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There Have Always Existed People Who’ve Simply Wanted to Be Alone

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Re: There Have Always Existed People Who’ve Simply Wanted to Be Alone

#21

Post by fern12 »

dahart wrote: post #8

Snap Judgement did a nice podcast version of this story. http://snapjudgment.org/north-pond-hermit The letters Knight & Finkel exchanged add an interesting angle. Can't say I'm a fan of the author's choice for title of this post. It's Chris Knight's story, and nothing in this post presents any evidence for anyone else at any other time, aside from this single sentence "Think of Jesus, Mohammed, and Buddha: they all s…

Fair enough. I felt a fleeting moment of self-vindication when I saw it pop up in my RSS feed - hence, the reason why I kept it.

Re: There Have Always Existed People Who’ve Simply Wanted to Be Alone

#22

Post by dahart »

fern12 wrote: post #21
dahart wrote: post #8

Snap Judgement did a nice podcast version of this story. http://snapjudgment.org/north-pond-hermit The letters Knight & Finkel exchanged add an interesting angle. Can't say I'm a fan of the author's choice for title of this post. It's Chris Knight's story, and nothing in this post presents any evidence for anyone else at any other time, aside from this single sentence "Think of Jesus, Mohammed, and Buddha: they all s…

Fair enough. I felt a fleeting moment of self-vindication when I saw it pop up in my RSS feed - hence, the reason why I kept it.

Oh, to be clear, I'm talking about Coombe's title not yours. It's best if you keep the article's title in tact, and this is a really interesting story, you should feel good about it popping to the top.

Re: There Have Always Existed People Who’ve Simply Wanted to Be Alone

#23

Post by sseagull »

grabcocque wrote: post #14

The idea of introverts and extraverts being distinct groups of people with completely different neurological responses to social situations is a largely false one, created by self-help woo merchants to unhelpfully pathologise the feeling that EVERYONE has from time to time that they want to be left the fuck alone. You know what? It's a normal, neurotypical part of life as a homo sapiens to want to be by yourself some…

> The idea of introverts and extraverts being distinct groups of people with completely different neurological responses to social situations is a largely false one

Why would you say that? Even perusing the wikipedia article shows that there is at least some evidence for a biological basis, and that it is being researched.

Maybe it's not up to your standards, but it's far from being settled as a bunch of 'woo'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraversion_and_introversion#...

Re: There Have Always Existed People Who’ve Simply Wanted to Be Alone

#24

Post by evervevdww221 »

I have the impulse to become a hermit myself, fundamentally because I'm tired of living up to other people's ideologies: going through schools and finding a job in a cubical. getting married at the right age and then raising the right amount kids, saving for their college fund and then for retirement.

but why?

I can't help but compare with my surroundings, even I have quit Facebook for many years. I can't be myself when I'm around others, but become a money maker for things I don't need. I can't concentrate on what makes me happy.

I recall what made me happy. it was when I finally understood some papers, some equations, some code. I just want to find a quiet place to do these. I hope to become an awesome painter and a guitar player too.

I just want to have enough to survive and focus my energy on these things. I don't care if I have successful kids or fancy cars.

Re: There Have Always Existed People Who’ve Simply Wanted to Be Alone

#25

Post by fern12 »

dahart wrote: post #22
fern12 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair enough. I felt a fleeting moment of self-vindication when I saw it pop up in my RSS feed - hence, the reason why I kept it.

Oh, to be clear, I'm talking about Coombe's title not yours. It's best if you keep the article's title in tact, and this is a really interesting story, you should feel good about it popping to the top.

Duly noted. Thank you for the feedback:)

Re: There Have Always Existed People Who’ve Simply Wanted to Be Alone

#26

Post by alexvy86 »

adamnemecek wrote: post #18
grabcocque wrote: post #14

The idea of introverts and extraverts being distinct groups of people with completely different neurological responses to social situations is a largely false one, created by self-help woo merchants to unhelpfully pathologise the feeling that EVERYONE has from time to time that they want to be left the fuck alone. You know what? It's a normal, neurotypical part of life as a homo sapiens to want to be by yourself some…

Sure, but while I do agree that the neurological differences might be non-existent, I think that if you were to plot the amount of time people spend in social setting, you'd get something like a normal distribution. You could designate one end as introverts and one as extroverts.

Exactly this. And if I might nitpick a bit, I'd say "the amount of time people WANT to spend in social settings". Which would probably correlate well to the actual time spent in such settings, but to me the heart of the matter is that some people just aren't look for it, while others are.

Re: There Have Always Existed People Who’ve Simply Wanted to Be Alone

#27

Post by factsaresacred »

> Years ago, I went to India for a ten-day, silent retreat. I wanted to make myself go where I was afraid to go—deep down, inside my own head. I found it terrifying. Why don’t we want to be alone? Because the stuff that’s down there is stuff you don’t want to see.

We live in a world in which who we are is defined by what we do. We are a role - parent, engineer, carer. Strip that away and all that remains is a who. That's the reward of solitude: a situation wherein you have nobody to bounce your 'self' off, nobody to define yourself in relation to, allowing you to surface.

Turns out that who you are is simply a sequence of reactions to experience - the external kind as well as that which bubbles up internally. Rather than terrifying, this should be seen as profoundly liberating.

Re: There Have Always Existed People Who’ve Simply Wanted to Be Alone

#29

Post by mAdamTus »

dr_bloodmoney wrote: post #12

I read about this man when the story first broke and found it extremely fascinating. I can relate to wanting to be alone and living an isolated existence. I love being in nature, away from the world and have often thought about pursuing such an existence permanently. But I just cannot comprehend his methods. Move to Alaska. Learn to hunt. Carve out a place for yourself somewhere. What he did tells me he was just insa…

His methods aren't insane. They're rational for survival in human society/civilization without participating in it.

Think of a rat or other mammal pest. They effectively survive off of civilization in the same way.

And since he got away with it for the entire time...successfully...it seemed effective, too.

>alaska

Living fully alone isolated from civilization in terrain as hostile as wild alaska isn't realistic. See Christopher Mccandless. It's simpler to just scrounge off of civilization.

Re: There Have Always Existed People Who’ve Simply Wanted to Be Alone

#30

Post by sizzzzlerz »

dr_bloodmoney wrote: post #12

I read about this man when the story first broke and found it extremely fascinating. I can relate to wanting to be alone and living an isolated existence. I love being in nature, away from the world and have often thought about pursuing such an existence permanently. But I just cannot comprehend his methods. Move to Alaska. Learn to hunt. Carve out a place for yourself somewhere. What he did tells me he was just insa…

Moving to Alaska doesn't work either. See Chris McCandless. Of course, where he chose to live (and, eventually, die) didn't have nearby houses to steal from. He just thought he could live off the land. In Alaska. In winter. Without the necessary tools or skills. That, my friend, is truly nuts.
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