I Don't Want to Talk About Wars Between Nations (Not Right Now)

I've been on vacation; a good, long vacation. My vacation was the kind where I started out contemplating the moral poverty of the world and 10 days later was mostly concerned with the angle of the sun on my lounge chair and the temperature of the water in the pool.

I guess even on vacation I was always aware of the extravagant luxury of my life. I knew I was literally swimming in water while my sister Lily gathers water 10 times a day in her jerrycan. But I was also able to live in the moments of abundance: abundance of grace and love from Casey and the boys, of leisure time, of safety, of freedom, of food, of intellect... Okay, just threw that last one in for fun, but my point is I have a lot of a lot and vacation was wonderful.

My reading for the trip was Henry David Thoreau's "Walden" and "On the Duty of Civil Disobedience." Works I was well aware of by a guy I vaguely admired, and literature I suddenly felt the need to read (for reasons that will become clear in later months).

Turns out, HDT is pretty awesome. It's not light reading, and as my brain steadily vegetated over the 10-day vacation his 1850's prose grew denser by the day. But HDT was dedicated to a few ideals that I aspire to, and he practiced and wrote about them with passion: a desire to live simply and resist consumerism and materialism, the preservation of and human interdependence with nature, transcendentalism and our duty to act on our conscience. Good stuff. A simple book review would never be adequate, but his works will be infused in my thinking and writing for several up-coming topics.

Now vacation has ended and my regular life resumes. But that's certainly no complaint.