Extreme Seclusion

That life would suit me nicely, apart from raising my own meat. I don't eat meat and could never bring myself to kill an animal just so that I could eat it. However, I would surround myself with animals, simply because I enjoy having them around.

I already live quite an isolated life, even though I live in the centre of a busy town. I keep myself detached as much as I can, don't want to get involved with anyone. The internet is ideal for people like me. We can have brief chats with other people without the hassle of actually being with them physically.

I completely agree with everything you said.

I am a vegetarian since 1984 and the part I didn't like in the film is where she picked up a rabbit and started petting it and saying repeatedly ''Beautiful bunny, beautiful bunny'' to slow it's heart rate and then she killed it. She showed great love for her female pregnant goat, but she probably also kills the goats for food.
 
I looked up Gary O's the Nearings of Maine and found this video on You-tube. I would never want to live such a hard life but I have great admiration for people like them. And, he lived to be 100 and she to 91, not bad for such a hard life.

 

And, he lived to be 100 and she to 91, not bad for such a hard life
Turns out, simple living is actually easier
Easier on the heart
Easier on the mind
Easier on the soul
We got our hands dirty with it for the last four years
Not to the extent of the Nearings, but as far as I cared to go with it
That kind of living has a simple, yet defined, tangible freshening purity unknown to folks in the city
 
I find that I am definitely more antisocial nowadays; not sure if it's because I'm a geezer or if the world is just that ugly now. I prefer my comfortable home to just about anyplace on earth. Anyway, I'm much too cowardly (and dare I say, lazy) to contemplate living in rustic conditions. Just give me air conditioning and a good book; I'm good to go.
Was happy to hear that books are back in vogue and some good sized company bought up Barnes & Noble with the intention of making them the largest independent booksellers...my kind of biz folks. We have a big library and it never fails, when folks come to stay with us you can tell who are the readers an appreciate books and who could care less...how? Books disappear only to turn up months later with a "friend"...lol.
 
We have a big library and it never fails, when folks come to stay with us you can tell who are the readers an appreciate books and who could care less...how? Books disappear only to turn up months later with a "friend"
Books played a big role during the long winter nights at the cabin

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Once I get into a good book, it's a bit of a romance
Hate to leave it, even for awhile
Then, when it's over...I wish it wasn't
 
I was born and raised in the city but I don't know if it is the world today or just the fact that I'm at this age but I do like my solitude. I also want to be able to get help if I need it, and at 80 you never know. We've watched these shows on TV from Alaska and there is just no way that I would ever attempt that living hot weather or cold.
 
Definitely not. I'm a city girl too. I wouldn't like feeling that if I had an emergency, no one would know or it would take to long to get to me. Even though I love my alone time, I also do like interacting with people so that much solitude might throw me into depression.
 
I just don't have what it takes to go native.

I prefer the anonymity and convenience of the city.

Years ago there was a hermit named French Louie in the Adirondacks. Louie came down with a bad case of the flu and thought that he was going to die so he decided that he better dig his grave and climb in. He lined his grave with pine boughs, covered the top with some old boards and pinned a note to his shirt asking whoever found him to please fill in the hole. After a week or two, he started to feel better so he climbed out of his grave and continued with his life for many more years.
In the middle 1800's there was an influx of hermits in New England.
A family outing on Sunday afternoons was to hitch up the buggy, drive to the rural... The various hermits would walk out, wave to announce
their presence. The town folk begin to bring the various hermits food, engage them in conversation (these hermits liked the food, didn't care for conversation.)
This does not sound like real hermits to me. Where was the self-reliance, the desire to preserve anonymity?
A hermit prefers to remain invisible, shuns interaction... No stats were taken, no investigation of why a plague of
hermits appeared...sounds more like people with problems, financial, emotional...

I've known three hermits when I lived in the rural, have know several in work related events: 'There's an old man out here living in the bushes,
all nasty and raggedy.' You will not obtain a lot of information from a true hermit. very private on where they came from, why they have chosen solitude.
It is becoming difficult to live off the grid. Montana, Idaho and the Dakotas with the sparse populations, the huge open territory t have many hermits, semi-hermits and wanta-be hermits.

I find the topic extremely interesting, but reliable information is sparse.
 
