Does anyone turn into a hermit?

OutsideYourWorld · Jan 7, 2017

So i've been back from a 9 month trip between Hungary and Eastern Kyrgyzstan for.... Three weeks, now. Wanted a real family christmas for once (cheesy, but i've come to really appreciate the one time of year where everyone is home).. But besides seeing a couple close friends, I haven't really gone out or done much.

I've always been the loner type and i'll read, video game, or go for a walk late at night. Anytime between the travels this is what i'm doing. It's an extreme downtime opposed to the always-active traveling life. It feels that way. I don't have a problem with it, but i'm just curious if many of you do, as well. I just find everyone so boring. Even if they're pretty different, I still get such a distant feeling... And unless i'm off on a new adventure, I don't feel that drive to go out and about. It's not like there isn't a lot to see where I am.

It's funny how it works like that. I can travel for months and years, but when I come home I return to the kid who just wants to be alone and play video games, play with whatever toys, or read a book and zone out to a different world.

You guys?

Kim Chee · Jan 7, 2017

You're a FREAK!!!!!

jk

, takes all types.

Deleted member 2626 · Jan 7, 2017

I don't travel all the time but can be qiute the hermit. Many times my few friends would be out all weekends and during the week and Id be reclusive. My travels last year, despite a few hitches, was time spent on land I own in quiet no friends and no real conversation. I'm bored by most too.

AnOldHope · Jan 7, 2017

Depending on how the week is going, I usually go 2 or 3 days without seeing anyone. Part of it is because the weather is cold and wet, so I don't get hikers, horseback riders, etc coming through.

Although last October I did get a weird 15-buggy long convoy of desert buggies and rock crawlers, each just slightly smaller than the last as they came through as if they'd worked out some kind of dune buggy back dominance scheme or something.

But most days I don't see anyone. It sounds like you have a real harmony with it. I wonder if among our very ancient ancestors, the very early emergence of our species, if there were some just naturally inclined to go off on their own, evolution's gift to us of natural scouts, explorers, and survivors.

Kim Chee · Jan 7, 2017

I've gone well over a month without speaking to another person.

Rob Nothing · Jan 7, 2017

If I could ever afford to or had the foraging skills/ trapping equipment I'd go full retard and disappear into the woods / my castle in the sky for good.

Still be here on STP though.. it's interaction of any kind that keeps me human and from evolving into an aemebaic, formless thing. Like that one from star treck.. forgetting its name. Not ready to be one of those guys just yet.

Georgeez · Jan 7, 2017

A quote I enjoy from alan watts:

"I'll tell you what hermits realize. If you go off into a far, far forest and get very quiet, you'll come to understand that you're connected with everything"

spectacular · Jan 7, 2017

I was one of the hermits who lived under a sleeping bag all day over by the estuary in Berkeley for a few months, not a bad existence

Coywolf · Jan 7, 2017

I know what you mean. I'm back in the depressing mode of wishing I had more friends. Traveling has really isolated me from alot of people. I try to meet people on the road, but most are so weird/sketchy that I keep to myself.

I want to go down to the slabs for a bit and meet people, but I don't really know how to go about it.

AnOldHope · Jan 7, 2017

SIB said:
I know what you mean. I'm back in the depressing mode of wishing I had more friends. Traveling has really isolated me from alot of people. I try to meet people on the road, but most are so weird/sketchy that I keep to myself.

I want to go down to the slabs for a bit and meet people, but I don't really know how to go about it.

I was checking out the East Jesus website, reading about visiting there. I think it would be cool to visit one of these years.

Coywolf · Jan 8, 2017

I have been checking out East Jesus as well, looks like a place worth checking out.

LeeenPocket · Jan 10, 2017

I've been rubber tramping with my partner for almost a year. Haven't been home yet, but I'd like to think I won't be reclusive while I'm home. We do tend to be pretty reclusive while we're on the road. We stay in a lot of national forests and BLM land and it is so much simpler to not have to talk to uppity neighbors...unless my cat wanders into their campsite. He's an inconvenient conversation starter.

SIB said:
I want to go down to the slabs for a bit and meet people, but I don't really know how to go about it.

