A close-up of water, trees reflected on its surface. Insects chirp, a bird squawks in the distance. Occasional raindrops dissolve into circular ripples that expand and vanish. An image of tranquility. Could it be Walden Pond, Massachusetts, where Henry David Thoreau escaped from society in 1845, living alone in a cabin he built himself? “I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life,” he wrote in the book Walden. Leading by example, he entreated the reader, “Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the machine.”