Simplified (Jacob)

But Jacob had simplified, he had let his affairs be one or two things. He was an EMT working on his second business after an old girlfriend had stolen $73K from him and his partners, and he had moved back home to take care of an ailing father. He had simplified the house - cut down on its waste and carbon footprint, and aside from his writing and garden, there was work and there was his business, which he had built - literally - from the ground up. Four homes were done, and several more were blueprinted. All in a year. Thoreau, who lost his chance at love and marriage, would have had a hard time simplifying when the confinements of a married household were on him, or even if he had a live-in girlfriend, especially a gypsy like April, who not only broke Jacob's will and burned his heart, but who lied and stole her way into obscurity. Imagine if Thoreau had been kicked out of the Emerson household, or hadn't attended Harvard, or had slept with Lidian Emerson and fathered a bastard child with his hero's wife. What is Walden had frozen overnight and left him for dead - what then? Or worse - what if Thoreau, wife and children in tow, had settled for a factory job to feed and clothe his tribe? Thoreau had his tribe, but it was only comprised of friends and well-wishers. Like Henry David, Walter had suffered the death of a father and brother, but Thoreau would not have known what to do with a girl like Marie  or the problems of the 21st century. Most likely he would have, on second thoughts. What one thing or set of things could Jacob have avoided? Could he have avoided street racers and a gang that took his life? Could he have avoided the Hippocratic oath - even to save the man who would lead to his death? Jacob was Thoreau for all intents and purposes.