How to be more Henry David Thoreau in a lockdown

There’s an awful lot to not like about the social isolation policies that many countries in Europe are being forced to adopt for reasons of the Covid-19 epidemic. I usually walk a few hours everyday with an audiobook, can’t anymore, and not for the next three weeks either. The only walk I can make is to the nearest mercadona (supermarket) and back.

But there is an elegance to be found in the architecture or the landscape that you find along the way. A few days back I had to pickup a few things and could hear the sound of birds chirp. This time the vocalists didn’t have the car-noise backing track. It was just them.

These lessened noises can make someone more ponderous, and sometimes the sound can be crisper with a tinge of melancholy. I swear to you that gulls here make less noise now that they don’t have to compete with car horns.

“If I wished to see a mountain or other scenery under the most favorable auspices, I would go to it in foul weather, so as to be there when it cleared up; we are then in the most suitable mood, and nature is most fresh and inspiring. There is no serenity so fair as that which is just established in a tearful eye.”

Henry David Thoreau — The Maine Woods

A lot of self-help ideology is based upon the concept of ‘flow’ and increased performance with regard to work, but if you read Thoreau you’ll realize there is an immense value to focused recreation as well. When he went to the Maine forest he wasn’t…