How did I become The Hermit? Gather ‘round children, it’s time for a tale. And, dear reader, this is not a short story. Now would be a good time to get a cup of coffee or tea.
While my sociological training biases me toward a social constructionist approach to everything, maybe I was always destined to be a lonely girl, a Hermit.
An only child, born in the dead of night under a gibbous moon I can only assume was obscured by clouds in the freezing darkness of a Lake Erie winter in a small town where the houses aren’t close together and most of the neighbors are too old to have kids around anyways.
I sat uncomfortably juuuuusssttt on the outskirts of popularity, of being the star pupil, of being pretty by small-town Midwestern standards. Close enough to know what I was missing or be included by proxy, but too far away to sneak myself in on the regular or really belong. A true Hermit, I was always slightly off emotionally—taking the joke too far, crying too easily, talking too loud, not being able to show emotions (oddly enough maybe five minutes after crying too easily, yet again). Self-conscious and sensitive, with a carefully cultivated over-aggressiveness that kept me protected (remember: I cry too easily, sometimes in public).
By the time I was in my mid-20s, I’d had friends, but they all seemed to slip away (or sneak away when I wasn’t looking). Friends from high school who moved on that I didn’t talk to anymore. (Of course, if they wanted to talk to me they would. I shouldn’t reach out. They still talk to each other but not me, there must be a reason. They probably didn’t like me that much anyways, right?) Friends from my time as a bartender that only seemed to like to party. The one friend who wanted to move in together so I put in my 30 day notice at my place and went to look at an apartment with her on a Friday that we both loved. Come Monday when we were supposed to sign the lease agreement, she didn’t answer my call.
I never heard from her again.
I met my partner during this time, so I wasn’t completely lacking social connections or such a socially-bereft Hermit that people ran from me in public (yet).
I left the Midwest for a PhD program in Colorado determined to be a “new person.” A better person—one who wasn’t a weirdo. One who had friends. One who was included, liked, and respected. And, in many ways, I thrived in graduate school. Respected by peers and faculty, basking in the 300+ sunny days a year in Denver, solidly coupled (engaged and eventually married).
But, I still wasn’t, um, cool. I still walked awkwardly in my body. I still talked too loud. My face still flushed and my chest still tightened and I would curl into myself in seminars or at drinks with grad students or at conferences when I said something weird or someone made a joke. (Maybe at my expense, which is easy to do when someone is weird. But, maybe to laugh with me? I never laughed, though.) Graduate school, by its nature, is an oft-solitary pursuit. Yes, there are classes your first couple of years. Yes, I taught courses every semester at CU Boulder and a local community college. Yes, I workshopped articles and dissertation chapters with advisors and friends and colleagues.
But, you’re by yourself a lot. Like, a lot a lot. Days of being alone in the apartment writing, pretending to write, reading, dancing around by myself. Commuting from Denver to Boulder in a car by myself, drying out like vegan mushroom jerky in the Colorado sun that becomes oppressive after a few months without a cloud for longer than five minutes.
Yet, there was something calming and comforting about the solitude. The emotional highs and lows of teaching and social situations took a lot out of me. During the time alone I could recharge. I could think. I could reflect. I could read and learn. I didn’t have to worry about what anyone else thought, didn’t have to fear being rejected or laughed at. My cat loved me, so all was well.
My first job after graduate school was in Boston. I was thrust into the opposite of the Hermit life. People were everywhere (I mean everywhere!). Traffic, noise, cramped apartments, tiny restaurants, tiny city Target’s with what felt like 10 million undergraduates milling about. Teaching five classes every semester (and sometimes more for extra money), committee meetings, faculty and staff meetings, sharing an office.
I ached for my Hermit past. Even when I found a moment of solitude, the city was noisy. There were too many students, too many sirens, too much stimulation.
Before you know it, it was 2020. While the after effects of the pandemic were probably worse for me in the long run (as if I didn’t hate crowds before, now I have to worry about infection…), it felt like a much-needed respite from daily life. The shouting students went home. Fewer people were driving (so fewer honks and shouts). I didn’t have to smush between people in line at the store. I could finally walk at the park near my house and actually enjoy it.
