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This very real hermit has a gripe.To see for yourself what I am talking about,go to any search engine,type in the word "hermits" and see what you get.Disregarding references to musical groups and hermit crabs,you then get a list of pages that most people assume are about real hermits.Then surf them.Aside from a few literary pages about people who have lived as hermits in the past,you will then get pages about people who claim to be currently living this lifestyle.And therein is the problem. One cannot always tell from their pages but if you email them or probe deeper,you will find very few are real hermits. Some call themselves that because they have read a book or two by Thomas Merton.Some call themselves hermits because they live over 30 minutes from a city or live on the 55th floor of a high rise in that city with a nice view;some because they have a garage or an attic where they can hide out for a few hours from the kids per day,some because they only watch PBS and no sitcoms.Surfer,you have been had!!!Although the hermit life must be allowed some flexibility in expression and implementation,there are a few common but vital elements in an authentic hermit lifestyle.A hermit is one who has deliberately separated himself/herself from the masses,the herd.(From now on I will spare you 'him/her'and use him simce I am a "him".)The hermit is a 'a marginal'person,to use Herbert Marcuse's term.A hermit definitively makes a distinction between himself and the "others" not in a necesarily prideful way but he sets up "boundaries" of some sort deliberately separating himself from the mainstream.Without this,there is no such thing as a hermit. Wherever the real hermit finds a place to be,it has to be a place of some kind of separation which is mostly a continual state from the rest of human society.This can be in the middle of a huge city or in a rural setting.The important element is the absence of what the rest of the world considers ordinary,"normal" social interaction.The key here is that it is constant and a regular element of the hermit's life.I am not talking about a few hours a day with the bedroom door locked here.Solitude and silence are ongoing components of any hermit's life whether they be religious or not.Without at least these few elements,you have met a phony,a wannabe,a wish-I-were or maybe even a two-bit hustler trying to get your money for his newsletter or his candles or whatever.The notion of hermits as well as other monkish things have captured the consumer imagination.Trend!!! Horrors!!! Now this gives a lot of leeway.I have not said that a hermit has to be celibate or unmarried. Couples can,less than ideally.be hermits if they both share those ideals and live them.A hermit does not have to be religious although most of us are motivated by some kind of spiritual philosophy which impels us to separate from an unspiritual world.Certainly a hermit does not have to subscribe to some belief system of some church.In fact,this is merely personal opinion,a hermit stays much healthier if he withdraws from dogmatism- period.The hermitlife is all about one's own subjective,persoanl experience and the insights gained from that.THAT is why we scare the establishment, both state and church. We just taint "normal" thank the Divine! Maybe you think it is rather cheeky of me to set standards.You are entitled to that.On the other hand,it was and still is a long hard climb for me to get and to maintain this way of life which I value and love more everyday.I do not like to see people playing at it.If you want to discuss this,do it among yourselves.I am a hermit,I do not do seminars. |
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