my so-called poverty

Today I head back to the land of Thoreau. I have missed Boston, although I know that winter is waiting for me with its icy grip. It has finally come to pass that I consider Boston more my home now than St. Thomas. You heard it here first.

Thoreau's blog yesterday (a special 150th anniversary entry) addresses his "so-called poverty", something that I think we have in common. I have to work for a living, and I hate that fact. No matter how engaging the work may be or how delightful the people or stimulating the environment, I still wish I didn't have to work. Though right now, I seem to be enjoying the golden combination of flexible schedule, interesting co-workers and challenging tasks. And I like the people it will most benefit. That's a nice change.

Again and again I congratulate myself on my so-called poverty. I was almost disappointed yesterday to find thirty dollars in my desk which I did not know that I possessed, though now I should be sorry to lose it. The week that I go away to lecture, however much I may get for it, is unspeakably cheapened. The preceding and succeeding days are a mere sloping down and up from it.

In the society of many men, or in the midst of what is called success, I find my life of no account, and my spirits rapidly fall. I would rather be the barrenest pasture lying fallow then cursed with the compliments of kings, than be the sulphurous and accursed desert where Babylon once stood. But when I have only a rustling oak leaf, or the faint metallic cheep of a tree sparrow, for variety in my winter walk, my life becomes continent and sweet as the kernel of a nut. I would rather hear a single shrub oak leaf at the end of a wintry glade rustle of its own accord at my approach, than receive a shipload of stars and garters from the strange kings and peoples of the earth.

I know what he means. Give me the simple life. Make me a bird and my house a nest. Would it be frivolous to say that my goal in life is to clear my head enough to hear the stars?