Following up on last time, I want to say a little more today about Thoreau’s asceticism. Individual statements taken in isolation seem to convey mixed messages. “He who distinguishes the true savor of his food can never be a glutton; he who does not cannot be otherwise,” he writes. OK, so it’s not about food, but how you enjoy it. But a little later he laments “this slimy, beastly life, eating and drinking.”
I think the key sentence occurs just a bit earlier: “Who has not sometimes derived an inexpressible satisfaction from his food in which appetite had no share?” It’s the part about satisfying a physical appetite that somehow lowers the satisfaction from some ideal state to mere animal nature. A bit later he writes, Continue reading
The Curious People 