If I were an umbrage-taker, I’d probably be inclined to start taking umbrage with the recurrent and often-unwarranted bad rap meted out to us hermits in legend, lore and now online. (I’ve always wanted to use the word “umbrage” in a sentence.) Taking umbrage with anything feels a bit spiritually unevolved, though, so I usually just chuckle when I run across these continual hermit defamations.
But hermits do seem to get a lot of bad press. I suppose the stigma stems from the human instinctual tendency to fear anything we don’t understand or can’t control. Internally-motivated people (introverts) tend to be both indecipherable and immalleable. You never know quite what they’re thinking, so you can’t get a good handle on how to motivate, control or change them. Add to this a hermit’s clear demonstration of the ability to live in solitude, outside of the tribe – well, that’s just scary – especially for externally-motivated extroverts who thrive on interaction, value their people skills, and tend to believe those skills are the key to ruling the world. (As a matter of fact, extroverts actually do rule the world. Most politicians and, thus, world leaders are extroverts. Not many self-respecting introverts can tolerate a life in politics.)
And, of course, there are some extremely bad actors in hermit lore (UnabomerTed Kaczynski, Hansel & Gretel’s Witch, for example) who tarnish the hermit image rather deeply and indelibly. But another reason negativity predominates the hermit image is that us more benign hermits tend to go about our hermit business without much noise or flash. We are live-and-let-live types, not big self-promoters. As a result, there’s not much counter-balancing positive hermit data in the stream.
Should hermits organize to counter the bad press? Since many religious hermits are already somewhat organized, perhaps we just need a group for us secular types. I like the sound of a Weird Organization of Secular Hermits (W.O.O.S.H.) It resonates with the sound of – well, just disappearing – and weird is perfect because us hermits know any organization of hermits just ain’t gonna happen. It’s not really part of our nature to join with others toward a common goal. We certainly wouldn’t do it for a cause as frivolous as worrying about what other people think of us. A pack or tribe of hermits really is an oxymoron. Conveniently, the domain name, WHOOSH, is already taken.
But it is probably a good thing some of us more positive hermits are blogging now. We’re unintentionally forming a little hermit cybertribe. Over time we may be able to counter some of the sillier hermit slander. And we can blog from the seclusion of our hermitages!
Hey, I may convince myself to keep blogging yet.
Even the mountain men had their rendezvous. We all benefit from some level of connectedness.
Beautifully written and delightfully expressed! And yes A blogging hermit cybertribe is afoot and I think it’s starting HERE many thanks Trish.