I think the point was, Merton wanted to be a 'famous hermit' – the guy, for all his insight, was conflicted.But not so unattainable? If someone can afford a studio apartment in NYC and works from home, to go out occasionally...
The Wilderness
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juantoo3
....whys guy.... ʎʇıɹoɥʇnɐ uoıʇsǝnb
Aren't we all conflicted though?
Not having read the book and only the one line to go by, it sounds to me like trying to isolate oneself in the midst of "hell." Perhaps in some futile attempt to wall off the world? As long as we still require interaction with other humans, for whatever necessary reasons, it is a fool's errand to attempt. The flip side is even if one is prodigiously talented at performing all manner of duties required in life, there will still be those duties that require the assistance of another. Darned if you do, darned if you don't.
And I hope it goes without saying how even attempting this isolation wrecks havoc on one's love life.
I can imagine this was the underlying motivation for the foundation of monasteries and nunneries, and in "olden times" before electricity I can see how this would have been able to function. But to go it alone is near impossible. I think Thoreau only lasted a couple of years. On the other hand, there were Mountain Men who explored the West (particularly the Rocky Mountains in what is now Colorado, New Mexico and points North into Canada) who in many instances did so alone, though no doubt from time to time they came down from the mountains into town to restock. But any of this requires a particular frame of mind, and in my experience that frame of mind is not common among people. Humans are gregarious social animals, and lone wolves tend to be shunned.
A person comes into conflict deciding who/what/which is more important - G!d or family. Most choose family. I don't think it is (or should be) an either/or proposition, but in our developing understanding we certainly cross that minefield at some point in our searches - at least those of us who do actually search.
Not having read the book and only the one line to go by, it sounds to me like trying to isolate oneself in the midst of "hell." Perhaps in some futile attempt to wall off the world? As long as we still require interaction with other humans, for whatever necessary reasons, it is a fool's errand to attempt. The flip side is even if one is prodigiously talented at performing all manner of duties required in life, there will still be those duties that require the assistance of another. Darned if you do, darned if you don't.
And I hope it goes without saying how even attempting this isolation wrecks havoc on one's love life.
I can imagine this was the underlying motivation for the foundation of monasteries and nunneries, and in "olden times" before electricity I can see how this would have been able to function. But to go it alone is near impossible. I think Thoreau only lasted a couple of years. On the other hand, there were Mountain Men who explored the West (particularly the Rocky Mountains in what is now Colorado, New Mexico and points North into Canada) who in many instances did so alone, though no doubt from time to time they came down from the mountains into town to restock. But any of this requires a particular frame of mind, and in my experience that frame of mind is not common among people. Humans are gregarious social animals, and lone wolves tend to be shunned.
A person comes into conflict deciding who/what/which is more important - G!d or family. Most choose family. I don't think it is (or should be) an either/or proposition, but in our developing understanding we certainly cross that minefield at some point in our searches - at least those of us who do actually search.
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Each to his own.
To fully grasp the picture is beyond my scope, I didn't know the man. He does seem someone who wanted both worlds, as his critics point out, and his defenders ... defend.
Indeed, although I have to admit my sympathies lie with the lady in question ...
TheLightWithin
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Like the guy who wrote the Catcher in the Rye...
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Also the early Church Fathers, correct? Living as hermits or in the seemingly inconsistently named but real, hermit communities.
juantoo3
....whys guy.... ʎʇıɹoɥʇnɐ uoıʇsǝnb
Yes, or even Martin Luther, sequestered in a non-descript room in the bowels of some castle where he could focus all of his energies on G!d's word without any distractions. Same concept.
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But writing works for the ages and being famous because of it
Maybe Merton's true aspiration.
Do you think he achieved it?
juantoo3
....whys guy.... ʎʇıɹoɥʇnɐ uoıʇsǝnb
I really have no way to answer that... <shrug>
The Wilderness is forbidding, it is challenging, it is unfamiliar...it is scary. Most folks don't want to go there. Some romanticize about it. Some take a day trip or weekend to the woods or to stargaze, or to catch a sunrise/sunset over the ocean. Some rare few find a place of solace inside their own minds (and we usually commit them as insane). I think the best we can do under present circumstances is catch a fleeting glimpse.
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If it were his ambition, perhaps he is famous enough to have met that goal... if it was indeed his goal...
Survivalists spend years learning how to (mostly not) survive in the wilderness.
Other people just go camping.
juantoo3
....whys guy.... ʎʇıɹoɥʇnɐ uoıʇsǝnb
With limited information I have no way of knowing. Seems to me fame and isolation are opposite ends of the spectrum, and why famous people complaining about the problems brought on by fame and intrusion of their privacy seems to me brought on by their own choices - deal with it.
Or grow a garden...
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Or try to keep a farm going.
Especially a subsistence farm
But back to the fame, I think many people are not prepared for the price of fame.
They want the recognition or glamor but don't know the cost. Or any of the downside.
