Wednesday, July 04, 2018

AMAZING COINCIDENCE JULY 4TH 1845---JULY 4TH 2018

173 years ago on this day Henry David Thoreau moved into his self-built cabin on the shore of Walden Pond.  Here's what he and  it looked like:

                                                                               Image result for thoreau picts



I owe more to this man than I can ever repay.  He said things that let me look at life, myself, society, nature, freedom in a new way.  Things like this: " Why would you work your whole life to have a tiny bit of freedom at the end of it----when you could adventure on life now--if you could learn to live frugally.
I count a man rich, not according to how much he can afford to own, but how much he can afford to leave alone.  Simplify, simplify.
Advance confidently in the direction of your dreams and you will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
Most men lead lives of quiet desperation.
I went to the woods to live deliberately--to front only the essential facts of life.  To live deeply and suck all the marrow out of life. And not when I come to die discover that I had not lived."
This and a hundred other quotes I find inspirational.  Here's one the movie people found so charming that they recorded it as an outtake from the movie:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUA7fyTucS8 .

SO WHERE'S THE AMAZING COINCIDENCE?  GLAD YOU ASKED!

About a 100 yards from where I sit writing this was a stunning surprise as I took my morning walk.
Here's a picture of what I came upon at the edge of a little stream and a stand of trees: 

Hard to believe my eyes---but there it is.

A replica of the very thing I was writing about.  I went close to confirm the measurement.  Sure enough---10ft x 15 ft--the dimentions of Thoreau's cabin.  No one lives there at the moment and it is not yet complete,  I asked around the area and learned that the builder lives in Boulder and his name is Schuler.

My heart tells me that the Builder is also a fan of Thoreau and is constructing this replica out of respect to him.  Perhaps he plans to follow Thoreau's example and write a great book while living
 here.  

Thoreau lived in his cabin 2 years 2months and 2 days while he was writing WALDEN--a book that unbeknownst to him would be in every great library in the world.  Thoreau died at age 44 of TB and is buried near his friend RALPH WALDO EMERSON in Concord, Massachusetts.  Emerson was perhaps the most famous man in America when he hired Thoreau as his handyman.  How surprised he would likely be to know that his handyman would become as famous as himself and likely more loved.  He delivered Thoreau's eulogy.

                                                                                When Thoreau left his cabin, some reportedly jibed that if living in the woods was so great, why leave it?  Thoreau's answer is as classic as you might expect from him, and I invite you to use it as I do to explain why I am moving on to a new thing.  He said:  I leave the pond for as good a reason as I came:  I HAVE MANY MORE LIVES TO LEAD AND COULD NOT SPARE ANY MORE TIME FOR THIS ONE.