I believe that men are generally still a little afraid of the dark, though the witches are all hung, and Christianity and candles have been introduced.

I feel a certain affinity to Henry David Thoreau. I can share a lot of his thoughts on solitude, nature and the society, even with the 150 years (or something to that effect) between us.

He sounds like a grumpy old luddite when he claims that we should simplify our lives and refuse the comforts of modern living standards and new forms of transport. Sometimes I am exactly like this: I hate having to learn how to use some new thingamajig, and I complain how I’ve been perfectly happy before they invented it.

I also agree on his ideas about solitude. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been a hermit. As soon as I made friends on the first grade at school, I started making excuses so I didn’t have to spend every day with them. I just needed a lot of time alone, and I still do.

The only reason it is a problem to me is because it’s a problem to everyone else, or so it often seems. The society cannot approve the fact that people sometimes prefer being alone to keeping company with others.

I don’t hate people. I don’t hate having company. I enjoy being around people, a lot too. But for some reason, my  natural instinct always tells me to seek solitude. Being around people for too long at one time makes me very nervous. And honestly it also makes me a really annoying person, and since others don’t deserve that kind of treatment, I try to prevent that.

A very small part of me envies Thoreau for his life style. He built himself a cabin away from the town, by a little pond. He explains how little money you need to earn if you don’t crave luxuries in food and living. After he’s taken care of his beans and vegetables, he spends the rest of his time on educating himself by reading. Such a simple, satisfying life – until I realize that they didn’t have Tampax back then.

He mentions that some Latin classics haven’t been translated into English yet – in the 19th century! I wonder how come he’s so well educated himself. He scolds his fellow men for not being very well educated. Sound like a familiar complaint?

Postscript. I know this post is kind of random, but I wanted to blog something, and I haven’t been doing anything else lately but reading Thoreau and playing Mass Effect.

Yeah. Sad.