To Thoreau or Too Thorough?

To Thoreau or too thorough?

Let’s Taco About Books 4

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately.” Was that Thoreau? I forget. I’d look it up, but I’m in the woods right now. I left the circus. I’m out here. I am Thoreauly in the woods. I’m outchere and I won’t be back until I have to be, which is Friday night. When we see that quote from Walden, we often focus on the woods. When we think of the woods, we have some images or ideas that comes to mind. Sand and dirt and leaves and lakes and fish and pine trees. Mud and dust and banana spiders. A duck or two. Wind you can hear coming. That’s the woods more or less. Give or take some sunshine.

But instead of focusing on the woods, what if we taco bout the word deliberate? What does deliberate mean? Measured? Cautious? Thoughtful? On purpose? On whose purpose? Does deliberately come from the same place as deliberation? Like originating from the same word as the verb to deliberate? And to live? What does that mean? What if I’m not living enough? Or, living too much? How do I live more? Do I need a balance? More of a balance? How would I know?

Does going to the woods to live deliberately mean you turn the volume up or down? If so, on what? Up on the deep breaths? Down on the internet? Up on the silence? Down on the noise? Up on the acceptance? Down on the judgment? Maybe if I keep asking, I’ll find out. What does the word deliberately really mean? And what does it mean to live that way? Does it mean having no distractions? No Wi-Fi? No outside interference? Being disconnected could be deliberate if you did it deliberately. I guess. But it doesn’t really work to describe a word with the word itself. That’s why we have other words. So what does it mean to live deliberately? When we do so, do we clear out all minor purposes and focus only on the big stuff? And what’s the big stuff? It can’t be work. Well, it might be, but it definitely cannot be working for someone else. For most of us, if we quit our jobs tomorrow, our positions would be filled by the end of the week. One missing monkey doesn’t stop the circus.

Maybe being deliberate is doing the thing that does stop the circus. You can’t have a circus without having an audience. Maybe we need to be the audience. But if so, to what? What are we watching? The woods? Deliberately? Maybe we need to forget where the circus is instead of taking it with us wherever we go. Circuses don’t last forever. They come to town; they show out. They break down. They leave. The woods have seen a bunch of circuses come and go.

Maybe it’s all about a flip of perspective. Maybe living deliberately is pretending you’re the woods, seeing you.