A lot of great observations here, especially the parts about the cabin being a metaphor and the recognition that we have some control to essentially simulate that which we desire most out of the cabin in the woods, right where we are.
Thoreau has had an outsized role in my life, and I've written a fair amount about it (we even named our son Walden) along with Jon Krakauer's 'Into the Wild.' The desire to escape modernity is something I've reflected on a lot over the years and is interestingly always changing in my mind as I age. As I now see it, I think it has something to do with our innate desire for novelty and autonomy, but I think there's also something paradoxical here: Even if we could all escape to our imagined versions of the cabin in the woods, we'd perhaps find that the honeymoon phase might also soon fade, and we'd begin imagining another novel experience, one where we are trying to once again obtain our autonomy.
I think there's something to idea of the cabin in the woods as a phase of life, only to move on to a different phase later. That was definitely the case for Thoreau, as well as Edward Abbey and some of the other authors I read. Maybe we crave the cabin for a time, but then need something of the city back. Etc.
That said, my husband and I moved from San Francisco to Salt Lake City and I can't imagine going back to the city now. As I get older I feel like I need less and less of a city. So maybe by the time I'm in my 60s I'll legit live in a cabin in the woods.
Very true! I feel that way as well with our moves over the years from Colorado to Knoxville, TN and back home to Indiana. Knoxville was the perfect size city for me but I’m very content living in a relatively small town now where I live in a small subdivision with a nice little yard and garden.
I technically grew up in a cabin on a private lake, not exactly the spartan like Thoreau cabin but it was an amazing place to grow up with that level of freedom and be outside all the time hiking or fishing or splitting wood and I have to remind myself that it was a very fortunate upbringing and something I took for granted for awhile.
While in Tennessee we almost bought property and had plans to construct a yurt but the price wasn’t right. We still yearn for the yurt though so perhaps that’ll be a phase at some point for us. Thanks for the thought provoking read. 😊
Ok yes! I feel like if you've moved around a lot, it's telling where you wind up in the progression. And that's so interesting you started out with a more "cabin in the woods" upbringing, then had to up your city percentage before toning it back down!
My sister and I grew up in a cabin in the woods. It was an idyllic childhood. Still, we both balk when we hear people say, "I just want to live in a cabin in the woods." It is a far different lived experience than people imagine. I still crave it. As you query, "what is it we left behind..?" So speaking of WANT, I still am seeking that cottage in the woods that somehow is a one block walk to the cafe, stage, and farmer's market. Living in the modern world is like floating a river in flood stage. "What was that beautiful looking side canyon we just passed?" "I dunno, we flew by too fast," she replies. Perhaps this is why a record number of people are thru-hiking, whence an opportunity to stop and stare at the irridescence of a dragonfly for as long as you WANT.
I feel this. I used to joke that I was caught somewhere between Thoreau and Sagan — I wanted to fuck off to the woods and I also to do everything and see the Universe. So for me, it has often been more about ambition than material. Do I let the world go by or do I try to put my hand on the ball?
Also, American urban design has made this split feel more binary than is necessary. I have tried — really tried — to figure out where I could satisfy both my desire for access to nature and access to culture, and if someone has a good answer (that isn’t exclusive to the ultra wealthy at this point) I’d love to hear it. This is a result of policy decisions.
Yes, I feel the "village in nature a train ride away from a cultural hub" is really the ideal. Sort of the "satellite villages" idea from Ebenezer Howard.
I really enjoyed reading this. As it happens, I’m in Sydney, so maybe we’ll go see Diogenes this week. What we want (and why) does change as we age. I was last here 26 years ago, and the contrast with what I was after then is quite stark. Acquiring things, even souvenirs, doesn’t appeal as much as having experiences. Just taking it all in and, yes, marveling at where I am. The cabin in the woods — to live deliberately, as Thoreau said — is a good touchstone for all of us.
Oh how fun! Enjoy Sydney! And I so agree that things have shifted over time, I needed more city in my youth, but less of it as I get older. And new internet things that used to excite me don't anymore, I want off it 😊
My grouof sparrows at my condo have brought a bit out of the woods to me every day and a sense of Creation and consistency! And over 5 years have bcome like 50 little children! that feeling was left in the woods for many!!
The desire to escape to the woods may not be a desire to escape pressure, but to exchange one distribution of pressures for another. Modern life has reduced many direct pressures from hunger, cold, predation, and the natural environment, while intensifying another set of constant inputs: competition, evaluation, relationships, work demands, information, and uncertainty. The woods do not eliminate pressure; they reduce some pressures while reintroducing others around resources and the environment. What people may want to escape is not modern life itself, but a structure of pressure that is too dense, too continuous, and increasingly difficult to exit.
That rings true to me. Some (or, perhaps, many) pressures of our modern times also feel artificial, some kind projection of our collective mind, almost manufactured.
