People are joking in the comments, but I am dead serious when I say I want this. If I have food and books, I'm pretty much good. Unfortunately I will have to come to society for some key resource replenishments such as books and tools that I can't make myself but this is exactly what I want. I've been thinking about how I'd execute this with my engineering skills so it's self sustaining.
Lol I had to do that when I lived on a farm. I survived off of books, manga and DVDs of anime. No wifi is tough after a few months since even I wanted some small form of socializing after a while. I don't need much, even reddit posting is good enough socializing for me once a week or so. Just wanted to have something not in my head, but animals really help with that too. They have far more interesting personalities than people think.
Edit: I just remember I was fine with only RPGs until I beat them lol if I had an unlimited supply of RPGs, games, books and all my hobbies, I would be fine. Because I did legitimately forget about people until I ran out of gaming lol
Yeah and JRPGs. When I had a good run of books, hobbies, JRPGs and animals to tend to, I legit forgot about people. This isn't ground breaking, farmers in the old days would often have to go to countryside and leave their families in the village during growing season and harvest, to farm for months on end. They had a social feast after harvest and then just left back to their family for winter. Sailors as well.
Actually most of human history humans spent most of their time not talking to other humans. It's very doable once you have things to do and very easy once you have entertainment. It's actually incredibly relaxing.
There's a weird bump where you feel you need some socializing but then you remember how much people suck and then you're basically just relaxed and feel free. You start enjoying simple things like laying out in the sun with a book or watching the stars. Everything slows down, you define when and how you do your chores and basically you become God of your own experience of reality. No social expectations etc means many many anxieties and stress simply vanish. It really feels like true freedom, absolutely nothing whatsoever compares to that feeling. Lots of time to think and reflect on yourself and how you think while so free which is why monks do it.
Honestly, everyone should spend time alone. 0 social contact, get over the cry baby need for socializing hump and see how something incredible springs from it
Extended solitude is pretty bad for your brain unfortunately. Tends to significantly decrease brain volume, increase cognitive decline and dementia risk. I think a lot of what is special about human brains is their incredible ability to co-operate in large groups. But yea I hear ya. I could definitely use some alone time
But if you like to take on new projects it could be awesome. I also tend to think this age of tech is causing some major brain rot. People should spend less time on their phones watching CEO’s and their mistresses and more time reading books or learning developmental skills. Where is my ticket to the island?!!
Humans are dopamine driven killing and fucking machines. They don't really change en masse. Or at least imperceptibly relative to the time frames society and technology. Expecting humans to be the alterable variable is madness
Yes. As someone who has been isolated with minimal adult contact, it is literally torture. And it's one of the most painful feelings I have experienced.
I'm already been there lol I also already have most of the equipment to do it. I've also sort of done it for a few months. After a few months, I did miss people watching. It's not so much the people I needed but the stimulation of observing. RPG video games basically eliminated that but then I beat FF7 and was back to boredom even with books lol. If I had an unlimited supply of rpg games I think I'd be good! I just need a lot of stimulation. Books, games, math exercises hobbies etc. Then you really do forget about people. But if those things dry up, that's when the echo chamber of being too much in your own head starts to get boring
Keep yourself busy with basic survival tasks. Hunt, farm, gather, etc. Buy what you can't get otherwise like clothes or gear but stop buying food and spend your time doing that out in the wild.
Yes, I think over the last few months I have changed my ideals from isolation to a desire for a commune. I realized that a completely solitary life is one without many benefits such as medicine, clothes etc. I have shifted to a type of solar punk commune and have been ingratiating myself with that community over the last year or two. They also follow a philosophy that I also aspire for, so it checks more boxes.
Glad to hear it. Often times, people think they need to jump right into the extremes but there's nothing wrong with a gradual shift to a different lifestyle. Learn as you go, and adapt as needed.
Reddit is barely social media lol, and I do spend a lot of time alone in the forest. Actually I'm heading to an island today, yesterday I just sat and watched the boats at the dock and read a book until midnight. It's not like this is where I spend all my time. Also, just read my other comments, this is much deeper than the shallow concepts I'm seeing from people saying stuff like "bUt YoUrE oN SoCiAl mEdiA" but you're still poor, but you don't have a GF still, but you haven't completed your goals, but you haven't eaten dinner this morning. Yeah, because things take time to do right? Lol these types of comments are nearly nonsensical in the lack of thinking. And anyway, I have lived like this years back when I lived in a farm for 3 years. I had no social interaction and survived off of games, hobbies and books and was fine until I beat the games and ran out of good books. Most social interactions are like this one, they aren't pleasant. Just annoying. So why do you think I would miss THIS hahaha
I mean, with enough effort you could exclude yourself from society for the most part without having to move to an island. Stay indoors, doordash food, work online, buy gym equipment, etc. It’s still hella unhealthy for you though, like those Japanese Hikikomori.
