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Hi, this is AJ again.
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Welcome to the next lesson.
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This week’s lesson is called “Walden.”
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And we’re going to talk about a book with
the same name, Walden, by a writer named Henry
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David Thoreau.
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Now Thoreau is probably my favorite American
writer, I guess maybe my favorite writer in
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general.
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He wrote back during the American Civil War,
prior to the American Civil War, and his book
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Walden is his most famous book.
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Now it’s quite difficult.
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There’s a lot of big vocabulary in this
book.
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And also the writing style is kind of old,
very, very, very formal English and a little
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bit of an old style of English.
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So I’m going to read one paragraph from
the book and then I’ll talk about it more.
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And that paragraph may be quite difficult
for you, but don’t worry.
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I’ll explain it after.
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Now, Walden, the book, is about an experiment,
an experience that Henry David Thoreau had.
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He decided to go and live in the woods.
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Go away from the town where he was into the
woods, into the forest, and then build a very
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small little simple house and live in it by
himself.
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And just think and relax and live a very simple
life.
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And then he wrote a book about this experience.
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Now, of course, this is something that people
have done for centuries and centuries, holy
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people, religious people, spiritual people,
philosophers.
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In many different periods of history, in many
different locations in the world, they’ve
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gone off by themselves to some small remote
place away from other people to think, to
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live simply.
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And of course we have a lot of great intellectual
breakthroughs from these people.
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So it’s a long tradition to do this and
Henry David Thoreau was following the same
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tradition.
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And it’s not a usual thing for Americans,
I would say.
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He was maybe one of the first Americans to
do this and write about it.
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I’m sure many did it but he wrote about
his experience.
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And this book is a book about his experience,
his experiment, but more so it’s a book
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about his philosophy, a philosophy of life
that he developed while living in the woods
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alone.
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And the main part of this philosophy is to
live simply.
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That in fact we don’t need so much in terms
of things, buying things, getting lots of
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things.
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So even at that time in the United States
people were always trying to get more, more,
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more...bigger, bigger, bigger house...more,
more, more money...more, more, more nice furniture.
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Just always buying things and of course today
we have more, more, more computers and iPods
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and phones and bigger cars and nicer stuff.
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All the time people want more, more, more.
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And he was saying this is a source of unhappiness
if you’re always trying to get more and
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more and more you will never be happy.
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And so his idea was actually to be happy with
what you need and then focus on doing other
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things.
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Instead of always trying to get more, more,
more, live more simply and you will have a
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lot of time for yourself.
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You’ll work much less.
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You’ll enjoy your life.
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So that is the basic philosophy of Henry David
Thoreau.
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It’s also a very Buddhist or Taoist philosophy.
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A lot of different religions and spiritual
practices have this similar philosophy.
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So anyway, let me read this paragraph about
his experiment and then we’ll talk about
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it a little more.
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Here we go.
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I learned this, at least, by my experiment:
that if one advances confidently in the direction
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of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life
which he has imagined, he will meet with a
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success unexpected in common hours.
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He will put some things behind, will pass
an invisible boundary; new, universal, and
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more liberal laws will begin to establish
themselves around and within him; or the old
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laws will be expanded, and interpreted in
his favor in a more liberal sense.
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In proportion as he simplifies his life, the
laws of the universe will appear less complex,
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and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty
poverty, nor weakness weakness.
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If you have built castles in the air, your
work need not be lost; that is where they
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should be.
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Now put the foundations under them.
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Okay, that is the paragraph.
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What does it mean?
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Let’s talk about it.
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I’ll go from the beginning and discuss the
meaning of this.
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Now the beginning part he says if one (it
means someone) advances confidently (strongly)
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in the direction of his dream (of their dream),
and endeavors (and tries) to live the life
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they have imagined, they will meet with a
success unexpected in common hours.
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What that means is if you try to live your
dream you will be successful.
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You’ll be surprised that if you really are
confident and strong, you say “I will do
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this,” whatever your dream is, whatever
your big goal is, if you just start working
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towards it and trying to get it that you’ll
be surprised at your success.
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You will succeed.
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It will be less difficult than you imagined.
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And then he talks about, y’know, new laws
will open around this person...what he’s
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saying is that the universe or God or the
Tao, whatever your belief is, that it will
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help you.
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That in fact, that the more confident you
are, the more strongly you try to get your
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dreams, you will get help.
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Things will happen to help you.
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Y’know, if you’re religious, y’know,
maybe you think God is going to help you.
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But God’s going to wait until you are confident,
until you actually try to live your biggest
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dream.
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And if you do that and you keep trying and
you’re strong and you believe, then God
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will give you help.
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And if you’re not religious and you don’t
believe in God, maybe it’s, y’know, the
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Tao, or the force of the universe or, y’know,
maybe it’s your unconscious mind that’s
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going to give you that help.
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Whatever it is, some force or forces will
help you.
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You won’t be alone.
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That’s what he’s saying.
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So he’s basically saying to have faith,
believe.
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Believe in your dream.
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Try to get your dream and if you do it you’re
going to succeed.
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It’s going to be easier.
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Things will happen to help you.
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So that’s the first part of the paragraph.
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In the second part of the paragraph he says
that the more you simplify your life, the
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easier life becomes, that’s what that means.
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In proportion as you simplify your life the
laws of the universe will appear less complex.
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What that means is the more you make your
life simple, the easier your life becomes.
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Everything becomes easier.
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It’s easier to succeed.
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It’s easier to do everything.
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You have less stress in your life.
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Everything becomes much, much easier the more
your life is simplified.
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And then finally he says if you have built
castles in the air, your work is not lost.
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That’s where they should be.
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Put the foundations under them.
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Castles in the air, I’ll talk about this
in vocabulary, but castles in the air just
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means dreaming big.
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It’s a slang phrase, an idiom actually,
and it just means if you build castles in
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the air, to build castles in the air, means
to dream big, right?
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You’re not building a house on the ground.
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You’re building your house up in the air.
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You’re dreaming a big dream.
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He’s saying that that is great.
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That’s fantastic.
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You should dream very, very big.
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Don’t have small dreams.
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Have really big dreams.
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He says but the next step is you must do something.
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Don’t just dream.
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Just dreaming is not enough.
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If you dream only, nothing will happen.
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He says you have to put the foundations under
the castle, under the house.
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That means you have to take action.
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You have to take action.
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You have to dream a really big dream, that’s
the first step.
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But the second step, you have to take action.
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You actually have to work to get that dream.
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So he’s saying yes, dream big, but also
take action.
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Alright, so that is the end of the Walden
main story here.
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I hope you enjoyed it.
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Walden is a fantastic book but I warn you,
it is quite difficult so reading the whole
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thing might be very difficult for most non‐native
speakers.
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In fact, it can be a difficult book even for
native speakers.
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But I hope you get a little bit of the idea
of Walden and of Thoreau’s philosophy just
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from this paragraph alone.
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Okay, see you in the vocabulary lesson.
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