Could it mean that we have to find the right type of pressures that work for us, on individual basis, to find path to happiness?..
Pressure comes from the conditions of life’s existence.
Life must maintain itself. Maintenance requires energy, and energy must be continuously obtained from outside. Obtaining it requires position and ability, while positions and resources are also competed for by other forms of life. Obtaining resources is not completed once and for all. It must continue without interruption. An interruption in maintenance means an interruption of life.
The conditions of life’s existence force life to continue acting.
We feel that many pressures are “man-made” because, once pressure enters human society, it manifests through work, income, evaluation, positions, and relationships. Many so-called man-made pressures are actually the result of competition.
This is true. Would you rather feel the stress of monotonously being on your laptop everyday? Or the stress of getting over the mountain before it gets dark? More tangible stressors feel different to me.
Ahh, yes, the return to simplicity. As I read this on my large screen, I enjoy my coffee on a padded chair in a room kept at a comfortable temperature. Does this comfort make it easier to dream, or is it just another longing, and something else to have?
I certainly relate. I found a lot of relief in an 8 day silent retreat at a Benedictine monastery. Sometimes I tend to think in extremes: I either live in the city or want to be away from everything and everyone. But even a weekend in silence can do wonders.
Ooof I've had this same fantasy for years! I always envision myself in a cabin in upstate New York or living off the land in rural New Mexico. Completely agreed that we can cultivate this ourselves, it just feels so much easier dreaming about it in a new place off-grid.
Hermitage is not a word, or at least not appropriate to the meaning. As -age ending is noun forming, and hermit (person of the desert) is already a noun. Hermiterie, if we want to keep with French, or Hermetery if we want to anglicise it, would be more appropriate but doesn't sound as romantic as "hermitage." I think of "pilgrimage" and it makes me think maybe "hermitage" is right, as in the forming of a hermit. Either way, I hope you find what you lost while on your hermitage.
I'm not sure what you mean. A hermitage is a place where a hermit lives (someone who has withdrawn from society, usually for spiritual means), it's common among priests!
It's like healthful, decimate, or "literally," which have become accepted colloquially, but poor form gramatically, semantically, and prescriptively. Enjoy your hermitage, and call it whatever you want. 😎🌀🌌🐢
A lot of great observations here, especially the parts about the cabin being a metaphor and the recognition that we have some control to essentially simulate that which we desire most out of the cabin in the woods, right where we are.
Thoreau has had an outsized role in my life, and I've written a fair amount about it (we even named our son Walden) along with Jon Krakauer's 'Into the Wild.' The desire to escape modernity is something I've reflected on a lot over the years and is interestingly always changing in my mind as I age. As I now see it, I think it has something to do with our innate desire for novelty and autonomy, but I think there's also something paradoxical here: Even if we could all escape to our imagined versions of the cabin in the woods, we'd perhaps find that the honeymoon phase might also soon fade, and we'd begin imagining another novel experience, one where we are trying to once again obtain our autonomy.
https://thosewhowander.substack.com/p/on-youth-and-longing-to-escape-modernity-337
I think there's something to idea of the cabin in the woods as a phase of life, only to move on to a different phase later. That was definitely the case for Thoreau, as well as Edward Abbey and some of the other authors I read. Maybe we crave the cabin for a time, but then need something of the city back. Etc.
That said, my husband and I moved from San Francisco to Salt Lake City and I can't imagine going back to the city now. As I get older I feel like I need less and less of a city. So maybe by the time I'm in my 60s I'll legit live in a cabin in the woods.
Very true! I feel that way as well with our moves over the years from Colorado to Knoxville, TN and back home to Indiana. Knoxville was the perfect size city for me but I’m very content living in a relatively small town now where I live in a small subdivision with a nice little yard and garden.
I technically grew up in a cabin on a private lake, not exactly the spartan like Thoreau cabin but it was an amazing place to grow up with that level of freedom and be outside all the time hiking or fishing or splitting wood and I have to remind myself that it was a very fortunate upbringing and something I took for granted for awhile.
While in Tennessee we almost bought property and had plans to construct a yurt but the price wasn’t right. We still yearn for the yurt though so perhaps that’ll be a phase at some point for us. Thanks for the thought provoking read. 😊
Ok yes! I feel like if you've moved around a lot, it's telling where you wind up in the progression. And that's so interesting you started out with a more "cabin in the woods" upbringing, then had to up your city percentage before toning it back down!
My sister and I grew up in a cabin in the woods. It was an idyllic childhood. Still, we both balk when we hear people say, "I just want to live in a cabin in the woods." It is a far different lived experience than people imagine. I still crave it. As you query, "what is it we left behind..?" So speaking of WANT, I still am seeking that cottage in the woods that somehow is a one block walk to the cafe, stage, and farmer's market. Living in the modern world is like floating a river in flood stage. "What was that beautiful looking side canyon we just passed?" "I dunno, we flew by too fast," she replies. Perhaps this is why a record number of people are thru-hiking, whence an opportunity to stop and stare at the irridescence of a dragonfly for as long as you WANT.
