If you had a chance to live in solitude, deep in the wilderness. Would you?

I feel like there's a huge misconception here about fleeing to the wilderness. While spending many days with different monastics and solitaries and reading many books about the topic I've learned certain things that most people don't realize. To keep myself organized I'm going to list them:

1: Being in nature give you peace because nature is peaceful:
While this isn't necessarily wrong. it's a very superficial way to look at things. Being in nature will give you a sense of inner peace, but that feeling flees over time. I've spend a lot of time solo camping and I found that the sense of inner peace flees within days. If not hours! I do believe inner peace can be achieved but the solitude in itself isn't what gives you that inner peace.

2: Living in the wilderness isn't realistic: For someone without any experience in living in the wild, I do agree! However! it isn't impossible. I've met and have seen many solitaries that have spent their entire lives in the wilderness. Some of them live close to a monastery in order to have food, and others simply live near certain plants or trees that provide them with food. There is a documentary where this guys built himself a cabin out somewhere in Alaska. He wanted to film his experience living in the wilderness for a year. He ended up living there for 29 years! He hunted and gathered food himself.

3: We need human interactions to survive: While I do agree that human interaction is very important, I don't think it's a need. Cutting off the need to interact with someone is no different than cutting off the need for sex. If we want to reach a deeper understanding of the human soul, I feel like this is a necessary step. I'm not advocating for everyone to do this! there is nothing wrong with wanting to interact on a human level or even to want sex, it's perfectly natural. But there are people who want something deeper. People who want a connection that is much deeper and edifying than that of another human.

4: People who flee to the wilderness are only running away from people and their problems.
Once again I think this is a very superficial way to look at things. I don't recommend anyone that has problems or hates people to run away into the wild. That will not solve anything! you can not run away from your issues. One thing that a solitary has told me that stuck to my head is that "comfort is death". I couldn't agree more with that statement. When we find ourselves in a comfortable position in our lives, whether it be in the job we're in or our relationship, you'll find that time will begin to slip away rather quickly. Comfort doesn't necessary mean that you're happy, just that you're comfortable. There's a much deeper reason why people flee to the wilderness and that is not to get away from people because they're introverted!

To sum up everything we have to ask ourselves, what is it that we're after? what is the reason you decide to wake up every morning. What is the image that we're chasing in the distance? and does everything we do now really matter in the grand scheme of things? I'll leave you guys to meditate on this topic, let me know what you've come up with!

 

lol, that's actually one of my favorite movies. Though before his death, he accepted what was going to happen to him. Just goes to show, mother nature is not something to take lightly.

 

Here is an interesting video about a hermit living in the desert of Egypt. It is heavily Christian based, but I still think regardless of your religion you can learn a lot from this video.