What did Thoreau hope to do at Walden? How might being there have helped him achieve his goals?

Thoreau
was essentially a philosopher. He makes it obvious in  that he loves
thinking, reading, and writing in solitude. Like most intellectuals he was faced with the
problem of earning a living. In those times he could only earn about a dollar a day. If he lived
in the town and had to pay rent and pay for meals, he could easily get trapped into a job or
jobs that would take up much of his time and interfere with his thinking, reading, and writing.
He believed that a philosopher should live like a philosopher, which to Thoreau meant living
simply in order to have the time to meditate. Since he was a lover of nature, it was natural for
him to conceive the idea of living a "Life in the woods." He was not a
miser,...