Disparate moments of free time here let my mind wander. I often wonder if I am missing out on advancing my career or accomplishing something substantial by being in Senegal. Then I read from Walden and Henry David Thoreau sets me straight.


"The mass of men lead lives of quite desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind."

"As if you could kill time without injuring eternity."

"When we consider what, to use the words, of the catechism, is the chief end of man, and what are the true necessaries adn means of life, it appears as if men had deliberately chosen the common mode of living because they preferred it to any other. Yet they honestly think there is no choice left. But alert and healthy natures remember that the sun rose clear. It is never too late to give up our prejudices. No way of thinking or doing, however ancient, can be trusted without proof. What everybody echoes or in silence passes by as true today may turn out to be falsehood tomorrow, mere smoke of opinion, which some had trusted for a cloud that would sprinkle fertilizing rain on their fields."

"When he has obtained those things which are necessary to life, there is another alternative than to obtain the superfluities; and that is, to adventure on life now, his vacation from humble toil having commenced."