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| Photo by Rusty Boxcars |
The
great philosopher and writer Henry David Thoreau said that he wanted to live
deliberately, so he conducted what he called an "experiment in
living" by going to Walden Pond and building a cabin. As Thoreau says in
the opening of Walden,
"When I wrote the following pages, or rather the bulk of
them, I lived alone, in the woods, a mile from any neighbor, in a house which I
had built myself, on the shore of Walden Pond, in Concord, Massachusetts, and
earned my living by the labor of my own hands. I lived there two years and two
months."
I
often think how nice it would be to live like Thoreau did during that period of
his life, to leave behind the rat race of modern civilization and spend my days
sucking out “all the marrow of life.”
The
problem, as we all know, is that no one in today’s world can so easily escape
that rat race. For one, we cannot afford to escape. We are tied down by
our financial obligations. We have to pay ever-increasing health insurance
premiums, gasoline prices, food prices, doctors’ fees, etc. After all, nothing
is going down in price. Everything is getting more and more expensive. And that
includes the price of housing. Granted, some homes have decreased in value
because of the sub-prime mortgage fiasco; but if you’ve been paying attention,
I am certain you have noticed that houses cost a small fortune today. Even the
most modest of homes is often unaffordable for many people.
And that brings me to my point. Thoreau built a modest cabin on Walden Pond. It was “tight-shingled and plastered.” It was 10 feet wide and 15 feet long. It had a “garret and closet, a large window on one side, two trap doors, one door at the end, and a brick fireplace opposite.” Thoreau also built an adjoining woodshed. Plus, although he purchased some materials, others, like timber, stones, and sand, he “claimed by squatter’s rights.” He also kept a detailed log of all associated expenses. And in the end, his total financial outlay was the huge sum of $28.12½ cents. That’s right, $28.12½.
And that brings me to my point. Thoreau built a modest cabin on Walden Pond. It was “tight-shingled and plastered.” It was 10 feet wide and 15 feet long. It had a “garret and closet, a large window on one side, two trap doors, one door at the end, and a brick fireplace opposite.” Thoreau also built an adjoining woodshed. Plus, although he purchased some materials, others, like timber, stones, and sand, he “claimed by squatter’s rights.” He also kept a detailed log of all associated expenses. And in the end, his total financial outlay was the huge sum of $28.12½ cents. That’s right, $28.12½.
Do
you have any idea how much it would cost Thoreau to build the same cabin today?
I read not too long ago that the average cost per-square-foot to build a modest
house is roughly $100. So, if you want to build a cabin 10 x 15 feet, that’s
150 square feet, if I’m doing my math correctly, which means the same cabin
today would cost Thoreau approximately $15,000. Not bad, you say, even by
today’s standards. But be honest; do you really want to live in 150 square
feet? Heck, most people today have bathrooms larger than that. And now that I
think about it, maybe that’s the real
reason why no one today—including yours truly—will ever go to the woods to live
deliberately. Unlike Thoreau, we have yet to learn that “a man is rich in
proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone;” and that
includes houses bigger than bathrooms.
