Alexandersmap

    Tag: Henry David Thoreau

    • The Endpoints of the Day

      Winning the day starts with the morning. I’m pretty good with the morning now, but there are plenty of mornings where the evening gets in the way. Eat too much, stay up to late, have a few drinks and the morning routine is more challenging. So this ridiculously easy habit stack I have has bailed me out on a few mornings where I wasn’t feeling up to the challenge but did it anyway. If the morning is the angel on one shoulder, the evening can be the devil on the other; full of all kinds of triggers and temptations. Glass of wine? Why not? Bread with dinner? Why not?  I’ve been good today… Slippery slope.

      The morning represents a new hope for the day ahead.  You’ve got your whole day ahead of you!  So very much you can do today!  The evening has its own pleasures of course, but ultimately you’re left with a feeling that I’ve accomplished all I can today or I haven’t done what I needed to do today.  Either way it’s an end point.  Last call.  Give me beginnings.

      “We should be blessed if we lived in the present always, and took advantage of every accident that befell us, like the grass that confesses the influence of the slightest dew that falls on it; and did not spend our time in atoning for the neglect of past opportunities, which we call doing our duty. We loiter in winter while it is already spring. In a pleasant morning all men’s sins are forgiven. Such a day is a truce to vice…. bless the new day, feel the spring influence with the innocence of infancy, and all… faults are forgotten.” – Henry David Thoreau, Walden

      Thoreau pleads with us to live in the moment, but also to bless the new day and forget the past.  Sign me up…

      Also on the morning habit stack is reading, and this morning’s Daily Stoic entry made me chuckle after writing the title of this post: Carpe Diem. It featured this gem of a quote:

      “Let us therefore set out whole-heartedly, leaving aside our many distractions and exert ourselves in this single purpose, before we realize too late the swift and unstoppable flight of time and are left behind. As each day arises, welcome it as the very best day of all, and make it your own possession. We must seize what flees.” – Seneca, Moral Letters

      Seize what flees.  No matter the time.  This day…  this moment.

    • The Evasive Groundnut

      “I discovered the ground-nut (Apios tuberosa) on its string, the potato of the aborigines, a sort of fabulous fruit, which I had begun to doubt if I had ever dug and eaten in childhood, as I had told, and had not dreamed it.  I had often since seen its crumpled red velvety blossom supported by the stems of other plants without knowing it to be the same.  Cultivation has well-nigh exterminated it.” – Henry David Thoreau, Walden

      “Hannah Bradley later told her family that “she subsisted on bits of skin, ground-nuts, the bark of trees, wild onions and lily roots” on the trek to Canada.” – Jay Atkinson, Massacre on the Merrimack (endnotes)

      Apios americana, also known as the American groundnut, potato bean and several other names, is an indigenous plant that grows in the forests from Canada to Florida.  I’ve had a strangely compelling fascination with groundnuts since I read a description of Hannah Dustin, Hannah Bradley and other prisoners of the Abenaki who kidnapped them digging around in the woods of New Hampshire wherever they were encamped to find groundnuts to eat.  I live in New Hampshire, I wander about in the woods (though not often enough) and I found the fact that these groundnuts were so readily available to be fascinating.

      Reading about Benedict Arnold’s men starving on their march through the woods of Maine when they invaded Quebec, or Roger’s Rangers starving to death as they evaded the French and Native Americans during campaigns in the Lake George/Lake Champlain region have made me wonder about this evasive groundnut even more.  If this was a staple of the Native American population’s diet, and were known to men like Robert Rogers, why were so many of them starving?

      Henry David Thoreau alludes to one reason in Walden when he writes about discovering a “now almost exterminated ground-nut” someday resuming “its ancient importance and dignity as the diet of the hunter tribe.”  These New Hampshire woods that I like to wander in were once fields as settlers plowed fields and brought in livestock.  The stone fences that criss-cross the forest betrays the history of this land.  So for a farmer from Massachusetts living off the land may have been tougher than it is today.  As ancient forests were cut down and plowed fields took their place the groundnuts became harder to find, just as wild animals who were hunted for food became harder to find.  For the native population who lived off the land as hunter-gatherers, this must have been particularly devastating.

      Over the last few years of gardening I’ve noticed some invasive vines growing into the yard.  I sprayed some of them along with the poison ivy to knock them back, and pulled them off the fence and a spruce tree in the yard.  Imagine my surprise when I realized that the plant I was aggressively expelling from the edges of my yard was the very plant that I’ve been wondering about.

    • Seeking Adventures

      “Rise free from care before the dawn, and seek adventures.” – Henry David Thoreau, Walden

      Good old Henry David Thoreau, planting seeds of wisdom throughout Walden.  There are stretches of this book that are tough to digest, but when he’s on point he’s a brilliant sage.  I’m glad that I’ve come back to Walden, and will spend more time on the book overall soon.  For now, there’s this quote to ponder.

      Rise free from care before the dawn…
      I’ve been off and on again with that early to rise thing.  For years I prided myself on getting up very early indeed.  But approaching midlife (for me that meant 50) I started “sleeping in”; not setting my alarm, waking up at 6:30 naturally instead of making myself wake up at 5 or 5:30 AM.  No, I’ve come to value sleep.  But now I just go to bed earlier.  No use staying up late to overindulge myself on television, junk food, alcohol, social media or other nonsense.  No, early morning is my time, and this habit I’m re-establishing (day 23!) of working out, reading and writing is a hell of a lot better than that other stuff.