I feel this. I used to joke that I was caught somewhere between Thoreau and Sagan — I wanted to fuck off to the woods and I also to do everything and see the Universe. So for me, it has often been more about ambition than material. Do I let the world go by or do I try to put my hand on the ball?
Also, American urban design has made this split feel more binary than is necessary. I have tried — really tried — to figure out where I could satisfy both my desire for access to nature and access to culture, and if someone has a good answer (that isn’t exclusive to the ultra wealthy at this point) I’d love to hear it. This is a result of policy decisions.
Yes, I feel the "village in nature a train ride away from a cultural hub" is really the ideal. Sort of the "satellite villages" idea from Ebenezer Howard.
I really enjoyed reading this. As it happens, I’m in Sydney, so maybe we’ll go see Diogenes this week. What we want (and why) does change as we age. I was last here 26 years ago, and the contrast with what I was after then is quite stark. Acquiring things, even souvenirs, doesn’t appeal as much as having experiences. Just taking it all in and, yes, marveling at where I am. The cabin in the woods — to live deliberately, as Thoreau said — is a good touchstone for all of us.
Oh how fun! Enjoy Sydney! And I so agree that things have shifted over time, I needed more city in my youth, but less of it as I get older. And new internet things that used to excite me don't anymore, I want off it 😊
Caverns with Wi-Fi and floor-heating are the latest hip ...
Have you considered volunteering or working in communities where this simplicity you crave is the way of life?
What kind of communities do you mean? Monastic?
My grouof sparrows at my condo have brought a bit out of the woods to me every day and a sense of Creation and consistency! And over 5 years have bcome like 50 little children! that feeling was left in the woods for many!!
The desire to escape to the woods may not be a desire to escape pressure, but to exchange one distribution of pressures for another. Modern life has reduced many direct pressures from hunger, cold, predation, and the natural environment, while intensifying another set of constant inputs: competition, evaluation, relationships, work demands, information, and uncertainty. The woods do not eliminate pressure; they reduce some pressures while reintroducing others around resources and the environment. What people may want to escape is not modern life itself, but a structure of pressure that is too dense, too continuous, and increasingly difficult to exit.
That rings true to me. Some (or, perhaps, many) pressures of our modern times also feel artificial, some kind projection of our collective mind, almost manufactured.
Could it mean that we have to find the right type of pressures that work for us, on individual basis, to find path to happiness?..
Pressure comes from the conditions of life’s existence.
Life must maintain itself. Maintenance requires energy, and energy must be continuously obtained from outside. Obtaining it requires position and ability, while positions and resources are also competed for by other forms of life. Obtaining resources is not completed once and for all. It must continue without interruption. An interruption in maintenance means an interruption of life.
The conditions of life’s existence force life to continue acting.
We feel that many pressures are “man-made” because, once pressure enters human society, it manifests through work, income, evaluation, positions, and relationships. Many so-called man-made pressures are actually the result of competition.
This is true. Would you rather feel the stress of monotonously being on your laptop everyday? Or the stress of getting over the mountain before it gets dark? More tangible stressors feel different to me.
Ahh, yes, the return to simplicity. As I read this on my large screen, I enjoy my coffee on a padded chair in a room kept at a comfortable temperature. Does this comfort make it easier to dream, or is it just another longing, and something else to have?
I certainly relate. I found a lot of relief in an 8 day silent retreat at a Benedictine monastery. Sometimes I tend to think in extremes: I either live in the city or want to be away from everything and everyone. But even a weekend in silence can do wonders.
Ooof I've had this same fantasy for years! I always envision myself in a cabin in upstate New York or living off the land in rural New Mexico. Completely agreed that we can cultivate this ourselves, it just feels so much easier dreaming about it in a new place off-grid.
Hermitage is not a word, or at least not appropriate to the meaning. As -age ending is noun forming, and hermit (person of the desert) is already a noun. Hermiterie, if we want to keep with French, or Hermetery if we want to anglicise it, would be more appropriate but doesn't sound as romantic as "hermitage." I think of "pilgrimage" and it makes me think maybe "hermitage" is right, as in the forming of a hermit. Either way, I hope you find what you lost while on your hermitage.
I'm not sure what you mean. A hermitage is a place where a hermit lives (someone who has withdrawn from society, usually for spiritual means), it's common among priests!
It's like healthful, decimate, or "literally," which have become accepted colloquially, but poor form gramatically, semantically, and prescriptively. Enjoy your hermitage, and call it whatever you want. 😎🌀🌌🐢
It may get to that point eventually. But I'm totally going into hermitage in the meantime 😅
Ah, I feel this so much!