Forest - Henry David Thoreau

Based on a passage of ‘Where I lived and What I Lived For’ by Henry David Thoreau

Ever feel like you’re bored with your monotonous life? Relax. Follow my footsteps. Go live in the woods. No joke. I’m being completely serious. I wanted to find out what it was like to live a Real Life, with only what we were intended  to use, like a complete nomad. Call me crazy, but I want to experience living that’s absent of material wants, with only what nature has to offer. I want to lead a life as deep as the groundwater beneath us, and as sturdy as the great redwoods. To live a life so full that I feel like I might burst if I speak to another being. To feel the weight of the rain and the wind and the stars and to accept all of what Mother Nature provides to me with open arms. That profoundly intense feeling that you’re full of Real Life, that’s what I want. To squeeze the Real Life in my hands like an orange until it is only the most concentrated, powerful parts of itself, and, if Real Life isn’t kind to me, I’ll throw it on the ground and stomp on it with my boots, chase it up the mountains and scream in its face, and ask the Real Life why it is so full of man-murdering destruction, why it chooses chaos instead of its peace, and publish that nastiness so the whole world knows how what a bully Real Life really is, undisguised— like a celebrity exposé in a gossip column. But, if my experience with Real Life was great, I’ll write a 5 star review on the Life version of Yelp, if there is one. Then, when I go on my next trip, I’ll be sure to let everyone know how hospitable Real Life was. I’d do this because I feel like a lot of guys are on the fence about whether Real Life is good or bad, and just choose, by default, that it is a supremely terrible thing to look up to God in the heavens and admire Him in all His glory. Ha! How absurd is that?