Hermit Psychology: Introverts Spinning Donuts In the Cave

April 29, 2009

It’s a fair assumption that most intentional hermits are introverts – like Griz and me. There may be a few extrovert hermits about, but they are likely unintentional hermits – living in solitude by accident or sacrificial choice – hiding from the law, castaways on uncharted islands, last-man-on-earth characters like Will Smith in I Am Legend. Introverts as a whole (not just [...]

Umbrage, Part 2: "There Are No Happy Psychologists," Declared the Happy Hermit (Though It Didn’t Really Matter)

March 29, 2009

Yes, I’m just trying to be provocative and I presume that is also Professor Christopher Peterson’s intent when he uses the phrase “there are no happy hermits” in his U. Michigan psychology lectures. But I’m quite certain I’m not the only happy hermit in the world, so I’ve decided to come to the defense of [...]

Memorable Hermit Sin Killer: Pragmatic Self Sufficiency Meets Clueless Self Indulgence

March 22, 2009
sinkiller

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I always have great empathy for natural reclusives who find themselves stranded outside their comfort zone and Larry McMurty’s  Sin Killer (2002) is a perfect example.  Trapper/Indian-fighter Jim Snow (nicknamed Sin Killer) relinquishes his solitude in the first of Larry McMurtry’s tetrology, the Berrybender Narratives; but Jim would have (and probably should have) kept to himself had his youthful lust and fire-and-brimstrone [...]

Eremite Mike’s Blog: Reflections on Solitude, Exceptional Contemplative Prose

March 19, 2009

I found Eremite Mike’s Blog after Mike left a comment on this blog. Though Mike didn’t leave a link to his blog (perhaps because the blog is quite young), his comment revealed a clear empathy with the hermitic path, so I searched him out. I am continually impressed with the profound beauty and depth of his [...]

Umbrage, W.O.O.S.H. & Positive Press for Hermits

March 15, 2009

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. [...]

Can You Get Blog from a Hermit? Not for Awhile.

February 15, 2009
walkinwoods6x

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This blog is six months old today and this will be my last post for awhile. It is premature to conclude my blogging experiment altogether – I have more to learn about blogging and more to learn about myself as a blogger.  I have several more posts mentally drafted, several most memorable hermits to write [...]

Memorable Hermit Dr. David R. Hawkins & Devotional Non-Duality

January 16, 2009

A colleague of nobel laureate Linus Pauling, Dr. David R. Hawkins became a spiritual teacher by way of a couple of near-death experiences; a very successful New York psychiatric practice; a temporary retreat into atheism; and at one point seven years in seclusion – not a bad combination for acquiring some pretty advanced spiritual wisdom. The [...]

A "Called" Writer: Memorable Hermit Thomas Merton

January 15, 2009

I will generally shy away from the consecrated Catholic hermits in this blog.  My exposure to and understanding of Catholicism is so limited that it hardly seems fair to mention even one.  But Catholic mystic Thomas Merton [1915-1968] wrote so eloquently about silence and solitude that he belongs on my list. Merton’s poems, essays and autobiography have a [...]

Memorable Hermit: Dirty Sally Fergus Played By Jeanette Nolan

January 1, 2009
Jeanette Nolan, age 32

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During one of his long programming phases, Griz routinely followed daytime reruns of the Gunsmoke TV series as background noise. I didn’t actually sit down and watch many episodes and there are a lot of episodes (635). The original series ran for 20 years before cancellation in 1975. Broadcast at one episode per day in reruns, that’s [...]

Anthony Hopkins as Memorable Hermit Dr. Ethan Powell

December 3, 2008

In the 1999 movie Instinct, Anthony Hopkins plays a renowned anthropologist, Dr. Ethan Powell, who “goes ape,” vanishing for more than a year to live alone with a band of mountain gorillas.  This may not qualify him as a hermit in the truest sense, but that’s the advantage of a personal blog – if I think he’s [...]