Ever since I started reading Walden, I’ve been thinking a lot about independence and self-sufficiency. The book covers the two years that Henry David Thoreau spent living in a cabin that he built himself near Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts. Although I’m not very far into the book yet, I’m still enjoying reading it and learning about Thoreau’s thoughts on society, humanity, and simple living. I’ve done a lot to simplify my life, including gradually moving away from materialism, so I wanted to read about Thoreau’s experiences with a simpler lifestyle. As I expected, it’s put a lot of things in perspective for me and made me think differently about a number of subjects.
Thoreau mentions that he was able to build his cabin for about the same price it would have cost him to rent a house or an apartment for a year. Given that the book was first published in 1854, I suspect that indoor plumbing, electricity, air conditioning, heating, and other things that now make housing quite expensive would make it much cheaper to live simply in the woods than to rent an inexpensive apartment for a year. Besides the reduced cost of living, you’d also gain a lot of independence from not being connected to a grid or under the control of a homeowner’s association or a landlord. Being as self-sufficient and independent as possible would allow you to live incredibly freely and make it much harder for other people to control you. The longing for more freedom and independence are what motivate some people to move into a secluded area and start an off-grid homestead so that they can live as they see fit.
Modern societies depend on a lot of incredibly complicated, vulnerable systems. If one of those systems collapsed for an extended period of time, then things would quickly start unraveling. Imagine, for example, how people would react if they went to the grocery store and saw empty shelves in every aisle. How much food does the average person keep in their house, and how good are they at growing, hunting, or finding food? Most people nowadays have little to no survival skills because, quite simply, they don’t need them when things are going well. Personally, I’d be in big trouble if I had to acquire my own food, water, and shelter for more than a few days. Someone who is an expert at surviving long-term without depending on modern technology or on other people to do anything for them stands a much better chance than I do of getting through a societal collapse.
This brings me to the question I posed in the title: how much is enough? For survival purposes, a lot of knowledge and a decent amount of resources will suffice. The more resources you add, the more comfortable and luxurious your life will be, and the less you’ll have to depend on survival knowledge or skills. I can see the value in being able to live off the land with hardly any man-made resources for extended periods of time. That’s a necessity in simpler societies and can still prove useful when emergencies occur in more complex societies. On the other hand, I can also see value in specialization and division of labor; I’m glad that I don’t have to rely on my own skills for food, clean water, or shelter, which gives me more time to pursue my interests in a way that might otherwise be extremely difficult. I think it would be beneficial for me to continue simplifying my life while simultaneously learning more basic survival skills. That way I can still enjoy some of the benefits of modern society alongside more personal freedom and the ability to survive if things start going downhill and modern conveniences fail. I think that would let me live in a way that I’d find satisfying and fulfilling while also still fairly comfortable and convenient. Whatever your thoughts on these subjects, I hope you’ve found this post interesting and thought-provoking and I will see you next time.