In 1845, he moved to a cabin that he bulit with his own hands along the shores of Walden Pond in Massachuttes. Shedding the trivial ties that he felt much of humanity condemned themselves to, Thoreau reaped from tha land both physically and mentally. Unlike others, who blindly accepted the conventional ways of civilization, he pursued truth, not in newspapers or business, but in the quiet of nature, the simplicity of animals, and art from the likes of Homer. In Walden, he explains how separating from thwe world of men can truly awaken the sleeping self.