i love Thoreau. basically he wasn't entirely self-reliant or totally seperated from society. that wasn't his intention, and wasn't what he did. he did however live in isolation because of his disapproval of society and a lot of what it stood for. he became more self reliant. in another one of his books, he wrote about how he went in total isolation for a shorter amount of time, and when he came back he realized that in life you need a balance. neither being totally isolated or being totally exposed to society are good things, you need a happy medium