hands only.

I lived there two years and two months[July 4, 1845, to September 6,1847].

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 what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it.

The mass of men live lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.

We live meanly, like ants. Our life is frittered away by detail. An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! 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 account on your thumbnail.

Simplify, simplify. Instead of three meals a day, if it be necessary eat but one; instead of a hundred dishes, five; and reduce other things in proportion. The nation itself, with all its so-called internal improvements, which, by the way, are all external and superficial, is just such an unwieldy and overgrown establishment, tripped up by its own traps, ruined by luxury and heedless expense, by want of calculation and a worthy aim, as the million households in the land;and the only cure for it, as for them, is in a rigid economy, a stern and more than Spartan simplicity of life and elevation of purpose.

Why should we live with such hurry and waste of life? We have the Saint Vitus' dance, and cannot possibly keep our head still. Let us spend one day as deliberately as Nature, and not be thrown off the track by every nutshell and mosquito's wing that falls on the rails. Let us rise early, and fast or break fast gently and without perturbation; let company come and company go, let the bells ring and the children cry. Why should we knock under and go with the stream? If the bell rings, why run? Let us settle ourselves, and work and wedge our feet downward through the mud and slush of opinion, and prejudice, and tradition, and delusion, and appearance, till we come to a hard bottom and rocks in place, which we can call reality, and say, This is, and no mistake. If we are really dying, let us hear the rattle in our throats;if we are alive, let us go about our business.

The gross necessaries of life for man in this climate may, accurately enough, be distributed under the several heads of Food, Shelter, Clothing and Fuel;for not till we have secured these are we prepared to entertain the true problems of life with freedom and a prospect of success. But most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind. The ancient philosophers were a class than which none has been poorer in outward riches, none so rich in inward. None can be as impartial or wise observer of human life but from the vantage ground of what we should call voluntary poverty.

No man ever stood the lower in my estimation for having a patch in his clothes;yet I am sure that there is greater anxiety, commonly, to have fashionable clothes than to have a sound conscience. If my jacket and trousers, my hat and shoes, are fit to worship God in, they will do, will they not? I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes.

As for shelter, I will not deny that this is now a necessary of life. But when I consider my neighbours, the farmers of Concord, I find that for the most part they have been toiling 20, 30 or 40 years, that they may become the real owners of their farms-and we may regard one third of that toil as the cost of their houses.

With consummate skill, the farmer has set his trap with a hair spring to catch comfort and independence, and then, as he turned away, got his own leg into it. And when the farmer has got his house, he may not be the richer but the poorer for it, and it be the house that has got him.

Most men appear never to have considered what a house is, and are actually though needlessly poor all their lives because they think that they must have such a one as their neighbours have. It is possible to invent a house still more convenient and luxurious than we have, which yet all would admit that man could not afford to pay for. Shall we always study to obtain more of these things, and not sometimes to be content with less? Our houses are cluttered and defiled with furniture. I would rather sit in the open air, for no dust gathers on the grass.

But to make haste to my own experiment in the woods by Walden Pond. I have built a tight shingled and plastered house, ten feet wide by fifteen feet long, and eight-feet posts, with a garret and a closet, a large window on each side, two trapdoors, one door at the end, and a brick fireplace opposite. The exact cost of my house, paying the usual price for such materials as I used, but not counting the work, all of which was done by myself, was $28.12.

Before I finished my house, wishing to earn ten or twelve dollars to meet my usual expenses, I planted about two acres and a half of light and sandy soil chiefly with beans, but also part with potatoes, corn, peas and turnips. My income was $8.71.

I learned that if one would live simply and eat only the crop which he raised, and raised no more than he ate, he could do all his farm work as it were with his left hand, and thus he would not be tied to an ox, or horse, or cow. I was more independent than any farmer in Concord, for I was not anchored to a house or farm, but could follow the bent of my genius, which is a very crooked one, every moment.

I have maintained myself solely by the labour of my hands, and I found that, by working about six weeks a year, I could meet all the expenses of living. The whole of my winters, as well as most of my summers, I had free and clear for study.

In short, I am convinced both by faith and experience, that to maintain one' 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.

I would say to my fellows, once for all:As long as possible live free and uncommitted. It makes but little difference whether you are committed to a farm or the county jail.

I would not have any one adopt my mode of living on any account. For, beside that before he has fairly learned it I may have found another for myself, I desire that there may be as many different persons in the world as possible. I would have each one be very careful to find out and pursue his own way. Let every one mind his own business, and endeavour to be what he was made.

Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music he hears, however measured or far away. (#)