270), but not "enough for effective intellectual exertion" (pg. 270). These people slumber as they walk, consistently running on autopilot, never truly experiencing full awareness of the world around them. They rush through life with their eyes closed.
Those who rush too quickly through their lives, like the ones who forsake the morning hours, often have their minds cluttered with noise. One culprit causing this subconscious clutter, in Thoreau's opinion, is the local news. In "Where I Lived and What I Lived For", Thoreau speaks of the pointlessness of local news, because the majority of the updates you receive are nothing more than frequently occurring events that should already be expected in day to day life. Thoreau tells his readers just what the "news" really is: gossip.
According to Thoreau, keeping to ourselves would have more than one benefit. Not only would we have a chance to spend time studying our own minds, we would also eliminate the need for excessive communication and the labor it requires to maintain the mediums for said communication. The post office is one of these methods of communication that Thoreau says he could easily live without. It's a system where one pays "a penny for [someone's] thoughts" (pg. 273) , but very rarely is anything of substance actually relayed. In the end, all that's communicated through letters is simply the same gossip you might read in the daily newspaper.
The railroad is yet another example of a medium for communication that society would be able to live without, if everyone were to "mind [their] business" (pg. 272). "If we do not get out sleepers, and forge rails, and devote days and nights to the work, but go to tinkering upon our lives and improve them, who will build railroads?" (pg. 272) But, if we stop worrying about the world around us and focus on the world within us, we wouldn't need anyone to build railroads, because we would already have all we need at our disposal.