The Minutes of The Day
Do I have to buy a Corvette now?
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I’ve generally assumed that when Thoreau wrote “most men live lives of quiet desperation…” he meant everyone should follow their passion, listen to their gut, etc. I’ve generally thought this because it’s what most people generally think he meant and what all of my teachers told me he meant. That combined with the false idols of contemporary American life; accomplished tech CEOs, parroting a Southpark-ish version of passion + grit = millionaire. Dig into something you love, commit to doing it long term, and it’ll work out. Thoreau spent two years at Walden Pond following his passion and here I am lamenting his writing 175 years later, so it must be true, right?
My wife and I took our daughter on her first vacation this weekend - a weekend in Lake Placid. We hiked, and cooked, and relaxed in a way we can’t do at home because, you know, the lawn needs a trim… We got away for my birthday and so surrounded by upstate NY’s vast open nature I found myself thinking a lot. Thinking about parenting, about being a husband, about the last year, and the years before that. And I found myself thinking about Thoreau and that quote - not because I feel quiet desperation (I don’t loudly despair for what it’s worth either) but because I’m a new-ish parent and “middle-aged” and those things make me feel time in a way I never have before.
I thought about another writer I love too, Sebastian Junger, who often writes and talks and makes movies about war. (Watch this if you feel like 15 minutes of perspective). Junger talks a lot about how people tend to miss war when it’s gone - primarily because it’s focusing and because it pushes people toward community. To paraphrase aggressively - the acuteness of war, fighting in it or being attacked by it, brings clarifying meaning to the minutes of the day.
The minutes of the day.
Without rereading Walden1 I’m not going to find out for sure if Thoreau meant to be on Walden Pond for two years but I doubt he meant to. I believe, I’m choosing to believe, that he decided being on Walden Pond was a fulfilling way to spend the next handful of minutes, or days, or whatever time frame he could clearly see forward to. Quiet desperation would have been thinking about the next two years - as would trying to define and commit to a passion before just taking action. What felt like a good way to spend some time on the other hand…
Junger’s retelling of War and of wars is similar. Soldiers aren’t focused on building a career - they’re focused on remaining alive - which is arguably the best possible way to spend the next minutes of anyone’s life.
Quiet desperation is saddling the next decision or decisions with the responsibility of your happiness. Happiness and perhaps even success rather is only allowing them the weight of the minutes they occupy.
If you’re reading this on the day I hit send, April 19th, you’re reading it on my 40th birthday. A day where I think a lot people think about things like the years behind and the years ahead and about things like legacy. I imagine the question “what am I doing with my life?” is a standard refrain.
I drove home from my weekend in Lake Placid though - on the last day of my 30s - thinking about minutes and about being immersed by the acuteness of them and planning to spend the first day of my 40s watering the lawn, hanging with my family, and enjoy the minutes.
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