When it becomes burdensome to live according to the pace of the world
I finally set out to find my Walden

A daily newspaper reporter who graduated from Seoul National University and holds a Ph.D. in educational psychology.
The author, who had lived as a so-called elite, found life, which was spent running forward without time to think, increasingly burdensome.
Whether you live as a journalist or a scholar, you have to give up your entire life.
Meanwhile, my husband, who was suffering from burnout, suddenly announced that he was quitting his job.
Now that things have turned out this way, I've made up my mind.
Right now was the opportunity to live a 'harmonious life', my own 'Walden'.

Their retirement became an experiment to see if they could survive by working only as much as they wanted.
He boldly took his children and left Seoul for the United States.
I started a new life in a small, old house built on a wide piece of land with a stream running through it.
I kept only what was necessary and made work and pleasure one.
Instead of spending quickly, I learned to enjoy things leisurely.
Then, even with just 1 million won, a family of four could live comfortably for a month.
We have found a way to be free from money without being completely independent from capitalism.
In this way, the author became a 'capitalist in the forest' who lived more freely and abundantly on the outskirts of capitalism.


"Capitalist in the Forest" is not a book for those who oppose capitalism or dream of becoming farmers.
This book provides a new perspective on life to those who live fiercely all day but are still lying in bed feeling anxious.
You can learn how to discover your own life by walking along the path of 『Capitalist in the Forest』.

It wasn't because of environmental pollution or money that we abandoned this method.
It was because of hatred.
The hatred I felt for these animals was a terrifying feeling I had never felt before in my life.
It was a despair so intense that it was incomparable to the rude people, noise between floors, mean bosses, and economic poverty that exhausted me in the city.
In fact, the crops dug up by these animals were worth very little in monetary terms.
Yet, I wanted to kill these animals right away.
The blood rushed to the top of my head, and my temples were pounding with rage.
So instead of hating deer and farming, we decided to live like deer.
I studied wild gathering.
Instead of cultivating anything to sell, they decided to make a living by growing wild vegetables and gathering them.
---pp.
25~26

Picking blackberries is a really stupid thing to do.
They get hurt a lot from being pricked by thorns, and the time spent on picking, washing, and freezing them is far less than minimum wage.
But the moment I pick blackberries is the moment when I can feel with all my senses how strongly connected I am to this Earth, how closely I am connected to all life on Earth.
I must gather food with my own hands.
And I have to experience firsthand how pitiful the amount of blackberries I worked so hard to harvest is.
---p.
28

At some point, your body will start to hurt.
The goal is to fully enjoy this time so that you won't have any regrets.
The purpose of living is not to prevent bad things from happening, but to enjoy every nook and cranny of life, even if bad things happen, and to live the life I would have lived if I could turn back time.

---p.
64

In modern capitalist society, which maximizes our desires and encourages almost limitless consumption, accurately and precisely knowing our own unique desires and needs actually reduces the fatigue of consumption.
If it's not something I really want, I won't have it, no matter how cheap it is.
No matter how much a value is praised by everyone, if I don't need it, I don't pursue it.
Among the overflowing knowledge, I am truly curious, so I only delve into what brings me joy.
---p.
86

Life is not arithmetic, so we cannot know the outcome of the time we spend today.
No one knows whether throwing away your weekends and immersing yourself in work will lead to a successful career, a lonely life, or both.
Only I know the choices I made in those moments.
So Thoreau said that all life is 'a miserable failure for personal reasons.'

---p.
109

When you grind wheat at home, it is not as uniform as commercially available flour.
There are differences depending on the drying and milling conditions of the wheat.
So, I used stable yeast so that I could adjust it according to the condition of the flour.
Instead, I reduced the amount of yeast to 0.5 grams for 700 grams of bread dough.
It was only possible after baking thousands of loaves and making continuous revisions.
When a fluffy texture similar to regular bread is created, the potential of wheat explodes.
The same amount of salt can taste completely different.
The subtle sweetness of wheat and salt also comes to life.
Here are some things to adjust for the best taste:
Flour temperature, water temperature, air temperature, how much the wheat absorbs water, how well the dough is kneaded, 24-40 hours of low-temperature maturation, oven temperature, how the bread is arranged in the oven according to heat flow, dough size, etc.
Even when everything is going well, there are times when things don't go well.
That's why it's fun.

---p.
121

The fundamental principle of life is to reveal our own shortcomings and imperfections to one another, to help one another, and to give ourselves to one another in order to repay that debt of gratitude.
But living in a society where money replaces all interactions, we often forget that fact.
We say, 'We don't want to cause trouble.'
It's easy to use the word 'nuisance' to others.
But our existence cannot be that perfect.

---p.
156

The reason we should try not to depend on others and try to be considerate of others is not because we are truly capable of complete independence or of helping others.
When people are alone, they lack the ability to solve their own problems, let alone those of others.
We are imperfect and so we naturally live relying on others.
Still, we must try.
To fail.
So that I can realize that no matter how hard I try, I cannot survive on my own and that I have to rely on others.
As we accept others with their imperfections and become more generous to ourselves, we gain the courage to lean on others.

---pp.
156~157

My eldest daughter, now a high school student, recently said she was curious about how people viewed her.
I replied that it was of little use to think about how people viewed me and to worry about their reactions.
When people look at others and judge them, they are always looking at themselves.
It is about finding your own self among the countless things that others have.
The more important question for us is always, 'How do I see others?'
My reactions to others most accurately reveal who I am.

---p.
166

Reading as I please is different from reading as I please.
Just as my body is my own, but it is also the accumulated trace of the entire history of mankind, so are my thoughts.
So exploring my thoughts is not that simple.
Because my thoughts are not isolated and my sole possession.
To let my thoughts run free, unburdened by the weight of experts or classics, is to consciously join the thinking already within me, shared by all of humanity.

---p.
202

Anything done with love and immersion can never be repeated the same way.
The moment I immersed myself in listening to my child's story today will never return, not even to my child or to myself.
Because it's not the same anymore.
So that moment is both the moment of our love and the moment of our death.
What humans fear in the face of death is fate.
But instead of turning away from death, we can practice death every time through love.
---p.
223

This book is not for naturalists or those opposed to capitalism.
It is not written for people who dream of becoming farmers.
Rather, it was written for those who live fiercely all day long but are overcome by anxiety when they lie down.
This book is for those who work for self-satisfaction, enjoy plausible hobbies, and relieve stress, but sometimes wonder if this is the right thing to do.

I hope that someone who lives each day with a sense of helplessness reads this.
To anyone who is struggling with a weary body and mind, I want to let them know that there is more freedom in life than they think.
And the beginning of that freedom could be today, the day you open this book.

---From the author's note