Walden

A few weeks ago some of the ladies from the ward here decided to start a Non church book club. The idea is that if it is not church sponsored people will come simply out of a desire to be there and not out of obligation due to various callings. We had a planning meeting and everyone brought a few suggestions of books we could read and then we voted. It was a lot of fun to see what kinds of books people have read and to get ideas for future readings. One of my suggestions was Walden. I have never finished it, though I started it once. I was hoping to use the motivation of knowing other people expected me to be done by a certain date, but alas, it was not one of the chosen. Keeping in mind that we had to narrow down a list of about 60 books to 6, one a month for the next six months, it is not surprising as more than one sister commented on how reading shouldn't be hard. They didn't want to be challenged in their reading time. One one hand I agree, I have several series of books that I own that are my "fluff" books. They are easy reads, simply for the joy of the story and a chance to escape into someone else's life for a time. On the other hand, this quote from Walden (not so coincidentally, since I decided to go ahead and read it on my own anyway) sums it up nicely.

Why has man rooted himself thus firmly in the earth, but that he may rise in the same proportion into the heavens above?

So while I heartily encourage easy reading, and thoroughly enjoy it myself, I must admit that I feel it is equally if not more necessary to read things that are hard. Things that make us question ourselves, what we think and force us to examine the inner workings of our hearts. It is very hard. It took me many months to read The Road Less Traveled, but it was worth it. I don't think it will take quite as long for Walden, but I expect to find similarly deep insight within the pages.

The beginning concept of Life in the Woods, was an experiment of self sufficiency and living a life so simple as to focus only on needs and thereby discover what any human truly needs. These needs are not just the physical, though that is well covered, but I think will extend into helping remind me how much of my daily life is really an unwanted chain that I have formed of my own volition to tie me to unnecessary objects that are of this world alone. Finding what it truly needed, in this case by reading a "hard" book, I believe I will gain a greater measure of happiness than I gain by reading my much loved fluff. So here's to reading, whatever you choose, may it bring you happiness, easy or hard.