Foxes and Birds

I, like many outdoors-men and -women went through a period of great love for Henry David Thoreau.  His idealization of simplicity and the spartan lifestyle, desire to live every day to the fullest, and connection with the outdoors communicates on a deep level with those who call wilderness their home.  One of my favorite parts of his defining work, Walden, is where he talks about never getting his “fingers burned by actual possession.”

Thoreau relates the following story:
“The nearest that I came to actual possession was when I bought the Hollowell place, and had begun to sort my seeds, and collected materials with which to make a wheelbarrow to carry it on or off with; but before the owner gave me a deed of it, his wife — every man has such a wife — changed her mind and wished to keep it, and he offered me ten dollars to release him. Now, to speak the truth, I had but ten cents in the world, and it surpassed my arithmetic to tell, if I was that man who had ten cents, or who had a farm, or ten dollars, or all together. However, I let him keep the ten dollars and the farm too, for I had carried it far enough; or rather, to be generous, I sold him the farm for just what I gave for it, and, as he was not a rich man, made him a present of ten dollars, and still had my ten cents, and seeds, and materials for a wheelbarrow left. I found thus that I had been a rich man without any damage to my poverty.”
— Thoreau, Walden (find a free text here)
He seems to say that he became a rich man by not taking advantage of the situation and the other man by refusing the $10 that the man wanted to give him and therefore was generous as a richman giving away what at the time was a very large sum.  Interesting, right?  Furthermore, I like this idea of rich-ness (wealth?) being tied not to procuring large sums of wealth or land, but to kindness and generosity to others, and a good attitude through any situation that comes up in life.

For some reason, it makes me think of one of my favorite bands to follow is a few guys from my alma mater, Grove City College.  They were known under the moniker Like Summer, but have since changed their lineup a bit and operate out of Pittsburgh as Good Night, States.  On Like Summer’s only full studio album, From Arlington Heights, With Love, singer Steve Gretz channels Jesus’ words in Matthew 8:20 in the song “Moving On”:
“Now I get it when you said
I’d have no where to lay my head
You knew the places I hung out
Would burn me from the inside out
Well, all my treasure turned out to be crap
All my bedrooms were deathtraps
There’s just one thing I’m looking for
I can’t stay here any more…
I think Thoreau was on to something.  He might have been missing the key (there have been several times reading his stuff that I’ve wanted to scream the answer from all his searching — see here), but I think he got it that material things in this world are — in the end — unsatisfactory.

Thoughts?