Changing Friday from Black to Green
“Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations.”
What could be more latter-day American than spending 1/365th of a year on gratitude, with an immediate return to consumption and SALES SALES SALES the very next day?
We don’t know how to sustain gratitude. We browse the racks of appreciation but refuse to bring it home. We shortchange ourselves in the process because appreciation is the beginning of worship and worship is a gift that blesses Creator and creature simultaneously.
Appreciation has always been priceless – and free for the taking.
Trouble is, we can’t appreciate without being present. Appreciation prompts us to notice what is and ignore what may or may not be missing. It asks us to reflect, take inventory, look for the good and savor the beautiful within and around us. To resist comparison and envy, to pause human doing and return to human being. We must wake up and stay awake – a terrifying proposition for those who worry they might be wasting their lives on meaningless diversions. Much easier to keep skittering along the surface, avoid introspection and keep filling ourselves up with knickknacks and distractions.
I don’t mean to say there’s anything wrong with buying and owning. The world as we know it turns on value, even in nature’s economy. Capitalism, applied consciously and ethically, seems to work better than most economic frameworks. Our problem is that we try to satiate eternal desires with disposable goods and forgettable experiences.
“As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.”
– Thoreau
So this Friday, I’d like to give you an alternative to the slashed-price gizmos that’ll be obsolete in a few years. Instead of Black Friday, let’s make it a Green Friday in honor of Walden Pond and the man who memorialized its green woods and blue-green waters.
From now till this Saturday at midnight (EST), I’m offering $25 off Walden combo packs and $15 off singles. That’s $175 for two books or $95 for one.
You can either:
Follow these pre-loaded links to the discounted combo pack or single book option (automatically applied at checkout), or
Paste GREEN_WALDEN_COMBO or GREEN_WALDEN_SINGLE into the discount field at checkout.
The New Walden comes installed with the following features:
Pages you can touch, that sound like wavelets on a sandy shore as you turn them
Words you can read, without the glare of backlighting
Pictures that don’t appear or disappear at the whims of an algorithm or its attention-gobbling overlords
Archival, sustainable materials that will last for centuries and won’t shit up our planet
Annotations that are more reliable than Wikipedia
No advertising, no notifications, no recurring fees, no batteries or charging required and no need for upgrades until the end of time or Silicon Valley, whichever comes first...
...All lovingly designed, printed, foil-stamped, numbered, sewn, glued and bound into the best interface ever conceived: a book.
The New Walden is for:
Christmas, Hanukkah, Festivus, anniversaries, birthdays, days
Shelves, offices, coffee tables, hands, eyeballs
People who love the great outdoors and people who love looking at the great outdoors from indoors (hi Mom!)
Thoreauvians, bibliophiles, design lovers, art lovers, bookshelf-fillers, philosophers, poets, malcontents, introverts, extraverts moonlighting as introverts, Neo-Transcendentalists, Post-Industrialists
People who want to support small businesses, books made in Germany, Steel Brothers and/or Matthew Steel
People who don’t like Matthew Steel, Steel Brothers, Germany or small businesses (what kind of monster are you?) but dammit, that book’s just so beautiful
People who’ve been meaning to buy The New Walden but keep getting attacked by squirrels, ADHD or squirrels with ADHD
Here’s Thoreau himself on the value of a good book. Emphasis mine:
“A written word is the choicest of relics. It is something at once more intimate with us and more universal than any other work of art. It is the work of art nearest to life itself. It may be translated into every language, and not only be read but actually breathed from all human lips; – not be represented on canvas or in marble only, but be carved out of the breath of life itself. The symbol of an ancient man’s thought becomes a modern man’s speech. Two thousand summers have imparted to the monuments of Grecian literature, as to her marbles, only a maturer golden and autumnal tint, for they have carried their own serene and celestial atmosphere into all lands to protect them against the corrosion of time. Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations. Books, the oldest and the best, stand naturally and rightfully on the shelves of every cottage. They have no cause of their own to plead, but while they enlighten and sustain the reader his common sense will not refuse them.”
Get these words and more, housed in a handsome blue-green slipcase, at our online shop. And don’t forget to grab your discount code:
GREEN_WALDEN_COMBO // GREEN_WALDEN_SINGLE
Till next time, I hope your days are filled with a wealth of appreciation. I’m thankful for each and every one of you.
Matthew