      … and seek adventures.
      Well, I can certainly embrace that idea.  Adventure means different things to different people of course.  For me it means accepting a little risk in life, seeing new places, trying new things, stretching myself in new ways and generally getting on with the business of living an interesting life.  But life is about balance, or at least that’s what we tell ourselves.  I’m okay with balance, but with the scales tipped towards adventure.  I’ll have time for balance when I’m unable to do the things that must be done.

    • The Meeting of Two Eternities

      It is true, I never assisted the sun materially in his rising, but, doubt not, it was of the last importance only to be present at it. – Henry David Thoreau, Walden

      “I have been anxious to improve the nick of time, and notch it on my stick too; to stand on the meeting of two eternities, the past and the future, which is precisely the present moment.” – Henry David Thoreau, Walden

      I’ve come around to Walden once again.  Thoreau to me has always been a distant cousin.  A kindred spirit.  A guy on the short list of people in history I’d have a beer or two with.  Some people just speak more clearly to you than others.  To pluck these two magnificent quotes from the same page of Walden demonstrates this.  Thoreau has spoken to me off and on for years.  The “off” years were solely my own distraction.

      It’s Sunday.  The beginning of the week.  I’ve missed today’s sunrise so I posted a picture from the last sunrise of 2018.  Sunrises infer a new day, and a fresh start.  But it’s also the sharpened edge of the past and the present, of the two eternities.  Isn’t that our lives as well?  We’re all witnesses to the present.  I’m particularly focused on what came before me, and look ahead with optimism to the future, but if I’ve been anything over the years it’s tuned to the now.

      Thoreau was an acute observer of the moment, but also an acute participant in the moment.  I aspire to be the same.  Writing helps with observation, as it forces you to notice things.  I’ve noticed more things since I’ve been writing this blog.  I’ve learned to listen to the voices around me, but also the landscape.  Participation comes with observation.  To see the sunrise you’ve got to get out of bed.  To walk through an old French fort from the 17th century you’ve got to know why it matters, where it is and then go to it.  To be a good father or friend or spouse or son you’ve got to be present in the lives of those who identify you that way.

      Observation doesn’t lead to participation, you’ve got to have the drive to do what must be done.  The floor is dirty?  Clean the floor.  A friend needs a shoulder and an ear?  Offer both freely.  The pipeline needs to be filled?  Make more sales calls and move opportunities forward.  Participation requires action.  Being an observer of life doesn’t equate to living.

      So I’m re-reading Walden.  I know already that I’m going to get more out of it than I did when I read it as an unfocused nineteen year-old.  The words didn’t reflect back to me quite the same way then.  But it meant a lot even then.  And more so now.  Everything has its time.

    • Now Comes Good Sailing

      Now Comes Good Sailing

      I’m not sure how I’ll go peacefully into the night, but I hope it’s a long time from now.  When my time comes I hope my last words are as interesting as those of Henry David Thoreau, who, in addition to saying “Now comes good sailing“, added “Moose” and “Indian“.  I’m no expert on Thoreau, but as I understand it he had visited Maine and seen both, and said it would be a lovely place to be buried.

      Thoreau is one of the many interesting people to have come out of Concord, Massachusetts.  Born in 1817, and dying in 1862, he lived a bold life in his 44 years.  Of the greats on Author’s Ridge at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery – Thoreau, Louisa May Alcott, Nathanial Hawthorn and Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thoreau died first.  Hawthorn followed him to the ridge two year later, Emerson twenty years later and finally Alcott in 1888.  There were other legends in Concord at this time, but these four shared a connection in life and the same ground in death.

      Environmentalist, abolitionist, surveyor, handyman, pencil maker, writer, traveler – it seems he would an interesting guy to have an speak with.  I’d love to have been canoeing with Thoreau and Hawthorne to hear some of their conversations.  I’d love to have been at the table at The Old Manse when Thoreau and Emerson got together.  When Emerson traveled Thoreau lived at Emerson’s house.  He lived on Emerson’s land at Walden Pond, where he famously wrote Walden.  He wrote about other places he’d visited – Mount Katahdin in Maine, Cape Cod, his journey up the Concord and Merrimack Rivers.  He also visited Niagara Falls, Quebec, Montreal, and other points in North America.  He never traveled overseas, and he never married.

      Walden was his great work.  The book that influenced me and so many others.  I’m overdue to read it again.  Like many books on my list it waits patiently for another day.  Thoreau might have pointed out that I’ve got to decide what to eliminate to give myself that time.  He didn’t have a television or a smart phone to distract him, but life in 1854 was not without distraction.  The nation was dividing and heading towards civil war.  People lived harder lives.  Henry’s brother died from a shaving cut.  And Henry died young too, but he squeezed immortality out of his 44 years.

      Now comes good sailing.  What an interesting thing to say on your death bed.  Thoreau was clearly interested in death and what awaited him on the other side.  I’m 6 years older than Henry was when he died and I’m in no great hurry to join him.  Will it be good sailing?  Time will tell.