back to basics

I do not understand why people have a yearning to go back to the basics. Basics of what? Thoreau always talked about going back into the woods as being the only way to truely connect to himself and with nature is to strip away everything or go back to the basics. I honestly dont think its possible to go back to the basics. Life in general has complications given by everything we do. The methods in which we do them or the complexity in which they are preformed have little to do with the complications. That I am sure makes little sense, but to me it is confidence written out into words. This world is meant to be dealt with not stripped. Humans are builders and we should rightly do so.