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Thoreau: All By Himself, a la Shmoop. Have you ever longed for the simple life?

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Have you ever wanted to trade in your high-falutin' gadgets for a hoe, a garden, and a green thumb?

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We haven't either.

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But there are those who think that our society is too busy, too complicated, and disconnected

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from nature.

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Take, for example, Henry David Thoreau, who dropped everything so he could go live in

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the forest for two years. Thoreau wanted a place where he could write

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in peace, and where he could live out his fantasy of simple living and self-sufficiency.

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So, in 1845, he decamped to Walden Pond.

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It's true that Thoreau spent a lot of time wandering through the woods, communing with

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nature.

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Apparently, he had a Disney princess period, where he sang to small forest creatures and

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carried on entire conversations with deer.

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However self-sufficient Thoreau imagined himself to be, he wasn't really a loner.

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His cabin in Walden Woods was situated on property owned by his BFF, Ralph Waldo Emerson.

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Because he was still within spitting distance of his hometown of Concord, Massachusetts,

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Thoreau constantly received invitations to dinner parties and barbeques and potlucks

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and square dances.

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He went to all these events, of course. Just because you're living the simple life doesn't

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mean you have to say no to free food.

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In fact, Thoreau was so not removed from civilization during his stay on Walden Pond that, one day,

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he managed to run into his friendly neighborhood IRS agent.

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After refusing to pay his taxes, Thoreau ended up in jail. Now that's self-sufficiency you

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can admire. While Thoreau never really achieved the simple

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life he was so enamored of, Walden… the book that chronicles his experiences in the

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woods…

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…has inspired many people to dream of living off the land.

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The modern movement towards self-sufficiency is called homesteading.

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Think for a moment about that term. Do primitive cabins in the middle of the vast prairie come

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to mind?

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Does watching your herd of cattle freeze to death or your crop blow away in a dust storm

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occur to you?

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Do you think of horrible illnesses like the smallpox and dysentery?

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Those obstacles were what American homesteaders of the past had to overcome.

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Today's homesteaders, whether they live in the country or in an urban area, make products

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to sell at farmer's markets and may have access to high-end gear like solar panels.

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They have ATM cards, cars, and can go buy a pint of Ben and Jerry's whenever they want.

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Wanting to be more self-reliant is admirable, but modern homesteading isn't as straightforward

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as it seems.

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If you're keeping a blog about your homesteading adventures while baking a cake in an electric

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oven and running your whites through the dryer…

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…can you really say you're unplugged from civilization?

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Can you truly say you're enjoying the simple, self-sufficient life?

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This was the same problem Thoreau encountered.

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He was kinda, sorta, not really off-the-grid during his stay on Walden Pond.

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Sure, he got back in tune with nature and gathered the material for a book that really

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does have some interesting things to say.

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But he didn't achieve the brutal self-sufficiency of those pioneers who homesteaded places like

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Kansas and North Dakota.

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Reaching that level of self-sufficiency would have required more than a quiet vacation by

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a New England pond.

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