Just show up!!!! Bring a tent, sleep in your car, trade some work at the hostel. You have a ton of options. Don't camp too close to other people unless you talk to them and they're cool with it. I've been in the slabs for a couple months and I've only seen the front of East Jesus with the trash art. I'm sure they're cool there, but I hear things. They seem to have a lot of "management" issues. There's a (somewhat) hidden hierarchy in the slabs based off of who's been there the longest. Just don't let people intimidate you. Personally, I think staying in East Jesus might not give you the total slab experience. Good place to start is the library. There's a lot of STP folks there that can point you in a good direction.

Beegod Santana · Jan 11, 2017

You ain't no true hermit till you training the squirrels.

Whereamiwhatdoido · Jan 12, 2017

It's taken me a full-time commitment to invest in people since returning, many have turned out as drabs, but after 10 months back I'm starting to have a few close(r) friends in who I find some kind of existential meaning and re-assurance.

But fuck all the times I've felt lonely and packed up to leave, without going though, since what brought me back in the first place was the loneliness while being on the road.

Everything and everyone is boring when you return, but that's part of the wandering spirit, we go travelling because the haze and daze of everyday life fuck's us up on some level. Then travelling, going new places, seeing new things, meeting new people - it all stirs us on by the excitement that we crave and long for. But image a guy in any of those places that we visit, he lives there, makes a career, have a family and then he's just there when we pass by - isn't he doing what our friends are doing back at home? Making a living in that one place being content with that?

Idk man, being off the road is really the hardest thing I've done in my life, but somehow I am getting more adjusted now, got some therapy going on and starting to feel like I could become a contribution to the community and maybe live a happy life staying in one place.

deleted user · Jan 12, 2017

I relate to this completely right now. After the jamboree I haven't been up to much. I figured I should stick around till March/April to land some contracts and give my roommates time to replace me, but it's been a draining ordeal.

Scene November Ive maybe left my house 15 times, most of that being for a sheet rock job. I have a self feeding pattern of shitting on myself, I have been using this time to work on writing/music/art but find myself staring at whatever I'm doing for 5 hours till theirs no dirt under my nails and I've peeled off all the labels on bottles infront of me. Then I get drunk, snort caffeine and walk on a treadmill for the rest of the day like a rat on a wheel. Im getting things done slowly, so I can't be too hard on myself but I definitely feel better and more focused when moving. Shit would probably be better too if I didn't have a crippling fear of driving.

I don't think staying in one place for a extended period is a problem for me, it's more where I'm staying that causes me turmoil.

Anyway, hope stuff works out and you return to what drives you

ChezaRose · Feb 6, 2017

I can get pretty introverted when I'm housed up to be honest. I don't feel bad about it either. All experiences are valid, even if it is down time.

The only thing that matters in life is that you are happy. Everything else is detail.

And besides sometimes being on the road is beautiful, but sometimes it makes you want to gut yourself. In my opinion too much of road is just as bad as too much of being inside. And you can have fun doing both.

Grubblin · Feb 9, 2017

So I thought about posting to this forum for awhile but decided against it bc it's a theory I arrived at on my own. I changed my mind a few seconds ago when I typed in a search phrase and found out that I'm not the first and only one to come up with it.

I volunteered to help a no kill shelter for a few years and got to know the people that ran it fairly well. One of the women was in charge of feral cat rescue and she told me that the trick to placing them in homes was to catch them in time before they had a chance to live wild for so long that they couldn't be 'tamed down' and adopted out. According to her, once a cat has lived in the wild on it's own for some amount of time, I imagine that amount is different for each cat, they can't be socialized again. They withdraw and won't have anything to do with anything or anyone other than other feral cats. Even then the feral cats keep a lot of distance between themselves except for mating. That was years ago, before I started traveling.

So I started traveling over a year ago and I'm no expert on any part of the lifestyle by any means. Even before I started traveling I started wondering if the same thing that happens to cats could happen to travelers. Unfortunately, in my case, I believe it does. I was housed up for a couple of months and couldn't stand it earlier this fall. Left as soon as I could, stayed gone a month, then came back to the same housing situation. I've been here a month and I'm already packing the truck to take off again.

I don't think it's so much the hermit part for me as it is the mind crushing boredom. There's nothing wrong with the people I'm with and they're perfectly fine, upstanding people - they have their flaws, just like I do, just like you. It's just that everything is so unbelievably bland, mundane, routine - I could go on. When I travel and a situation comes up or I start to get bored with an area I just pack up and find a different situation and area. I know that's not always possible but most of the time I can swing it one way or the other. When I travel I get to meet some of the most amazing people alive at random places and random times with no reason as to why or when. If I get sick of the desert, I'll head to a mountain top and know that in either place I'll get up to the sound of bird calls in the morning instead of a shriek of an alarm clock. I could on but this is a much longer post than I intended, I have that tendency.

