the more we give the less we become.

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thoreau, walden pond, and me:

I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there. Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more live to live, and could not spare any more time fore that one.

This passage struck me in perhaps a different way than the author intended. It reminded me rather forcefully of the impermanence of life—just as Thoreau may have had several more lives to live, I too want to do so much. I want to grow indefinitely and cultivate my intellect without limitations of age and the fear of passing on to death. Instead, I am destined to grow for a considerable amount of time before once again wilting, shriveling and crawling closer and closer to the end of my life. I know that I will never be able to experience all that I want to and that one life is not enough; perhaps I feel so strongly about this because of my age—I am so young and thus it appears to others that I have time in order to accomplish what I aspire to. However, I am painfully aware of my youth and therefore acutely perceptive to the passage of it, the fact that it is slowly slipping out of my grasp and that far too soon it will be over. As Thoreau stated, there is not time enough to spare on only one aspect of life. If I could I would live over a dozen lives; this world, albeit corrupt and sinful in so many ways, holds too much to discover in only one lifetime. Being mortality is very cruel to keep us from obtaining as much experience and knowledge as we wish—the mind has endless potential; the only hindrance that I can perceive is time, the lack of it and the speed with which it escapes us.







wearing the scarf that an old love gave to me, i breathed in cold mist and wondered how such affection fades, what compels someone to let go and allow what meant so much to fade.



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