Most dreamers are quitters.
That thought took shape in my conscious mind when, in yesterday’s post, I said, “This is the life I always imagined,” which itself is a nod to Henry David Thoreau.
I quote Thoreau’s Walden often. The direction I’ll take here today also is one you’ve seen before. But the subject is front-of-mind for me right now, and since you’re reading my public journal, this is what you get.
To lay the groundwork for what I want to say, I’ll start with this paragraph from Walden’s “Conclusion” (highlighting mine):
“I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings. In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.”
The first part of that passage is quoted (and misquoted) more by the starry-eyed and the vapid than by people who actually get it. They’ll fixate on the phrase “to live the life which he has imagined,” ignore the rest and totally miss the point.
They think it’s about the dreams. It’s not.
Read the passage again. Notice the words Thoreau chooses. Advance. Endeavor. Simplify. He speaks of building foundations.
That’s not dreaming — it’s action. It’s effort. It’s work. Dreams without work are mere imaginings, mental masturbation producing nothing of value or consequence.
We are not who we say we are. We’re not what we believe or who we want to be. We are what we do, what we accomplish, what we achieve, what we produce. Rewards belong to doers, not to those who take refuge in dreams.
Thoreau tells us what he learned. And he commences the lesson with the word “if.”
If we advance. If we endeavor. He implies that unless we put foundations under our “castles in the air,” they’ll be lost.
He also names the prize — we get to “live with the license of a higher order of beings.” We become better people.
Does that make us superior to incurable, do-nothing dreamers? Of course it does.
After almost 69 years on Earth, I’ve passed Thoreau’s “invisible boundary.” I’m here to tell you that he was right about everything.
It’s like finding out that heaven is real.
Go ahead, dream your dreams. Then, if you want to live them, don’t quit. Advance. Endeavor. Put the foundations under them. Work your ass off.
Believe me, it’s worth it.
“I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself than be crowded on a velvet cushion.”
Henry David Thoreau
I unlocked the shed and backed the Ranger down the ramp 15 minutes after Thursday’s first light — early, even for me. My energy was flagging. I knew that I probably had one good burst in me before I slumped, maybe for the rest of the day.
Late Wednesday afternoon, I’d stumbled across a standing hickory snag behind the shed. About 15 feet tall and clearly rotten at its 10-inch base, I was able to push it over with one hand. I grabbed the 20V chainsaw and probed the wood with a few test cuts.
To make a long story short, only a seven-foot section in the middle of the trunk was solid enough to be useful. I got six rounds out of it, which I hauled up to the wood yard yesterday.
I had no trouble splitting it for stacking. I struck a slower-than-usual pace, trying to preserve whatever stamina I had as well as soaking up the joy of a bright, clear dawn.
The image below captures my view from the chopping block:
I paused again on my way back to the shed to marvel at the golden glow on Hall Mountain:
All of it was time well spent.
I scooped up my happy Heeler and headed for curbside pickup at Walmart in Flippin — first time in four weeks. When we returned to The Mountain, I put our groceries away and then crashed on the bed.
I woke up three hours later. Still not great, but better.
Smudge got some off-leash time late yesterday afternoon. She rewarded my confidence by feigning deafness.
On the bright side, while chasing her through the woods I found a little more firewood worth harvesting. And then I saw this:
I came back with the saw and took what I could — which, as it turned out, wasn’t as much as I’d hoped for. Still, it was something.
There was a little splitting to do…
…followed by stacking, of course.
Another productive day like that and I’ll be done. That’s a good feeling.
Take care of yourselves, Patriots. Stay calm. Stay sharp. Stay free.
#WiseUp #LibertyOrDeath #Ungovernable