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."
So wrote Henry David Thoreau in chapter "Where I lived, and What I Lived For" in that famous book everyone claims to know but few have tried to read, and fewer still have read from cover to cover, "Walden".
It is an often-quoted classic about an urban dweller moving to a rural place to live a better life (albeit temporarily in his case). It is an age-old dream, beginning with Epicurus (340BC to 270BC) who moved from Athens to the countryside so he could grow vegetables and live simply.
It gained momentum again through the COVID-19 lockdown which has shown just how cramped and uncomfortable life can be when you can't get out of the house. And if everything is closed, what is the point of being in the city and paying a higher rent or mortgage anyway?
So, if you can't get away from the city, and if reading Thoreau's "Walden" is heavy going for you, why not watch Katharine Hepburn and Henry Fonda in "On Golden Pond"? I can't give you the full-length movie, but the opening title music should be enough to whet your appetite:
