Thoreau excerpts ripped off from another blog:

An update, even a plagiarized update, is better than nothing!


"I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion."

(What is interesting in this account of what it is to "live deep" is that it seems to advocate narrowing and simplifying life in order to truly experience it rather than attempting to live a broad and varied life (though cutting a "broad swath" is just this, it goes on to "shave close"). The fullest life, therefore, is one of simplicity and discipline. The idea of reducing something to its "lowest terms" is something I'm thinking a lot right now, especially in art and theatre but also in life.)


"We meet at very short intervals, not having had time to acquire any new value for each other. We meet at meals three times a day, and give each other a new taste of that old musty cheese that we are. We have had to agree on a certain set of rules, called etiquette and politeness, to make this frequent meeting tolerable and that we need not come to open war."

(Okay, I really just like the old musty cheese metaphor! But really, the idea that we meet at short intervals sticks out to me and I think this is why I find living with people so fascinating--they become perhaps less interesting, but more honest in a fundamental way. The wittiest, most charming lives full of adventure are still things of monotony 99% of the time. The idea that lengthy time apart allows us to "acquire...new value for each other" is something I feel like I'm a test subject for. Certainly a lengthy time apart from my old friends has changed my relationship with them, although I think that since we are all of an age when we are changing daily my interactions may be changing because of this rather than because of time apart to ferment new value. Certainly I have become closer to some and drifted from others. In the end I guess, like all pithy statements, this one captures the human condition better than most: imperfectly.)