Over the years, I have frequently considered the words of transcendentalist author Henry David Thoreau, but it has been only recently that I decided to act on them. His most-often quoted passage describes his decision to live alone beside Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts: “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”
For reasons that I suppose shall be explained as I go, I too have decided to move away from friends and family, and find out what life can teach me. Admittedly, I will not live in isolation – quite the opposite actually – but this experience will be My Walden Pond.Thoreau also wrote, “I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes. If there is not a new man, how can the new clothes be made to fit?” I can say, with great certainty, that my enterprise will require new clothes, but I embark on it with the sincere hope that the result, nonetheless, will be a new man.
If you follow along on this journey, it is likely that I know you well, and, thus, have invited you to read this blog. It is also possible that you stumbled upon it by accident. Either way, as I add to this public record of my New Clothing Enterprise, I hope to be open and honest, even if painfully so. I also hope to be at least somewhat entertaining, perhaps even funny. And if all goes according to plan, I might even provoke thought along the way. I certainly hope the ending will be a happy one.
Soon, I'll be buying a new pair of jeans. And the odyssey shall begin...
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