As I mentioned in last week’s newsletter, I was recently gifted a copy of Henry David Thoreau’s Walden and Other Writings. I hadn’t read Thoreau since we read an excerpt of Walden in 10th grade. I chose to read “Life Without Principle” first, and it both pleased and disturbed me to know that people have been lamenting the same negative aspects of American society for nearly two centuries.

The first thing about Thoreau’s writing that stood out to me was just how  human it is. I could easily picture him in my dilettante/polymath group chat, complaining to and challenging the other participants as we tend to do. Not even two pages into the essay, I found myself thinking, “Damn. He’s just like me, for real.”

I recently lost a subscriber after posting one of my more incendiary essays and, given that I only had nine to begin with, began to wonder if I should tone things down a little. After all, I’m well aware that my opinions tend to be more extreme than the status quo typically allows, and I thought it might be best to stick to the easy topics. The ones that would just barely push y’all, my dear subscribers, to consider a new perspective. The ones that you could nod along to and go on your merry way. Thoreau assured me that the first, more difficult path is the right one for me.

“…I will give them a strong dose of myself.” People write for different reasons, and undoubtedly, other people’s opinions have to be considered when writing for an audience. But, for me, Mina, Unfiltered is my space to share my earnest thoughts with people who are as curious and as questioning as I am. To both wrestle with tough topics and share my opinions on the latest movie. In short, Mina, Unfiltered is my space to give y’all a strong dose of myself — and I have many, often conflicting parts. I’m glad you’re along for the ride, but I won’t take it personally if you decide that this train isn’t for you.

In “Life Without Principle,” Thoreau laments two major aspects of modern life: the obsession with useless work and commerce, and the overconsumption of news and other distractions that hijack our attention. Reading this essay felt like I could be reading a contemporary article in the New Yorker about smartphones and the haphazard ways we give away our attention so critically today.

Anyone who knows me knows that a girl does not want to work. The idea of working a traditional job gives me the heebie jeebies, and I’m currently living my best unemployed life. For the longest time, I thought I was a lazy grifter who just needed to grow up. Recently, I realized that my particular brand of neurodivergence just has a hard time sucking it up and throwing myself into a system that I find useless, nonsensical, and harmful to the masses.

Thoreau warned against doing useless work, especially work that ravages the earth, solely for the sake of making money. To him, work should be done for the good of society and the satisfaction of the individual, not to generate capital to be squandered on nonsense. Unfortunately, this madness has only escalated in the nearly two centuries since Thoreau died. As of May 2026, we are polluting the air in poor communities and squandering the fresh water supply so that three rich guys can lose money on generative AI. We are scrolling endlessly while technocrats sell our and our children’s attention to the highest bidder. I say “we” because, like Thoreau, I am not immune to falling into the status quo.

For the past few months, I’ve been thinking about what freedom means to me and what it would look like to live in a truly free society. America calls itself the land of the free, but is it really? As Thoreau questioned:

I live in Tennessee, where our Republican legislature recently gutted the state’s only majority-Black (and heavily Democratic) voting district and parsed it into three majority-White ones in order to reduce Black voting power. I’ve been fighting against nihilism and the feeling that the entire political system is a farce since 2016 (if you know, you know), but it’s hard not to feel that way when blatant corruption happens daily.

Sure, we vote for candidates every 2-4 years. But, when there’s no real accountability mechanism during these terms, and our media spends its time and money manufacturing consent, is that really a free and democratic government? Is this how we want to decide what our world looks like? Is this freedom? It doesn’t sound like it to me. If anything, it’s bondage in a blue dress.

Overall, I really relate to Thoreau as someone who needs more autonomy than most to feel content in life. So many things about modern life bother me — from the way we work and educate our children to the way we travel and source our food — and it’s comforting to know that I’m not the only one who occasionally feels like a crazy person for not being able to bear how insane this setup truly is. I know my man Henry would weep at the sight of an Excel sheet chronicling shareholder value.

Thoreau emphasized the importance of having a rich inner life, and every day I’m grateful to have a mind that dares to imagine better, regardless of how others feel about it. I don’t have a tidy end to this essay, only a wish for us to finally create a form of living that respects personal autonomy and freedom while providing space for the collective good. You may call that daydreaming of an unrealistic utopia; I call it imagining better than the best I know.

Yours in liberation,
Mina