A hermit prefers to remain invisible, shuns interaction... No stats were taken, no investigation of why a plague of
hermits appeared...sounds more like people with problems, financial, emotional...
to a tee

There are a few in southern Oregon, on the sunny side of the Cascade Range
But, they live a long hike in
Sometimes worth meeting
Sometimes not

I know two true hermits, recluses
I consider them friends

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Their places are typically unique

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Kinda reminds me of Helen and Scott Nearing
Only, they’re the only ones I know of that actually did it….lived off the land.

Way into their 90s (if I remember correctly)

And they were vegetarians!
(Tough for this carnivore to comprehend)


They inspired my lady and I back in the ‘70s
This was our bible
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And this one

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Heh, we’ve sold everything and moved to the woods…. three times since the ‘70s

I salute anyone that does it like the Nearings did
It still blows my mind

THANK YOU SO MUCH Gary for bringing the Nearings and their books up!!! I became a vegetarian precisely in the 70s and a few years later, when not even myself had heard the word "vegan", I did become a vegan and will die a happy vegan. I wish someone had opened my eyes earlier but so far I enjoy a totally healthy body and mind, I go to the gym 3 to 4 times a week for one full hour high aerobics and swim laps for 30 minutes, I go bowling, I go dancing those very intricate and crazily rapid steps of international folk dancing, and I go ballroom dancing too. I do everything alone in my apartment, I go everywhere alone taking the subway trains and buses, and/or walking, carry my own grocery packages though now I bought a shopping cart. I joined several meetups.com so I go with these groups to some of their events, etc. I walk erect and with normal steps. I never get ill (so far) and see a doctor once a year for thorough checkup and it's always normal. I don't take any medicines nor do I take vaccines.

In other words, I'm a living example (like million other vegans) showing that eating what comes from the earth not only doesn't kill us (as some are voicing) but indeed it keeps our bodies free of any and all harming toxins with the result of giving us the energy, strength, agility, and general good health that we MUST have to enjoy our lives to the end....Oh yes, I'm 92 years old. ;)
 
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Years ago there was a hermit named French Louie in the Adirondacks. Louie came down with a bad case of the flu and thought that he was going to die so he decided that he better dig his grave and climb in. He lined his grave with pine boughs, covered the top with some old boards and pinned a note to his shirt asking whoever found him to please fill in the hole. After a week or two, he started to feel better so he climbed out of his grave and continued with his life for many more years.

And this is exactly why I get flu shots. I had THAT flu when I was 22 and was sure the end was near LOL.
 
Welcome @Rosedala! You sound like an amazing person! :love:

I'd like to live to the 90's but only if I am as healthy mentally and physically as you. I just turned 77. Please fill out your profile so we can find out more about you.
 
I spent my early years living in a railroad caboose (extreme left bottom} in a logging camp up in the Cascade Mountains. only way in or out was by company railroad. We had kerosene lights, wood stove, outhouse and water hauled from the nearby creek. When I started school, we moved down to the main camp, a village of several hundred people and closer to school.

When you are actually set up for off the grid living, it isn't as hard as you might think. The last year we lived up there, the company bought a diesel electric engine to replace one of the old steam locomotives and for a few hours each night they would fire it up to generate electricity for the camp. We did appreciate being able to listen to the radio, and it was easier to read by electric light but otherwise we liked the old way.

I think this photograph was taken in 1948.

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I think I could do it . I enjoy living quietly by myself. I have a few neighbors I speak with but no friends. What I think is too isolated is the shows about people in north Alaska. One has a woman living by herself in an extremely remote area and I would never do that. Living isolated and being able to go out and enjoy nature is one thing, being frozen in for months is another.
 
i have the mental capacity to build a home, cut down trees, chop wood, build fires, grow and store food etc. My biggest challenge would be hunting for food and killing animals. That part I’d find the hardest but I’m sure if I was starving I probably would think differently.

Being totally isolated continuously would drive me batty and I’m already batty enough. Lol
Oddly enough I can handle a lot of seclusion and being on my own. I’m used to it and usually prefer it however I do like seeing people once in a while.

There were documents made of a guy who spent 25 or 30 years in the wilderness on his own. It was rather interesting.
 
My biggest challenge would be hunting for food and killing animals. That part I’d find the hardest but I’m sure if I was starving I probably would think differently.

I can handle a lot of seclusion and being on my own. I’m used to it and usually prefer it however I do like seeing people once in a while.
I agree with you on both statements.

Even though I am a vegetarian, I can only be one because I can buy my food in a store, you can't grow veggies all year round in most places.
I am a loner and like it, but I can also get out of the house and do ''people watching'' and can come online and ''talk'' in forums with others.
 


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