Possession for its own sake or in competition with the rest of the neighborhood would have been Thoreau's idea of the low levels. The active discipline of heightening one's perception of what is enduring in nature would have been his idea of the high. What he saved from the low was time and effort he could spend on the high. Thoreau certainly disapproved of starvation, but he would put into feeding himself only as much effort as would keep him functioning for more important efforts.
Effort is the gist of it. There is no happiness except as we take on life-engaging difficulties. Short of the impossible, as Yeats put it, the satisfaction we get from a lifetime depends on how high we choose our difficulties. Robert Frost was thinking in something like the same terms when he spoke of "The pleasure of taking pains". The mortal flaw in the advertised version of happiness is in the fact that it purports to be effortless.
We demand difficulty even in our games. We demand it because without difficulty there can be no game. A game is a way of making something hard for the fun of it. The rules of the game are an arbitrary imposition of difficulty. When someone ruins the fun, he always does so by refusing to play by the rules. It is easier to win at chess if you are free, at your pleasure, to change the wholly arbitrary rules, but the fun is in winning within the rules. No difficulty, no fun.
(參考譯文)
梭羅所理解的"低層次"，即爲了擁有而去擁有，或與所有的鄰居明爭暗鬥而致擁有。他心目中的"高層次"，則是這樣一種積極的人生戒律，即要使自己對自然界永恆之物的感悟臻於完美。對於他從低層次上節省下來的時間和精力，他可將其致力於對高層次的追求。勿庸置疑，梭羅不贊成忍飢挨餓，但他在膳食方面所投入的精力僅果腹而已，只要可確保他能去從事更爲重要的事務，他便別無所求。
殫精竭慮，全力以赴，便是其精髓所在。除非我們願意直面那些需要我們全身心投入的艱難困苦，否則便不會有幸福可言。正如葉芝所言，除卻某些不可能的情形，我們於人生中所獲取的.滿足皆取決於我們在多高的境界中選擇我們所願意面對的艱難困苦。當羅伯特·弗羅斯特言及"以苦爲樂"時，他內心所思，大體如此。商業廣告中所宣揚的那種幸福觀，其致命的缺陷就在於這樣一個事實，即它宣稱，一切幸福皆唾手可得，不費吹灰之力。
即便於遊戲之中，我們也需要有艱難困苦。我們之所以需要它，因爲設若沒有困難，便斷無遊戲可言。遊戲即是這樣一種方式，爲了享受其中的情趣而人爲地使事情變得不那麼輕而易舉。遊戲中的種種規則，便是將困難武斷地強加於人。當有人將情趣摧毀殆盡時，他總是因爲拒不按遊戲規則行事而使然。這猶如下棋;如果你隨心所欲、心血來潮地去更改那些全然武斷的遊戲規則，這樣去贏棋當然會更加容易。但下棋的情趣則在於，應在規則的限定範圍內贏取勝利。一言以蔽之，沒有艱難，斷無情趣。