So I called my theory, which I thought I was smart enough to come up with all on my own, feral cat syndrome. Then just before I posted this I googled 'feral cat syndrome'. The link is below and I don't feel nearly as smart anymore. If you click on it you'll find that it discusses that team building in a corporate environment type of bullshit but it's a short article and you may see some parallels.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/feral-cat-syndrome-versus-servant-leadership-britton-cowman

AnOldHope · Feb 9, 2017

Grubblin said:
So I thought about posting to this forum for awhile but decided against it bc it's a theory I arrived at on my own. I changed my mind a few seconds ago when I typed in a search phrase and found out that I'm not the first and only one to come up with it.

I volunteered to help a no kill shelter for a few years and got to know the people that ran it fairly well. One of the women was in charge of feral cat rescue and she told me that the trick to placing them in homes was to catch them in time before they had a chance to live wild for so long that they couldn't be 'tamed down' and adopted out. According to her, once a cat has lived in the wild on it's own for some amount of time, I imagine that amount is different for each cat, they can't be socialized again. They withdraw and won't have anything to do with anything or anyone other than other feral cats. Even then the feral cats keep a lot of distance between themselves except for mating. That was years ago, before I started traveling.

So I started traveling over a year ago and I'm no expert on any part of the lifestyle by any means. Even before I started traveling I started wondering if the same thing that happens to cats could happen to travelers. Unfortunately, in my case, I believe it does. I was housed up for a couple of months and couldn't stand it earlier this fall. Left as soon as I could, stayed gone a month, then came back to the same housing situation. I've been here a month and I'm already packing the truck to take off again.

I don't think it's so much the hermit part for me as it is the mind crushing boredom. There's nothing wrong with the people I'm with and they're perfectly fine, upstanding people - they have their flaws, just like I do, just like you. It's just that everything is so unbelievably bland, mundane, routine - I could go on. When I travel and a situation comes up or I start to get bored with an area I just pack up and find a different situation and area. I know that's not always possible but most of the time I can swing it one way or the other. When I travel I get to meet some of the most amazing people alive at random places and random times with no reason as to why or when. If I get sick of the desert, I'll head to a mountain top and know that in either place I'll get up to the sound of bird calls in the morning instead of a shriek of an alarm clock. I could on but this is a much longer post than I intended, I have that tendency.

So I called my theory, which I thought I was smart enough to come up with all on my own, feral cat syndrome. Then just before I posted this I googled 'feral cat syndrome'. The link is below and I don't feel nearly as smart anymore. If you click on it you'll find that it discusses that team building in a corporate environment type of bullshit but it's a short article and you may see some parallels.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/feral-cat-syndrome-versus-servant-leadership-britton-cowman

This is interesting.

I wonder if, as adaptable as cats/humans are, we can develop to live a variety of ways, but our core base-line neurology we inherited from pre-cursor species, over millions of years, to live in a way that is very different than how we live now.

We've only really had "civilization" in a large-scale sense for 6-10 thousands years (depending on what we call "civilization", its kind of embarrassing itself right now). Cats have only lived with collars and names for a short time.

They've adapted, but their heart and soul is still in nature, red in tooth and claw as the poet says. Some part of them (and us) may find it more natural to return to that simpler energy state.

As I become increasingly apocalyptic in my thinking, I think this behavior (which the modern average might call "aberrant") may in fact be a vitally important survival mechanism, and I think it will be tested soon.

xpolx · Feb 26, 2017

im pretty solitary most of the time like ive got good freinds but i just dont feel the need to be surrounded by people wether im moving or not,ive thought about it loads over the years but just reached a place where im ok with it

PatchTwist · May 3, 2017

Outside of work, I very much keep to myself. In fact, retail work more or less increased my "hermity" habits by major overexposure to people - something I hate and drains me.
But I have always been very introverted, and I haven't even hit the road yet.
Some people are more geared toward solitude than others, and there is nothing wrong with that. Such people need different kinds of stimulus and occupation. So, we do what we are inclined to and what we need to do.

Does anyone turn into a hermit?

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