And so I have made up my mind. I am not going to have anything to do with another person for the rest of my life. Yes, I am going to be a hermit.
So this would be doubling as a ‘goodbye’ thread, I gather?
oh come on… the only cool hermit was the one on Zoso…
Hell is other people…
but hell is also no other people.
there is no winning here.
People can’t live with them,
can’t live without them.
Kropotkin
Hell is when there is not a single person to talk to, and since we’re all here… 
therefore this must be heaven, well philosophical heaven anyway lol :D/
The dildo goes in the right drawer. The tissues in the left. The videos go in the bottom draw (so as not to be too tempting). I recommend two computer screens, for whenever you’re calmly cruising along the internet and just get the urge. You know what, make it three (you never know).
Video games will help you pass the time – play long enough and you will notice the psychosis set in, so play at your own risk. Do not play Risk. It is generally advisable to stay away from philosophers (ILP has very few philosophers, so this community is still alright). Hang the grocery store’s phone-number on the list with the Chinese food and the Pizza place’s numbers just above your computer moniters. Do not look at the grocery delivery boy. Or the pizza delivery boy for that matter.
You will need a system. I recommend a dog door for the groceries, and you may want to think about getting a pizza-box slot installed as well. You should place money in your mailbox. You will need a job. Try one of them make-it-rich-quick-schemes without leaving your home. This may not generate enough income to pay the electricity bill, so you may want to take up online gambling; I recommend poker. Brunson’s book is the best, though Online Killer Poker works too. Be careful. Never play poker when you are feeling lonely or are in want of social contact. You will lose money to make yourself feel liked by the other players. This is a poor financial decision (please underline the word poor).
You may want to go a little shyster if this fails to generate enough income. I recommend just being one of those webcam gals – you may feel self-conscious in the begining, but pretty soon, you will forget that the webcams even exist, and sooner than you think, you will start to like it. Do not get caught in the cycle, you do not need to subscribe to other people’s webcams.
You will need to be careful to not go all Miss Emily on everyone. Therefore, I recomend daily strolls around your backyard. If you don’t have a backyard, take strolls on your building’s roof. Some sun is good for you. Too much sun is not good for you. Too much sun will cause you to go all Nietzsche on everyone – and no one needs that, so keep your snakes in the hamper.
At times, when you get really lonely, begin to indulge telemarketers. Ask them all sorts of questions about their product(s); get all the information you can possibily get out of them; go ahead and ask them personal questions as well – believe me, with their jobs, they’ll be glad to stay on the phone with anyone who has not hung up within the first 30 seconds, or cursed them out. Ask them if they have a family, if they want a family; maybe they have childern, maybe they are working two jobs and sending all the extra money they earn back to India, maybe they are from India – this is a great way to get travel information. Not that you would ever want to go to India, but still, it’s always good to stay on top of things; you know, for those times when you feel like thinking about going to India, what you would do in India, what they use for Big Mac’s in India, etc. You may want to ask the telemarketer what they use for Big Mac’s in India – these are precisly the type of questions you need to ask.
When the guy from the New York Times calls, ask him to read you an article or two, you know, to see if you like the way their reporters write. Ask him how much a life-time subscrition costs. What? They don’t have a life-time subscription plan? This is not good, here you are, wanting to buy a life-time subscription from the New York Times, and they don’t have one – ask to speak to the head editor (the one you saw chatting with Chalie Rose last night). Remember to be assertive. Once they arrange all the details for your life-time subscription plan, tell them that you’re having second thoughts, due to their slow response. I mean, it’s your idea, and the New York Times is supposed to be the paper on big ideas, so how come they havn’t thought of it first? Inquire. Do not forget to comment on their customer service: ask them to send you a survey to fill out.
You need time to think over such a big commitment now that you’ve realized their ideas arn’t as big as their image. Tell them to call you back in a month. In a month’s time you will think of something else to hassle them about, without ever seriously thinking of buying the paper (although you’re not so sure now). You’ve decided that you like the attention, you like the tone of this particular telemarkter, he even personally called you back a month later. Now you have to seriously decide if you want the New York Times or not.
You may want to send an open letter to the paper at this point, with your concerns and hesitations about getting a lifetime subscription to the New York Times, and don’t forget to mention your experience with the telemarketer, who you now reffer to as Bill. He’s a struggling actor from L.A., working two jobs while he tries to find himself a new role. He also doesn’t know why he’s trying to sell the New York Times rather than the L.A. Times, and this is definitly an issue you need to talk to the New York editor about. Perhaps, they think New York is more of an intellectual kind of town, and they firgured you were an intellectual because you’re from Princeton New Jersey. You might want to even insinuate that you go to to Princeton, you know, just to intimidate them a little.
You’ll also want to get yourself a treadmill, since you won’t be going outside much. Maybe, with the extra money you make from the webcam, you’ll order yourself one of those Tivos you can hang on the wall, and buy for it a dvd with trees whizzing by, just to make it feel a bit more like the real thing. When that gets irritating, you may get hooked on day time t.v. I’d go with Regis on this one because he dropped that hag Kathy and got a blonde who lives up to the stereotype. She’ll be able to make you feel better about your own intelligence. Just don’t make Dr. Phill your spiritual advisor. You don’t need a spiritual advisor. But if you do feel like getting spiritual, you may want to get into Opera. That’s Opera, not Oprah. It did wonders for Whitman.
Maybe you’ll start an Opera dvd collection. You’ll even learn a few words in French and Italian – hmm, no, bad idea – don’t learn the language – it will de-spiritualize your experience. And stay away from poetry, don’t write it, and don’t read it. The poems you read will only make you feel miserable about yourself, and the poems you write will only make you feel stupid. I don’t recommend prose either. Walden has already been done.
Well, you know best, of course, just remember what I told you about the Pizza boy.
PG, I actually thought that you had coffee with Jimmy… so what’s the matter - it was hell?
I see you’ve been chewing some Sartre, what Sartre said is true, but it only makes up half the whole truth - what he didn’t say is that: heaven is other people and nothing else.
Sartre was wrong on every point…
You are interacting with another person by posting this thread.
…Hypocrite. 
HELLth is hell not other people. you arent house bound are you? can you even ride in a car??? i am a ‘hermit.’ all i need is my mind and i can go anywhere. if i was hellthy enough that is… 
TUM,
Excellent!
I live in BF egypt, just past the boonies and into the middle of nowhere, I see my husband and son, I get off the farm once a month to shop, they leave to work in the city everyday. Girl, I am about as close to a hermit as you can get. If you are not secure with yourself and enjoy peace and quiet thouroughly I don’t reccomend it. I happen to enjoy it most of the time but, I assure you there are times I grab my husband by the collar and say take me somewhere anywhere to visit anyone.
Quiet will get to you. There is only so much you can say to inanimate objects, with out feeeling rejected because they don’t answer you.
So don’t give up on humans they ain’t so bad.
