by Robert LaFrance
One of the greatest influences in my life has been the writing of Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) whose most famous book, Walden, is almost (I said almost) like a bible when I want some advice. After all, I grew up in the Sixties and now I’m in my sixties; it’s time to listen once again to his advice.
One his greatest pieces of advice was: “Simplify, simplify.”
In 1845 he decided to do just that and last week I did the same thing. He moved from the town of Concord, Massachusetts to a cabin in the woods near a lake called Walden Pond and stayed there for over two years. A similar thing happened to me in 1980 when I left the city of Tilley, NB, moved to the smaller urban centre of Birth Ridge, NB, and then, four years later, moved to the rural community of Kincardine, which is part of the Scotch Colony. Then last week I simplified again.
NOTE: Nobody told me when I moved here that the word ‘Scotch’ referred to an ethnic group rather than a kind of lemonade, but I’ve made do. At the lemonade store I simply (hear that Thoreau?) tell them I’m from Tilley.
What happened last week was that I got rid of my TV remote control. “Simplify, simplify” came the voice of Thoreau as I flung (flang?) that remote control into the garbage bag. Before long I felt I was getting closer to ‘back to the land’ as I got up out of my chair—several times—and walked over to the television where I manfully and manually (digitally, you might say) changed the channel. I could feel the healthy blood coursing through my veins. It felt good.
Then my friend Flug came over to watch the game. Manchester United was playing Chelsea FC on one Sportsnet channel and Manchester City was going to play Tottenham on another. “Got the chips and lemonade all set to go?” he asked, as he settled into his favourite chair which, luckily wasn’t mine or we would have had words.
It was soon evident that when I had thrown away the remote control I hadn’t thought the whole thing through. Thoreau wouldn’t have made that mistake in 1845 as he sat in his one-room cabin near Walden Pond. I don’t know where he would have had his fridge sitting in relation to the TV, but I am thinking he would have been more efficient than I was. By halfway through the first half Flug and I were more exhausted than the football (soccer) players we watched. First it was walking all the way out to the kitchen for lemonade several times (I think it was 29), for chips, and then, to make matters worse, walking all the way over to the TV every ten minutes to check on the other game.
My 2012 experiment in simplification was abject, wretched and dismal. What would Thoreau have done?
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately,” he wrote way back them, “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.” It seemed that I had more to learn about living ‘deliberately’, and not accidentally, which I had been doing.
Move the fridge into the living room next to the TV? Dig the remote control out of the garbage can where I had flung (flang, etc.) it? Or turn over an entirely new leaf, appropriate enough in springtime, and get rid of TV, fridge, and even my beloved iPod Touch and its ability to listen to live radio from Saskatoon at two o’clock in the morning? Maybe even go outside and take some exercise?
Whoa! One thing at a time.
“Simplify, simplify,” wrote Thoreau. “Instead of three meals a day, if it be necessary eat just one. Instead of a hundred dishes, five, and reduce all other things in proportion.” That one meal a day business is the spot where Henry David and I part company, but otherwise his advice to simplify seems like a winner. Our newest car has a gauge to show us when the inflation in one of the four tires is low, but it doesn’t say which one. My son’s car shows exactly which tire is down on air, so I was thinking we could trade. That is, until I heard a distinct rumbling from the direction of Concord, Massachusetts.
“Why should we live with such hurry and waste of life?” he asked. “We are determined to be starved before we are hungry. Men say that a stitch in time saves nine, and so they take a thousand stitches today to save nine tomorrow.” I couldn’t have put it better myself. By the way, I see that my wife has thrown out the garbage and my remote control. Thoreau would smirk. On the other hand, perhaps existentialists aren't allowed to smirk.-end-
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