Is not disease the rule of existence? There is not a lily pad floating on the river but has been riddled by insects. Almost every shrub and tree has its gall, oftentimes esteemed its chief ornament and hardly to be distinguished from the fruit. If misery loves company, misery has company enough. Now, at midsummer, find me a perfect leaf or fruit.I know that Thoreau and Emerson were familiar with some Eastern philosophy. I wonder at this entry and its parallel with the first noble truth. Life is suffering. Decay is endemic to life. I suppose that close observation of nature would inexorably lead one to the understanding of the cycle of life and death. And I don't mean the idea, but the visceral understanding.
What if everybody got to pull a Walden?
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