Get Involved, Wherever You Wish

Fighting the hermit reflex

In the tarot deck, the Hermit represents worthwhile introspection, beneficial solitude, and self-growth. Reversed, however, the Hermit represents dangerous isolation and unhealthy solitude. When seeking out alone time, it’s hard to know when to stop; it’s hard to know when that upright card begins to reverse. 

When I was in high school, it was easy for me to justify keeping out of things. I let opportunities to connect pass me by because I figured there was some alien quality to my being that made proms and parties no-go areas. I suspect, also, that there was a little arrogance mixed in with my conviction that none of those things were for me. In the end, I was just catering to my fears — all that change, all that noise, all those lights — better to avoid it all rather than face it.

Only recently — when looking back on the amount of times I shrugged off the implications of, once again, staying home — did I realise that my Hermit card may very well have been reversed. All the disparate feelings I was having — the anxiety, the sadness, the greyness — suddenly looked a whole lot more like loneliness than I had expected. Loneliness, in stark opposition to other emotions like anger, is one of those states that brings with it a lot of feelings that don’t directly connect to the source. Understanding when you are truly lonely can be like looking for something that you suddenly realise you never understood in the first place. Feelings like anger, resentment, irritation, and sadness come to the fore, but oftentimes the answer to those can be to seek out more alone time. It’s only when they start to foment that it becomes clear the true root of the issue may require getting out there and not going back in. 

The call to be part of a community can be a difficult one to answer. On the one hand, it requires overcoming your most stubborn aspects — you have to do things that may not totally align with your interests; you have to speak to people you might not normally have spoken to; you have to go places you may not want to go. On the other hand, letting the call go to voicemail entails returning to your silent room with no possibility of connection or togetherness with others. But then, how do we admit that that’s what we need? If you’re used to having your H-card upright, then you’ve probably been convinced by every internet guru and self-help book that there can be no part of you that may require companionship from time to time. 

In fact, this can be the hardest thing to admit when finding a solution to many problems nowadays. Our thought processes have become deeply clinical — we become convinced that because we appear one way sometimes or even most of the time, we will be that way forever. If you are usually solemn and quiet, then you always will be, it’s part of your nature; if you are usually loud and talkative, you always will be, it’s part of your nature; if you are usually happy being alone, you always will be, it’s part of your nature. Except, that’s not always true, and believing the opposite sets the stage for more problems down the line. When the lone wolves discover that they’re lonely, is it seeking out a community that causes more angst, or the admission that the wolves weren’t entirely who they thought they were? 

Everything within you can scream that it’s not worth it to go find your people, to spend time with them and tackle loneliness — but that’s precisely why it matters so much. Loneliness generates feelings that trap you in a self-perpetuating cycle, one where it seems natural to nurse your fears and anxieties in your own company, where the chaos and irrationality of others can’t reach you. But, as with everything, the inevitability of breaking that cycle can’t be avoided without serious, dangerous consequences. Once in a while, it’s good to remind yourself that you aren’t the Hermit. Whether reversed or upright, it may be that a decade-long streak of only needing your own company means nothing else except that being alone worked temporarily. Once in a while, it’s good to turn the Hermit upright.

Image from Wikimedia Commons