To Read & To Write

“If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.” – Henry David Thoreau As it turns out, Henry David Thoreau, considered by many to be a quintessential American writer, is not as quaint as I may have originally believed. My initial impression of Thoreau was just that – an initial impression - which did not keep me from reading one of his most famous works, “Walden”, even when I came across his more personally disagreeable ideals. The best places to go are places where one does not have to purchase any new clothes, he writes, or the idea that one should maximize (if you will) the concept of minimalism itself. I love clothes as a form of expression as do I love objects (particularly related to artistry), so his ideas seemed *quaint* to me. However, as I started to really contemplate Thoreau’s “Walden”, it became clear that Thoreau actually set a great example in that he came at the world, and the peop...

“Educated: A Memoir” by Tara Westover, is the harrowing account of one girl’s journey in rebuilding herself as an individual apart from the girl who was emotionally and physically abused during childhood and teenage years. It was Tara Westover’s biological family, who prided themselves on an extreme form self-sufficiency and self-reliance that claimed all government ties as work of the devil, who perpetrated this abuse. Despite this, Tara’s early years were not without beauty. Growing up next to a massive mountain her family nicknamed “The Indian Princess” for its changing colors during the warmer seasons, rural Idaho was an almost sacred landscape to roam wild and free in, as well as a grand backdrop to contemplate existence itself: “Of course I *did* exist. I had grown up preparing for the Days Of Abomination, watching for the sun to darken, for the moon to drip as if with blood. I spent my summers bottling peaches and my winters rotating supplies. When the World Of Men f...