THE WANDERING ESSENTIALS

The wanderer follows the guidance of Henry David Thoreau, who moved to the woods for a year to determine what made for a fulfilling life. His intent was to “live deep and suck the marrow out of life” and to, as he put it, “live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” This is also the quest of the wanderer, to live deliberately, to be awake, to figure out what our soul thrives on.

One of the most important conclusions Thoreau came to is that we actually need very few things. He approached material goods from the perspective of how little can we get by with rather than how much can we acquire. This paring down and questioning is also the path of the wanderer.

If it is true that we value soul life above everything else, then at some point we must consider the value of our time over the need to make money. Money does not help us to develop our soul. Of technology Thoreau wrote, “Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things.”

How little do we need to lead a life that feeds our soul? What if we altered our value system so that priority was placed on soul-enhancing endeavors such as skill building, self-sufficiency, exploration, research, mind-expanding tasks? Imagine how different our society would be if we placed priority on these things instead of wealth creation, technology, and material acquisition.

The relinquishment of the need to make more money than we need allows us the greatest freedom.

What if you needed something and could build it for yourself out of things that you already had around you or things you could easily acquire? This is possible.

Once our bases are covered—food, shelter, clothing—we have everything we need. How little can you live with?

Instead of following the path outlined by society, we can find alternatives.

If you are interested in clothing and fashion, could you learn to make your own or alter existing clothing as opposed to buying new things?

If you need a chair, could you teach yourself to make one? What are the most basic requirements of a chair? Does it have to be in the form that society tells us? Some of the most interesting spaces are created out of a need to use readily available materials.

As wanderers, our goal is to pare down our essentials to as few things as possible. The questions we should ask ourselves with each thing are “Does this add to my idea of a soulful existence?,” “Do I love this object?,” “Will this object add to my life or will it weigh it down?,” “Does this object help me in my pursuit of a wanderer’s lifestyle?”

“How can I embody Thoreau’s mandate to ‘live deliberately’?”