Logic of a hermit

People will go to great physical, emotional, geographic and other lengths to stretch themselves. For devoted students of enlightenment, the idea of living in a cave may have immeasurable appeal. If you truly wish to understand yourself and the world beyond, you're taught to separate yourself from the familiar and from possible influences which prevent you from deep learning. 

Try as outsiders might, they do not always share the enthusiasm for self-imposed hunger, filth, extended solitude, anti-sociability, extinguished material ambition, abstinence or asexuality and denial of other responsibilities.  Not everyone thinks imposed thirst and hardship will invite a better sense of existence. People like Patanjali, Siddharta, Tezin Palmo and others will disagree.

Maybe the logic of a hermit isn't meant to be understood based on how you've come to think about your life thuis far in other places. You can get your hands on travel books written by individuals who made efforts to share their journeys. Yet, how close do these portrayals come to the real experience? Do you get a sense of connection or disconnection with your own reality? Will you ever know the difference? Do you have the will and inclination to change that?

Consider Robyn Davidson walked 1,700 miles across the Australian desert accompanied by four camels. Tracks is the book about this adventurer's relationship to her own ambivalent quest. She never directly identifies motives, but she was driven by things so profoundly powerful that she may not grasp them herself. Curiously, the financial backing of the National Geographic, resulted in her private journey being invaded. Did she not seek only to redefine her independence? She admits: "I was beginning to see it as a story for other people, with a beginning and an ending."  Photographers followed her. People approached with their own questions and interpretations.   Perhaps Davidon's ultimate confrontations are with her own personal and cultural views of racism and misogyny, and with the challenges she brings on herself in the depths of rural Australia?

In less extreme cases, people will hide themselves away in an office and pretend to be hermits.  They often like the idea of a temporary experience and fear the dangers of greater unknown in the longer term. Maybe the idea of confronting those things that scare us most is one of the best ways to improve our character. If you're afraid to climb a rock face, find a way to do it and that fear will no longer control you. The logic of a hermit invites each of us to take steps to enrich our inner soul, wherever that may take us. What we discover or bring back will be priceless.