Like many writers and college students pursuing a useless degree in literature, I was once enamored by Henry David Thoreau. When I first read “Walden Pond”, I was convinced that he had discovered some universal truth about creativity and the secrets to a happy existence. “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately,” Thoreau wrote. “To front only the essential facts of life and see if I could not learn what they had to teach.”

Yes, I thought, he’s got the right idea. I’d like to live in a cabin, too. I want to cast off the shackles of the modern world and spend my days eating foliage, reading by candlelight and writing, writing, writing. Oh, what bliss that would be!

~ Walden Pond is for suckers