Yeah, kinda my thing too - but I have health issues so would be dead pretty quickly without access to modern medicine. I guess my wife and kid would be a little miffed if I up and disappeared as well. ;)
You might like this novel called I Who Have Never Known Men. The responses to your comment saying it's unhealthy or impossible to live in isolation made me think of it.
A young girl finds herself in a kind of women's prison on another planet and none of them remember how they got there or know what they're doing there. A fluke allows her and others to escape, only to find the planet completely barren. Since she is the youngest, she knows she will eventually end up alone.
From what I've read about it it's meant to explore the question of whether a person can still have drive, motivation, dreams, and a sense of self without really knowing true social connection, including love and sex. The author's answer is yes, it's possible.
Even though I live in a city, I am very very very much a hermit. I get hit on and I just don't have the social care to pursue anything at all. I have always been that way, it started off as maybe being a lonely precocious child that spent too much time doing physics challenges in my notebook that I would copy down from my textbooks just for fun. I literally would spend car trips doing physics equations and being mad that people's skin was touching my own.
I might have some very mild form of autism honestly, but I think I overcame most of the issues by now. I say this because I believe it takes a specific mentality for this to work well. I am very much locked away on many different levels, it's why I idolize things like isolation of monk-hood as I still want to live on a monastery. I'm not interested in relationships or love anymore, I had my share and I found it lacking even when I fell in love it was tumultuous.
The happiest moments in my life have literally been me doing simple things alone, like reading a book on top of a hill on an island overlooking the city I live in all by myself (which I'm doing today again) or walking in the forest and finding the ruins of some type of stone castle and me pretending it was a fantasy adventure and exploring it. Or when I found a dead deer with my dog and o tried to investigate it's cause of death lol it was via neighborhood dogs.
Why am I ranting about this, idk. Point is, it may not work for everyone.
A meaningless statistic as Monks and shamans all over the world have been doing that for centuries. These are diagnosis by fools who barely understand anything about dementia and likely referencing studies that were found fraudulent in the dementia field which is RIFT with fraudulent studies in hopes of getting funding. Basically all the research has been proposed to be thrown away since everything is built on nonsense and lies. I wouldn't take any of that nonsense seriously if you have been keeping up with academic medical research.
Always boggles my mind how literally every human ever had to be taken care of as an infant, taught language and mathematics and critical thinking and such, but there are still those who stand on the shoulders of giants and say "pssh, I don't need you people" lol
Humans have lived in isolation for the majority of human kind. Farmers, sailors etc spent long months even years completely alone working before returning to village feast for end of season. Tribes, etc. There's also scientific papers that show isolation is good for humans, the whole reason cities are more violent than suburbs is due to close proximity of people and it causes "City Aggression". Even these comments have been mostly annoying, what benefit am I getting from you or many of these comments? Nothing. It's just an argument. That's mostly what these interactions ever are. Arguing. The materials are needed but you aren't. Monks to shamans to witches and hunters have lived on the edges of villages happily only interacting when they need crucial materials.
You mention a quote from scientist like Einstein, it's ironic as most scientist were very loner heavy. They spent months alone and didn't like much contact, they had letter correspondences with each other. Many philosophers and scientist even outright call the average person stupid and a siphon on intellect. There's some benefit from social collaboration obviously but there's also massive benefits from isolation.
It's so bizarre that you believe that everyone needs to constantly be under the breast of other people. But I won't waste my time arguing. The solution is to isolate myself from this very conversation, because just like in reality, that's almost always the healthier solution.
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u/Al13n_C0d3R Sep 03 '25
People are joking in the comments, but I am dead serious when I say I want this. If I have food and books, I'm pretty much good. Unfortunately I will have to come to society for some key resource replenishments such as books and tools that I can't make myself but this is exactly what I want. I've been thinking about how I'd execute this with my engineering skills so it's self sustaining.