Great post. I’m always curious about where one’s attention would go in such isolation, though that must vary from person to person, and if of course the isolation was total or intermittent. Does a person become more task-focused? Does the look and sound of surrounding nature (and any nature that moves into the cabin) take on a heightened character?
And that’s an interesting note about Thoreau’s bartering: for a guy who talked so much about ideals and individuality and going it alone, he was very practical as well as deeply woven into the fabric of his hometown (in his family, and also as a surveyor and general doer of odd jobs around town).
