✂️ Simplify, Simplify: What Thoreau Can Teach Us About Less
Why doing less might be the most powerful move you make this year
In this post:
🧹 Discover the radical simplicity of Walden
⏳ Learn tiny ways to reclaim your time and attention
📖 Reflect on minimalism as a reading practice
Welcome back to Literary Fancy! This month’s theme is Nature & Renewal — and we’re exploring how the natural world (and the words that describe it) can help us slow down and reconnect with what matters.
Our April Book Club Pick is Walden by Henry David Thoreau — a poetic, provocative journal of the two years he spent in a one-room cabin by a quiet pond in Massachusetts.
Paid Literary Fancy Members receive:
A 30-Day Walden Reading Guide
A rich Companion Guide with author insights, journaling prompts, and more
So if you’re looking to immerse yourself more deeply, this is a perfect time to join.
In a noisy, distracted world, the classics offer a return to stillness.
Settle in. Take a deep breath. Let’s rediscover the lost art of mindful reading together.
"Our life is frittered away by detail... Simplify, simplify."
You may have heard that quote before — but it hits differently when you’re reading Thoreau by lamplight with your phone in the other room. His call to simplify wasn’t about aesthetics. It was about survival of the soul.
💡 What Did Thoreau Actually Mean by "Simplify"?
He didn’t mean declutter your pantry or buy beige linens (although, go for it if it helps). Thoreau was talking about:
Reducing your mental load
Removing excess commitments that rob you of peace
Refusing to live on autopilot
Asking: "What can I live without—and still thrive?"
He cut out the noise. And in that silence, he listened—to frogs, to birds, to his own thoughts. And now, 150+ years later, we still hear his echo.
"It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?"
🧘♀️ 5 Tiny Ways to Simplify This Week (Inspired by Walden)
📵 Put your phone in another room during your next reading session
🕯️ Light a candle and read just one paragraph slowly
✍️ Copy down one quote into a notebook
🍃 Go outside and describe what you see in one sentence
🧺 Say no to one thing that’s not essential
Let one of those small actions create a ripple.
📚 Reading as a Minimalist Practice
Thoreau wasn’t against reading, but he was against rushing through it. To him, real reading was a spiritual act. A mirror. A teacher. He encouraged us to:
Read fewer books, but read them deeply
Revisit the same passages more than once
Let go of the pressure to consume and instead absorb
Minimalist reading is a permission slip. You don’t have to catch up. You just have to show up.
This post is public — feel free to share with someone who might need a little less hustle and a little more clarity.
See you next week, when we explore how books can rewild the soul. 🌲
With calm,
Karen
