Thoughts, rambles, and bullcrap...

The assignment was to rewrite the famous Thoreau passage provided below in as wordy a fashion as possible. I am ashamed by the outcome. I realize nobody’s gonna read this, most likely, due to its length, but I want to preserve its obnoxiousness…

I went to the woods because I wished to 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. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and to be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.

My Version:

I ventured to that sylvan landscape with the explicit purpose of satisfying and fulfilling my abiding, driving, passionate desire to make my existence in a deliberate, purposeful fashion. I traversed that arboreal scene to front only those tidbits, those facts of this mesmerizing journey we call life or living that are absolutely necessary, essential, and crucial. I explored that wilderness wonderland to discover if it were not beyond my efforts to acquire what primal knowledge of existence this magnificent, ancient canopy could offer to my questing mind. I undertook this endeavor because I cannot stand to contemplate what I should feel if, when I come to expire, to sever this mortal tie, I should discover my existence on this earth, which I had thought to be vivacious and virile, was not life at all, but merely a passive keeping-on. I had no desire to exist in any way that was merely a biological or physical form of life, because was far too intrinsically crucial, to vitally wondrous to my mind, my heart, and my soul. I would not be capable of living with my own self if I should ever realize that I was practicing any sort of resigned, unsatisfied, and yet complacent lifestyle, unless I was driven to such an unspeakable existence by an utter and complete lack of any alternative actions.

I wanted to subsist on the marrow, the purest, most undiluted essence of vitality; to thrive so aggressively, so passionately that any semblance of non-life, any semblance of complacency, any semblance of resignation were driven from my person like horses before the whips, like an army so totally routed that all pretense of discipline is cast aside and they flee, en masse, in a desperate attempt to escape their fate. I wanted to sample some portion of everything life had to offer and to leave my mark, my calling card on this mortal frame. I wanted to such life to such a brutal enjoyment that I left it cowering, curled in the corner, reduced to its most basic and essential qualities, because I wanted to know which those were,

And if it proved to be somehow less than a paragon of wonder, well, at least I would have discovered and experienced that myself, and, were that unfortunate discovery the case, I would publish its deficiency, displaying it for all the world to see. Should it, however, prove to be sublime, i would have found this to be true through my own experience, my own striving, and my own passionate quest for that very sublimity, which would only prepare me with the grasp, the understanding of life, as well as the language to describe it upon my next excursion into the wooded hall of instruction and mental expansion.

mikemaaa asked: say..what is that thing you were smoking out of??

Assuming you mean the general apparatus, it’s a hookah, or a water pipe. They smoke flavored tobacco soaked in honey or molasses (called shisha), and filter it with a basin of water at the bottom. You use coals on top to burn the tobacco, and the filtered smoke then feeds through a hose.

Assuming you meant the giant white hose tip that I have, it’s a Mystique Ice Hose Tip. It contains several small bags of liquid, which you freeze. It then deliciously cools the smoke as it passes over and between the ice packs, which makes it much more enjoyable, in my opinion. You can find them over at Hookah-Shisha.com