How Thoreau improved my visionPhoto by Harry Quan on Unsplash I thought my vision was pretty good. Not quite 20–20, but close. Then I read Thoreau. Yes, *that *Thoreau. Forget what you may have read by or about the “hermit Concord.” He is misunderstood. His experiment on Walden Pond was about seeing. All the rest — the solitude, the simplicity — were means to this end.