Bone marrow, snowflakes, and drums

Dance. Sit. Disappear. No one else can hear your music.

For 2 years, 2 months, and 2 days, Henry David Thoreau lived in a $28 house.

His goal? To “suck the marrow out of life.”

To do so, Thoreau went off the grid, building a tiny shack on the shores of Walden Pond, where he caught fish, took walks, and watched wildlife.

He also wrote, read, and wrote some more.

That writing became Walden, an 18-chapter reflection that carries perhaps more reputational weight than any book in history, leaving us to remember Thoreau as a great American author instead of an eccentric hermit.

In one of the final paragraphs of Walden, Thoreau sews up his 784 days of solitude in one thought:

“Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.

“Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.”

None of us hear the same music.

So none of us should step in time with each other.

The concept of human uniqueness has taken on a surreal dichotomy in the past decade as the word “snowflake” has been saddled with political connotations.

“You’re not special. Quit acting like it.”

And I get that message. None of us are special.

In his book, “A Short History of Nearly Everything,” Bill Bryson illustrates how tiny we really are.

“Stretch your arms to their fullest extent and imagine that width as the entire history of the Earth. On this scale … the distance from the fingertips of one hand to the wrist of the other is [the Precambrian era.] All of complex life is in one hand, ‘and in a single stroke with a medium-grained nail file you could eradicate human history.’”

So no, broadly speaking, none of us are special.

But we are all different.

And in the context of our lives, being different is more important than being special.

Political angling aside, you are a snowflake. You are a chaotic combination of cords, tied together in the best way you know how — sometimes carefully and sometimes hastily.

You are a product of your environment, of your experiences, of your education. Despite the fact that hundreds of billions of people have come before you, not a single one can 100% relate to your perspective.

Or your goals.

Or your life.

You are you. And no one else has ever had that experience.

So why should you accomplish the same goals as anyone else?

Why should you follow the same timeline?

Why should you march to their music?

When Henry David Thoreau decided it was time to “suck the marrow out of life,” he isolated himself to a shack in rural Massachusetts.

For many, that wouldn’t be thrilling.

For Thoreau, it was everything. And it’s why we know him today.

Only you can hear your music.

Step to it however you want.