First introduction to "Walden" - Economics

"Walden" is a masterpiece, and its brilliance may be precisely because of its simplicity. I have seen many readers buy this book with the same interest as me. After buying it, they put it away because of the obscure language. During the long period of time accompanied by the epidemic, I picked up this book again and read it carefully. After reading it, I found that the beauty of "Walden Pond" seeps out bit by bit, and the author of this book is like a local you met when visiting Walden Pond, chatting with you about his experiences. You can choose to remain silent about the things that have happened and the issues that you have thought about, or you can choose to have a heated conversation.

The author Thoreau lived in the small town of Concord in the United States, where the beautiful Walden Pond is also located. Thoreau's life was simple and pure. Except for co-running a school with his brother for a few years, his life was more about traveling. Thoreau was outspoken. He had done charity and admired simplicity, so he went to Walden Pond. The two years and two months of living there seemed to be an experiment on how to let the poor live a simple and comfortable life.

In the economic chapter, the author saw the farmers of Concord in the context of the United States at that time. They were "pecking under the hot sun", but there was always endless work waiting for them, allowing them to Unable to pick up the sweet jam in life with their curled hands, they were so pitiful and ignorant that they never thought that the farm tools, houses, cattle and sheep they inherited from their fathers, grandfathers, and great-great-grandfathers were just the means of imprisonment. Their chains prevent them from breaking free from the shackles of life. In modern society, people's desire for material things, especially their desire for money, seems to be the same. We exchange money for a lot of beautiful clothes, a lot of delicious food, and bigger and more spacious houses. We continue to make money, There is no end to making money; I used to think that only those of us 'poor people' with a monthly salary of four to five thousand would have such a big obsession with making money, but when I saw celebrities being exposed one by one for tax evasion, After receiving the compensation, I found that rich people seem to be more crazy about money than "poor people". Our needs are increasing. When clothes fill up our closets one by one, when food is thrown into the garbage, and when monthly payments allow us to live in spacious buildings, our freedom is also restricted by these things.

Thoreau considered that there are only four most essential needs in life: clothing, food, shelter and fuel.

The function of clothes is to maintain body temperature and cover the body, and the fashion of clothes is just a way for factories to make profits. It is a process in which a person's clothes are imitated by a group of people; Thoreau believes that clothes should be more Just like our skin, it makes us feel comfortable and difficult to replace. Of course, if we change new clothes, we have to shed their skin from the inside out like a snake sheds its skin and birds shed their feathers from the inside out.

Food is the food of the body and depends on it for three meals a day, but it is the least expensive among necessities; Thoreau recorded the food bill he consumed at Walden Pond, except that he was self-sufficient He only spent eight yuan, seventy-four cents on some food, which was just a pair of cotton trousers, a cotton top, a pair of cowhide boots and a cotton hat.

The role of a house is to shelter from wind and rain, and it is also the basis for our emotional warmth. However, with the advancement of social civilization, we have also given up the joy of building our own houses, giving this joy to carpenters, and then We rely on rent to live in a spacious and clean palace-like house, but little do we know that the houses built by barbarians at a very low cost bought them more freedom, while civilized people need half their lives to pay off their debts. , and finally paid it off, but the house became his prison.

Fuel keeps us from freezing to death when the weather is cold, just like food is fuel for the body. Thoreau gave the example of Darwin’s expedition to Tierra del Fuego, where a group of them wore thick cotton jackets in front of a fire. They didn't even feel hot even when they were warming themselves up to the fire, but the naked barbarians were already sweating profusely even when they were standing far away. Fuel may bring us a lot of convenience, but "can't the strength of savages and the wisdom of civilized people be comparable to each other?".

When Thoreau pointed out that the necessities of our life are only food, clothing, fuel and shelter, luxury life becomes just having more and more fine clothes, more and more abundant food, bigger More spacious houses and hotter and longer-lasting fuel; returning to the essence of life, our needs are actually very few, and the expansion of desires will only make us more tired, just like the three limestones placed on Thoreau's table, every day Needing to be wiped, Thoreau finally threw it out of the window; to avoid unnecessary fatigue, maybe we will have more time to read.

Our society seems to be progressing, but it seems there is no progress. When capital, vanity, luxury, and nihilism obscure the original appearance of life, can we, like the ancient philosophers, seek inner peace?