To hermit or not to hermit

Last night while talking with a friend I said something out loud that I hadn’t fully admitted to myself. I expressed a yearning to sign off for a minute and by a minute I mean at least a week or two or until this whole crisis blows over. I don’t want to Zoom or Skype or respond to Whatsapps, I really want to go full hermit on this ´rona experience. Now some of you might be picturing a skinny, old man with a long scraggly grey beard or a slightly mad woman whose appearance suggests she just doesn’t give a damn, she’s way more interested in the voices in her head. That is not what I mean. Here in Spain, our full-on lockdown has already put us in semi-hermit mode. There is no going out unless it is to the grocery store or pharmacy with police patrols to enforce it. And many of us live in apartments, no gardens, no patios or balconies to hang out on. The fact that staying in contact is more vital than ever coupled with this unprecedented gift of time makes connecting with long lost friends and family a beautiful opportunity. And yet many of us are exhausted, discombobulated struggling to keep ourselves together.

What led me to the hermit conclusion wasn´t philosophical but physical. Just a couple of weeks into confinement, at the end of one especially heavy video chat day I spent hours sitting on my couch in complete silence, staring into nothingness. The kind of tired I felt was not physical but mental. My poor overloaded brain suddenly short-circuited and stopped. My body followed suit in solidarity. It was as if I was in the middle of a lucid dream. I could hear, see, smell but I couldn’t move. The very thought of moving was exhausting. That scared me, seldom have I experienced such deep fatigue. This moment gave me pause and caused me to start wondering what was going on. Soon enough I was caught up in the business and stopped thinking about it. However, I continued to feel tired. I was thrilled that online classes began to pick up but found myself more and more reluctant to respond to personal texts and chats. I started to resent always being in contact and feeling pressure to respond. It was at the height of my frustration and guilt I came to the decision to hermit. Hermiting looked like paradise, an oasis of stillness and silence in the midst of all this frantic digital connecting.

Then one day I saw a Twitter thread my dear friend Christina, a therapist, shared on her FB feed. In the thread, another therapist explained why we are so exhausted after video calls. They said that video calls are confusing because our minds get tricked into believing that we are together while our body feels the physical absence. Digital connections instead of satiating our desire for connection exacerbate it by confusing us into believing we are connected when our bodies know that we are not. Our struggle to bring those two diametrically opposed ideas together is making us tired. Our deepest yearning is for the very thing we lack and cannot have, connection. Instead of coming to terms with that painful reality, we have been forcing ourselves to settle for a substitute our bodies refuse to accept. Bingo! I felt relieved, I wasn’t going crazy, this hyperconnectivity really is taking a toll. We live in a very strange time. Confinement means we are constantly digitally connecting but not physically connected. That physical connection is key to our well being. Unfortunately, there is no shortcut around that. We must figure out how to live with that paradox in a way that does not cause us harm. Which is why I propose hermiting. Now in my mind, there are degrees to hermiting. As much as I would like to go full hermit from now till the end of this ´rona ride it simply isn’t possible. I teach online and I don’t want to spend who knows how many months without any contact with family and friends. Instead, I have decided that during the week I will limit my personal connecting to one person a day and as much as possible switch to phone calls. During the weekends I will go dark. Even if no degree of hermiting is possible for you, there are organizations helping people to use their devices more consciously. My friend Christina just happens to run a group called Digital Mindfulness Retreats which does just that help you work through your digital device dependency. At a time when we find ourselves more reliant than ever on our devices, it is urgent that we are not overwhelmed by them, we must learn to take care of ourselves which means setting limits to find balance.

Hermiting doesn’t have to be a full-on renunciation of the world. In times like these, it can be a chance to take confinement to the next level to reap the benefits of isolation by going all the way into stillness and silence. In doing that we are giving our bodies the boundaries they will need to continue this for the long haul. Human connection is visual, auditory, and tactile. The most essential element is the very one we lack touch — the hug, the kiss, the warmth of another body. Unfortunately, there is no substitute or workaround. We must learn how to adapt ourselves as best we can. Accepting the invitation to hermit, to whatever extent possible, that this quarantine presents will allow us time to rest, mourn what we have lost, and to more clearly see the possibilities this time can bring.