Hermits around the web – Hermitary
news, sites, and pages of interest about hermits and solitude
In an essay in The Conversation titled “Being alone has its benefits,” psychologist Virginia Thomas offers the consideration that loneliness can evolve into “positive solitude,” addressing the “stigma of solitude” and the need to reframe solitude at the cultural as well as individual level.
For more articles on solitude by VirginiaThomas in Psychology Today, visit her web site:
URL: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/solitude-in-social-world
Originally published in Aeon, a short essay by Jennifer Stitt on solitude, with a forcus on the thought of Hannah Arendt.
From the essay:
“Arendt reminds us, if we lose our capacity for solitude, our ability to be alone with ourselves, then we lose our very ability to think. We risk getting caught up in the crowd. We risk being “swept away,” as she put it, “by what everybody else does and believes in” — no longer able, in the cage of thoughtless conformity, to distinguish “right from wrong, beautiful from ugly.” Solitude is not only a state of mind essential to the development of an individual’s consciousness — and conscience — but also a practice that prepares one for participation in social and political life. Before we can keep company with others, we must learn to keep company with ourselves.”
URL: https://aeon.co/ideas/before-you-can-be-with-others-first-learn-to-be-alone
The magazine Mutual Art presents an essay titled “An American Solitude: Short Stories by Edward Hopper.” Early 20th century American artist Hopper has been celebrated for insightful paintings portraying solitude in an urban sitting.
URL: https://www.mutualart.com/Article/An-American-Solitude–Short-Stories-by-E/81DAD09C6423E878
Stephen Batchelor — author of the classics Alone With Others and The Art of Solitude, plus his key book Secular Buddhism: Imagining the Dharma in an Uncertain World — discusses his ideas about modern Buddhism with host Krista Tippett on an installmentment of the podcast On Being titled “Wonderous Doubt.”
Batchelor: “Many of my critics would be quite happy for me to stop calling myself a Buddhist. And even some of those who like my work feel that the Buddhism gets in the way. But I disagree profoundly with that. The rootedness in tradition is central to me; and I see Buddhist tradition — I suspect like other traditions, also — as not something which is static and fixed and somehow preserved in formaldehyde, but it is something that is alive.”
URL: https://onbeing.org/programs/stephen-batchelor-wondrous-doubt-mar2018/
Psyche presents a reflection on Nietzsche and the shaping of the self in an essay titled “When Nietzsche said ‘become who you are’, this is what he meant.” As the author of the piece notes: “Contrary to popular belief, Nietzsche was not a nihilist set on destroying human values. In fact, the unifying purpose behind his work was to fill the moral vacuum left by the decline of religion. His aversion to the legalistic and guilt-inducing ethical systems of his time stemmed from his fundamental goal of guiding individuals toward psychological health, personal excellence and virtue.”
URL: https://psyche.co/ideas/when-nietzsche-said-become-who-you-are-this-is-what-he-meant