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Order this writing that appears in the one-of-a-kind anthology The Paths Less Traveled the Down in the Dirt September-December 2022 issues collection book		get the 422 page September-December 2022 Down in the Dirt 6" x 9" ISBN# perfect-bound paperback book:

The Paths Less Traveled

Mark Pearce

    I’m sitting by the fireplace on this cold and snowy morning, reading “Little House on the Prairie.” But no, I’m mistaken–it’s not “Little House.” It’s a piece written by my friend Katie, who is homesteading on the Colorado plains. She’s recounting her morning of warming her little home with heat from the wood burning stove. Of going out into the snow to check on her chickens, and breaking their icy water. Of looking for goats that have strayed, and watching horses that have escaped from a pasture to the north and are now galloping across her land.
    There have always been those who have harkened back to a simpler way of living. I’m reminded of Thoreau and Walden Pond, Bronson Alcott and his different experiments in living. Even Plato longed for a simpler time and bemoaned the urbanization of his own age.
    People used to live like Laura Ingalls. Then Thomas Edison was born. It has been said that modern technology is indistinguishable from magic. And it’s true. I’m a veritable wizard in my home. I control the weather with a thermostat. I choose the exact degree of temperature, and the fire in my fireplace is merely decoration to add a cozy ambience to the room. The sun rises and falls at my whim with the flip of a switch. I press a button and a screen shows me live events happening around the world. I press it again and summon troupes of actors to entertain me. When I tire of this diversion, I make them disappear, leaving me once again to the coziness of my solitude. On the homestead they read a book, perhaps by firelight, perhaps by oil lamp. My Kindle holds libraries to rival Alexandria and can be carried with me wherever I go.
    But as I sit here, wielding the powers bestowed upon me by the Wizard of Menlo Park, I think of my friend Katie, maintaining her homestead on the Colorado plain, and I contemplate the paths less traveled.

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