himself from culture, that sounds sort of drastic but you do catch artists and every now and again, gauguin is a good example. he went to tahiti and part of the reason he went there was to put all of your e-, this is something that emerson suggested in a number of places but that he thought it was important for americans to put that behind them. one good way to do it is to come out and live by yourself in a house with no neighbors at that point. historically, there have been other people living out here but they were for the most part on when thoreau was out here. not long after thoreau came to walden, the idea of the book walden started to occur to him and if you look at his journals from that training there are passages clipped from it that just were worked into some of the early drafts and the lectures that he gave on the subject. right in the beginning of walden the book he says that it was curiosity on the parts of his neighbors. they wanted to know if he was lonely, if he wanted wasn't too afraid out there and so on and so he started answering those questions at lyceum lectures and it