Thursday Thoughts...

"A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down, and commence living on its hint…What I begin by reading, I must finish by acting". 

David Henry Thoreau

So true I think of a really good book.  One that stays with you. That you keep on your shelf. Or by your bed. That you write notes from. That you return to. One that has its corners turned over as reminders. Where pink sticky notes stick out along the edges.

It is these sorts of books that I think are the ones that that get under my skin, that make me want to try to understand something better, so that I might incorporate it into my way of being.  These are the books with life lessons that mean something to me. They may be aspirational; they may be simple and direct. They may be the same as three other books I have marked in exactly the same way but which I keep failing to actually implement the lessons from.

I like the phrasing "living on its hint..."  I guess that would be another reason for keeping them around - the hint of something, perhaps out of focus or out of reach for now, which may become clearer the more we return to it or try to respond to it with actions.

This. Baking bread. 

Symbolic of all the books I read and keep about simplifying, having less, buying less. Of making more and creating more. Of a simpler life....