I needed this time. I got clarity on how unhappy I was. I figured out what I wanted— and I went out and got it. New job, then new career, then new life back home in the Midwest.
But now, I can’t escape the solitude of The Hermit. It’s like a permanent quarantine. Originally welcomed, it’s now an invisible barrier that seems to follow me everywhere I go.
I work from home. I live in the suburbs in a single-family house. I am an elder millennial with no kids. Basically, I don’t have regular, sustained contact with people and am rarely in situations where I meet someone my age for more than a few minutes.
While my life here in Michigan is beyond better than the hellscape of Boston, there’s still that gnawing ache of loneliness. Of trying to remember the last time I did something, in person, with a friend. Of counting how many years it has been since I had a friend who actually lived in the same state. Of being reminded of how little social interaction I have when I jump six feet out of my own skin at Trader Joe’s when an employee walks past because I have, apparently, forgotten other people exist in the world, too.
No friends, no hope. What’s left?
Wow, this has been a depressing post, huh? Time to look to social theory for solace, again.
While my loneliness is a source of personal anguish, I know that I am not alone in that loneliness. Our culture breeds Hermits. We are told that a single family home in the suburbs with a fence blocking out our neighbors is the pinnacle of human flourishing. Despite stagnant wages, we are working more and more and more. In fact, while bosses and corporate media proclaim working from home breeds laziness, we are probably working even more than we were in office. We have virtually no public spaces left. And, those that do exist are (mostly) not free and if you’re looking for one after dark your choices are bar and, well, bar.
Late stage capitalism has enclosed our public spaces. Cuts to public spending to spend more money on the war machine mean our libraries and museums and community centers are closing (or are cutting their hours). Staggering costs of living mean we work more to get by and have less time to spend with each other and less expendable income to do the things that we need to do to meet people since nothing in modern life seems to be free (except loneliness). It isn’t only our material conditions that have been enclosed, capitalism has enclosed our imaginations, too—our ability to imagine that another world is truly possible.
Wow, um, this sucks. Can we get back to tarot now, Dr. Cards?
OK, OK.
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The person I envision when I think of The Hermit is a person who embodies wisdom and understanding. The Hermit is a seeker. They are on a journey or pilgrimage of some kind. That type of journey does require a degree of solitude in order to get quiet enough to tap into the wisdom that The Hermit seeks. Not so good for my (and our) loneliness so far.
But, there are layers to this archetype. The number 9 in the tarot corresponds to completing a cycle or journey (or, rather, being near completion). Multiple 9s in a reading can signal a desire to have some sort of impact—to bring about some sort of change. That’s a part of The Hermit, too.
While The Hermit may be in solitude, they are welcoming to other seekers who come to them. They are a mentor, a confidant. They invite the weary traveler to stay in their cave house deep in the woods (or their bungalow in metro Detroit). They thrive when sharing the wealth of knowledge that they have accumulated on their journey.
If The Hierophant is the traditional teacher, The Hermit is the punk rock professor. They have decided that they don’t need the norms and expectations of society (I WILL CRY IN PUBLIC IF I WANT TO GUYS. IT’S FINE!). They are a wise woman or a wise person (or maybe even the illusive wise man). They aren’t anti-social, though they might appear that way to people who are only open to conventional norms, thoughts, ideas, and ways of being. The Hermit is actually open and engaging to those who seek a separate path, an alternative world, in a real way. They have tales to share (and things still to learn from others) and they’ve rejected society’s bullshit.
We Hermits may come off a little weird or gruff or just off—but it’s only because people become unsettled when they encounter a type of knowledge or way of being in the world that is unconventional. Only because late stage capitalism has pushed us into social isolation. But, there’s another path.
Hermits unite! We have nothing to lose but our loneliness! Unencumbered from orthodoxy and conventionalism, we can share knowledge with each other. We can be the Sage without being alone. We can reimagine postcapitalist realities.
And maybe, you know, we can do it in person?
(Or at least in the comments for now…)