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NastyDHL



Registered: 04/04/08
Posts: 3,586
Loc: New England
Last seen: 1 year, 3 months
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The Last True Hermit (isolation, freedom, and the necessity of self-definition in society)
#21351391 - 03/02/15 10:34 AM (9 years, 2 months ago) |
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http://www.gq.com/news-politics/newsmakers/201409/the-last-true-hermit
Amazing insightful article and I definitely recommend reading the whole thing but for brevity's sake, here's a summary. Shortly graduating high school Christopher Knight decided to disappear without any goodbyes and dropped out of society to live in the often frigid woods of Maine. Knight lived in the woods of Maine for 27 years while only experiencing contact with another human being once, exchanging a "hello" with a passing hiker. To survive, Knight burglarized about 40 homes a year, stealing food, beer (only Budweiser though, left the other stuff behind), a lot of candy/sweets, mattresses, bedding, and a huge supply of propane tanks. Eventually, Knight was caught trying to break into a locked freezer at a summer camp close to his home camp.
When asked about his reflections on life and human nature while in isolation: "I did examine myself," he said. "Solitude did increase my perception. But here's the tricky thing—when I applied my increased perception to myself, I lost my identity. With no audience, no one to perform for, I was just there. There was no need to define myself; I became irrelevant. The moon was the minute hand, the seasons the hour hand. I didn't even have a name. I never felt lonely. To put it romantically: I was completely free."
Is freedom simply the absence of pressure or need to define oneself?
Here's a couple other quotes by a personal hero of mine, Thomas Szasz, who was a radical psychiatrist (outspokenly opposed to the practice of psychiatry, considering it barbaric, inhumane, and a method of control);
"People often say that this or that person has not yet found himself. But the self is not something one finds, it is something one creates." (I think it's important to distinguish between the self and the Self here, since this is the S&M forum)
"In the animal kingdom, the rule is, eat or be eaten; in the human kingdom, define or be defined."
Edited by NastyDHL (03/02/15 10:39 AM)
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yeah


Registered: 02/08/09
Posts: 3,729
Last seen: 2 months, 25 days
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Re: The Last True Hermit (isolation, freedom, and the necessity of self-definition in society) [Re: NastyDHL]
#21351738 - 03/02/15 12:02 PM (9 years, 2 months ago) |
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fuck that guy
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mianfei
Mr.


Registered: 05/23/10
Posts: 64
Loc: Victoria, Australia
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Re: The Last True Hermit (isolation, freedom, and the necessity of self-definition in society) [Re: NastyDHL]
#21381246 - 03/09/15 01:43 AM (9 years, 2 months ago) |
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It's a really unconventional story, compared with familiar stories of hermits who live lives of prayer, like ex-feminist author Sara Maitland (who is convinced there exist others who want to emulate her).
To be frank, the story is much darker than that of Maitland or other hermits of an even more "conventional" suite like Verene Schiller, who are so fascinating to someone who has (in my adult life) never really experienced life outside of noisy cities. The one thing within my imagination (in stories upon which I have never concentrated enough to write without titillating myself too much) that is harsher than Maitland or Schiller is food: in my unwritten stories the solitaries make or collect their own diet, which I imagine as:- grown by the solitary on small plots surrounded by fully wild land
- strictly vegan (no animal foods whatsoever, more austere than Hindus, Buddhists, or even Trappist monks in Christianity)
- eaten only every other day with no water in between (more austere than even a Discalced Carmelite or Poor Clare)
The story of Christopher Thomas Knight reflects the sort of alienation which Sara Maitland herself critiques in the same manner as many of the writers in Robert Inchausti's excellent Subversive Orthodoxy: Outlaws, Revolutionaries and Other Christians in Disguise. In contrast to Maitland herself, who is clearly extremely ecstatic and emotional and naturally even gregarious (which is also the manner cloistered nuns tend to present to the world), Knight seems to be extremely individualistic and unable to form human relationships. The nearest approach to him within my imagination are the so-called "ferals" alternative lifestylers who aspouse completely natural living and a much-reduced population - best-known from the North Queensland forests.
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Spacerific
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Registered: 10/13/12
Posts: 4,923
Last seen: 9 years, 1 month
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Re: The Last True Hermit (isolation, freedom, and the necessity of self-definition in society) [Re: mianfei]
#21381668 - 03/09/15 07:53 AM (9 years, 2 months ago) |
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27 years. Awesome.
Don't approve of the burglarizing of homes, as that leaves behind unpleasant feelings for others to deal with. He could have easily gotten an axe, some wood, carve some things he saw around him, some things he remembered or came up with, would have been perfectly possible to set it up to leave the art some place, come days later, find it gone, sold, food and supplies in its stead. Plenty of ways to live off the land without being such an a-hole to your fellow primates.
Can totally relate to the loss of identity though. Simple 10-day meditation retreat, no talking, and after less than a week I had no idea (nor did I care) what day it was, what exact hour it was, I had my cycles and loops and breaths and things were AOK. Stuff came up from the past, but yeah, I'm pretty sure had I kept this up for months, that would have faded in the distance, as some random past life/identity.
I'm surprised people don't do complete fresh starts later in their life. Takes what, 2-3 years at the most to prep the language skills and paperwork and stuff, to simply change continents and go wherever. If this country/city/family doesn't deliver, just be born again. Change name, language, trade, location, everything. 5 years later there'll be a brand new you, if you want it 
If the old life bugs you, simply spend a whole year as a buffer zone somewhere (organic farm, woofing, some monastery or commune somewhere, plenty of them around). After one or two years away from your old self, especially in places with a lot of couchsurfers and backpackers from all over the world, you can get pretty free of previous conditioning. Perhaps most people don't think to do this as they can't let go of the Audi and the fancy clothes and cell phone, to just plant trees and shovel soil for a year, allowing their conditioning to flow away, to relax. So in a way, their clinging to technological trivia keeps them stuck in emotional/behavioral patterns that don't really satisfy. They could so easy move away and be reborn, refreshed, if they would just relax about that damn Audi
-------------------- Blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear.
For truly, I say to you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it. - Matthew 13:16
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