Some people never wanted the glamor or recognition but do great work that gets an audience and then-- gulp!
juantoo3
....whys guy.... ʎʇıɹoɥʇnɐ uoıʇsǝnb
Be careful what you pray for...you might get it.
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In terms of fame... some people get famous or at least lose their privacy because someone adjacent to them gets famous (think children of celebrities) or something makes their field more high-profile. And remember the events in the world of ice skating leading up to the 1994 Winter Olympics? And the criminal investigation that followed? That Olympics got more attention than it normally would, and lingered in the media for months. During the Olympics and for years afterward, ice skaters who were nowhere close to winning became household names due to the media coverage and the subsequent boom to ice skating as a form of entertainment (aided by the Hollywood writer's strike, and I think some kind of strike affecting baseball and hockey during that same time period... nothing on TV but ice skating for a time. Woe to 10th place finishers who had hoped for only a role in a once obscure hobby! [obscure for decades for anybody but gold medalists] Famous now!)
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And of course there are people of conscience who become whistleblowers... then their lives as anonymous citizens are blown.
juantoo3
....whys guy.... ʎʇıɹoɥʇnɐ uoıʇsǝnb
JD Salinger...famous for being a recluse
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And a famous one at that!
The Desert Fathers, I think you mean ... the Church Fathers were Churchmen, some were monks, but not particularly hermits.
There's the collated wisdom of the Desert, "The Monk's Garden" aka "The Paradise of the Desert Fathers" always worth a dip.
I only laugh because I heard it was a latrine ... he did his thinking in the loo, it seems he suffered from an intestinal; disorder, but that could be Catlick propaganda.
Edit: Just checked, he did, it was bad, and it wasn't funny, so I apologise.
I think the 'dark night of the soul' corresponds here ... and of course, one can experience the wilderness in the middle of a city.
That's not the wilderness as I understand it, nor you, I think. As you say, a romanticism.
I like desolate landscapes, but I'm not sure that's wilderness ... I envisage a scape without feature, without a fix ... a vista of uncertainty.
I remember hearing an account of the guy who did a parachute jump from a weather balloon ... really, really high up ... so high, the air is thin, so there's no external sensation of falling. At one point, between hazy above and a haze below, he had no idea which way was which, and was suddenly unsure if he was falling up, down or sideways, a really disconcerting experience ... then the air gets thinker, so his jumpsuit starts to ripple and flap, and that gives him a fix, as it were, and he could reorientate himself.
I suppose 'wilderness' for me is where all our anchors, our markers are absent ... the loss of certitude ...
On the matter of hermetism, I once met Maria Boulding, a Benedictine nun, a scholar, a bundle of fun.
Just after my return to Catholicism, a friend phoned and said 'There's a Patristics Conference at Stanbrook Abbey. You should go.' So on his say-so, I phoned, booked a seat and went. It turned out I was the only one there not in orders, the only one without a PhD ...
So I was mobbed by the nuns, all asking, "What are you doing here?" And they seemed delighted when I told them I had an interest in Patristics.
Later I was in the cafeteria when a nun bustled up and demanded to know what I was doing there, Same answer, A barrage of questions. "Oh," she said with great delight. "You're a Christian Neoplatonist!" Never been called that before.
When we reassembled for the next speaker, she found me, grabbed my arm. "Come and sit with me!" So I did, through this dense presentation on Origen and the Platonists. At the end, she dug an elbow in my ribs. "Ask a question, go on!"
She was an absolute delight.
She left the abbey to live as a hermit for 19 years, returning to become, eventually, Abbess of the Abbey, before her passing.
On a trip to Japan once, there was an earthquake. "If I had only a few more minutes to live," she reflected, "I didn't want to waste them talking to God about my sins. I wanted to thank him for all the love, all the joy."
Just after my return to Catholicism, a friend phoned and said 'There's a Patristics Conference at Stanbrook Abbey. You should go.' So on his say-so, I phoned, booked a seat and went. It turned out I was the only one there not in orders, the only one without a PhD ...
So I was mobbed by the nuns, all asking, "What are you doing here?" And they seemed delighted when I told them I had an interest in Patristics.
Later I was in the cafeteria when a nun bustled up and demanded to know what I was doing there, Same answer, A barrage of questions. "Oh," she said with great delight. "You're a Christian Neoplatonist!" Never been called that before.
When we reassembled for the next speaker, she found me, grabbed my arm. "Come and sit with me!" So I did, through this dense presentation on Origen and the Platonists. At the end, she dug an elbow in my ribs. "Ask a question, go on!"
She was an absolute delight.
She left the abbey to live as a hermit for 19 years, returning to become, eventually, Abbess of the Abbey, before her passing.
On a trip to Japan once, there was an earthquake. "If I had only a few more minutes to live," she reflected, "I didn't want to waste them talking to God about my sins. I wanted to thank him for all the love, all the joy."