Paint a picture

I am reading Walden by Thoreau and it is fascinating how much can be taken from it and applied today.

He writes this book from a state not unlike our own. The area around him is more or less like our own state of commercialism and high consumerism with little regard for self worth and what we need to survive. He decides to go out into the woods and is mocked by his contemporaries for doing this. His choice to not live in the city and use all the conveniences both upset and disturbed his neighbors.

I found one part very reachable in todays terms - " if one would live simply and eat only the crop which he raised, and raise no more than he ate, and not exchange it for an insufficient quantity of luxurious and more expensive things,then he would only need to cultivate only a few rods of ground, and that it would be cheaper to spade it then to use oxen to plow it, and to select a fresh spot from time to time than to manure the old,..." " and thus he would not be tied to an ox, or horse, or cow or pig"

Seems to be saying. Live within your means and dont allow yourself to be tied down to "The Man" as it were. Sadly, the basis of our culture has become that you are " supposed" to be tied down with all of these trappings. This is normal. Living within your means is now "bad". Mostly its all the credit companies that I would call the " cows and pigs and horses". They are the means by which we increase our our material trappings outside of our natural abilities to get them. Tend to our needs ourselves and stay within them.