It’s the birthday of transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), who spent about two years living in the woods at Walden Pond and ten years writing about it.

Thoreau was born in Concord, Massachusetts, graduated from Harvard in 1837, and worked as a teacher for just two weeks because he was terrible at discipline. He then helped his older brother run a school for several years until his brother died of tetanus. (See? That really happens. Wear shoes. Get shots.) After that he worked in his family’s pencil factory and as a surveyor.

Thoreau’s fellow Concordian Ralph Waldo Emerson lent him land to live on at Walden and also introduced him to transcendentalism. When his book, Walden, was first published in 1854, the critics and public alike said, “Meh.” The book put forth Thoreau’s effort to live in absolute simplicity and solitude, omitting everything “that was not life.” He went on to decide that nearly everything most of us enjoy—food, drink, conversation with friends, reading newspapers, having curtains, having a sense of humor, the occasional Frappuccino Chip from Starbucks—was not necessary.

Not mentioned in Walden was the fact that Thoreau had weekly visits from family (who brought food) and plenty of other guests—but other than that, he lived in total, absolute solitude. And he feels that you should, too. (There are also rumors that his mother did his laundry.

Thoreau died of tuberculosis at the age of 44. Sales of Walden picked up after his death and it is now considered one of the great classics of American nonfiction.

Journalist Kathryn Schulz wrote in this article right here, “But ‘Walden’ is less a cornerstone work of environmental literature than the original cabin porn: a fantasy about rustic life divorced from the reality of living in the woods, and, especially, a fantasy about escaping the entanglements and responsibilities of living among other people” (“Pond Scum: Henry David Thoreau’s moral myopia,” The New Yorker, October 19, 2015).

Have a splendid Thursday, make sure your tetanus shots are up to date, and stay scrupulously honest to the data.