Shouts From Down Under

Sitting on the hill of contempt, or courageous moral stance?

I've attempted to do it too. Four long days, since my last blog entry, and I just can't hold out any more. I have to rejoin the floods of humanity and be swept along with the tsunamis of trend and social constraint.

As a 15-16 year old, I too considered running away from home, like most teenagers I suppose, who feel such hormonal outrage against the INJUSTICES of humankind and all the issues squashed like a custard tart in our face. All these things that politics and other motivators push onto impressionable younger peoples, trying to indoctrinate them before their parents can be proved right , and use their youthful zeal to do their bidding, be it a justified cause or delusional trickery. (32 virgin variety if you blow up a market full of innocents)

No, I couldn't be a hermit for very long. Forget about decades. Not even a week! This article is a long(ish) read, but well worth the investment for the interest value alone. Story prompts galore here, but then, who would believe you?

http://www.gq.com/news-politics/newsmakers/201409/the-last-true-hermit

I feel a strong writer's urge to also visit this man in jail, if that's where he is now, (this article is dated some time in 2013) to try to shake the explanation loose that the journalist who interviewed him couldn't. I want to obtain that wisdom from him, that golden treasure of answers to life's questions that we just know he obtained when he spent so long by himself.

But, the sad fact is, for a man who cut himself off so obstinately, with such obvious strength, he didn't even read the bible. Ok, I'm a little biased here, I admit, and I'm hijacking this whole blog idea to push my own ideas, but I come to a different conclusion than the hermit who said he's not a hermit but knows what a real hermit should do, and tries to do that himself.

He aspires to be a true hermit. He has tried and is still trying, to hide from thinking anything that is real. He has sought, and in effect, has succeeded, in escaping reality.

Sad though, that reality will catch up with him, and it's not jail I'm pointing to, it's death. His entire life will have been wasted hiding away.

What a world we live in, where this is his choice. But that is rightly so.
We do have a choice, and it's a pity if we don't choose to find true peace. Hiding alone in a bush camp will be peaceful, and I can only imagine with jealousy how good it was for him, for all those years.

But true peace should be found, and is fully available to us all, now, in this life. Not AFTERWARDS.

It's a peace that's free, not stolen.

People wanted to provide everything for this man, for nothing and would have been glad to do it. But that's not what he wanted or wants. He doesn't want peace that costs him something, where he has to give of himself.

Aren't we all a bit like this sometimes?

Sparky