Margen
In 1845 Thoreau moved to a cabin he built himself beside Walden Pond, in Massachusetts, to find out how much of his life was really his own. He stayed two years, two months and two days. He was no hermit: he went into town, he had visitors. It was an experiment in life-accounting.
His method was subtraction: pare life down to the essential and see what was left standing. He kept the books on every nail and every sack of beans, and his conclusion fits into a single word he repeats like a hammer: simplify.
Rereading it today stings more than it did then, because it has never been so easy to pile up commitments, subscriptions and noise. Walden doesn't ask you for a cabin. It asks you for a list of everything you pay for with your life and a question beside each line: did I choose this?