A Field Guide to Becoming a Hermit

1. A hermit’s objects are not static, they are fluid. 

Spread your book collection across your bed. If you are an emerging hermit, this may take only one or two rounds, depending on the size of your bed. If you are an intermediate hermit, this will take a few rounds and you may leave books piled on the floor while you sort through the rest. Sort the books into piles by genre (gifted, purchased with influence from an admired source, purchased with free will, purchased with your last $35 dollars, purchased ashamedly on amazon, stolen from the library, acquired somehow else). As you categorise the books, create a separate section for your favourites and when you are finished, gracefully, gently, kiss them individually and tell each one why you love them. 

2. Invest in off-kilter lighting. 

Suggestions: a lamp shaped like the moon, a lamp shaped like the moon that is turned on and off by touch, a reading lamp to make your book look like an Anglerfish, a pink rock salt lamp and an accompanying black pepper lamp, votive candles that come in bulk from a catholic supply store, a glowing mushroom, a lamp that projects a sunrise onto the wall, a projector playing Andy Warhol’s Blue Movie, an antique green and brass bankers lamp.

3. Establish a routine. 

Every Friday night, liberate all items of your clothing from their hangers. Try each item on. Music may be blasting, but only through headphones. This differs from the book exercise as you may discard the clothes anywhere as you change. Consuming substances while doing so is encouraged. Convince yourself you still need the brown vintage corset for future nights out. Try on the knee-high pleather platform boots. Strut. The aim here is not to get rid of anything, but to indulge in the act of making a mess. Spill wine on the floor, fall asleep wearing an oversized denim jacket. On Saturday morning, you encounter that…

4. Cleaning is good for the soul.

Clean up from the night before. Clean out the leftovers in the fridge. Clean the cat litter. Clean your teeth. Clean under your fingernails. Get on your hands and knees and clean the dust from the baseboards. Clean the filters in your dishwasher. Pretend to clean the Nutribullet container via a squirt of dish soap and a soak in warm water. Make it enjoyable. Make it delicious. Open the windows, light some incense. If you have a front door, leave it wedged open with a shoe. If you have a balcony, even better. The key here is to gift the body with fresh oxygen. The key here is to create the illusion of interaction. Wave to a neighbour. Hell! Why not say hello. Talk is permitted, as long as it is confined to your respective dwelling, and any future plans to meet are only as sturdy as ‘some time in the future’. 

5. Address the loneliness. 

Denial is the death of the hermit. Face it. Greet it. Befriend it. When crying into your noodles on a Tuesday evening, listen closely to the echoes of your faint weeping. Notice the space around you. Observe the lack of suffocation. The breathing room. Cry in the shower. Cry in the car. Cry in the glow of the fridge light while you realise no one has bought groceries. Cry when you realise there is no one. Cry loudly while masturbating. Masturbate loudly while crying. Invest in a sturdy vibrator. Or a dildo. Or a flesh light. Hermits’ choice. Keep pornography consumption to a weekend basis. Subscribe to an erotica magazine. Start writing your own. Churn over it at your desk. Slave over it, sweat over it. Read it over and over, and then learn to let it go. At night when it’s thunder storming, sprawl across your bed. Listen to the rain. Listen to the rumbles. Star fish on the mattress. Feel the cold on your skin. Dive gently into slumber. Spoon the loneliness. Wake in the morning to find its absence.

6. Keep in contact with the outside world. 

All experienced hermits know that maintaining a connection to our global community is crucial to the sustainability of the lifestyle. Go into the garden every so often and assess the health of your soil. Fill a container with dirt and take it inside to your kitchen table. Carefully sift it and keep account of the number of micro-organisms. On a piece of paper, tally the slater count, the spider count, the millipede count, and of course the number of worms. If the number of worms drops below 5 per 1000ml of soil, lock yourself in a dark, damp room and panic. This environment simulates the ideal habitat of a worm and therefore puts you in the state of mind needed to manage this crisis. 

7. Grapple with your younger self. 

In a former life you agreed to be someone’s ‘yes’ girl. You weren’t lying about the commitment, but you were certainly ignorant about the responsibilities that come with the role. Every weekend, strap in for the rolling stream of progressively drunker text messages, begging you to come party from your ‘yes’ girl counterpart. Keep a list of creative ways to say no, and on Monday morning, add your newly invented additions to the list. 

8. Find an obsession. 

If you currently enjoy something, this is a good start. In a sort of meditative exercise, slowly start bringing all thoughts back to this new hobby/project/life purpose. If it is helpful, create a simple mantra from the obsession’s name, e.g., Dungeons and Dragons, and very softly but clearly repeat the mantra in your mind when you notice yourself thinking about anything else. This will calibrate your brain to your new reality of being conduit between God and what sits beneath your fingertips. 

9. Sustain the body elaborately. 

The parameters here reach far beyond cooking. Create elaborate coffee in the morning using your own ground brew and homemade nut milk. Become a cocktail connoisseur. Become an expert in the art of the bath, and request as many bath products as possible for gifts on Christmas and your birthday (receive by mail only of course). Study naturopathy online and invest a small fortune into supplements. The options are endless, as long as the interest is time-consuming and unnecessarily complicated. 

10. Remain diligent.  

Keep the blinds down more often than not. Create an art of the illusion that no one is home. Take care of appliances so you seldom need to bring a maintenance person upstairs. Tip toe everywhere as to avoid calling attention upon oneself. Avoid eye contact on walks. Pay someone to take the bins out. Install a peephole. Make peace with bed sores. While others are thinking outside of the box, you are aligning your soul with its interior. You are learning what 1 minute, 1 hour, 1 year really means in the absence of others. Secretly, very secretly, pray for a second pandemic.