"Have you ever thought about becoming a hermit/recluse?"

We retired to a lake home... it is very comfortable and has green belts on both sides and a lake in front.  It is very quiet with only the sound of the wind, birds singing, and an occasional blue heron's cry or the quacking of ducks.  It is so quiet here that workmen from the city complain.  We have friends but most of them are now virtual.  We let the machine answer the telephone unless it has a specific ring.  We enjoy it very much.

So it is possible.  It just takes some time and patience.  We are both sociable but not social creatures.  That is, we interact very well at the party but probably didn't want to go to the party in the first place.  After a career full of endless people clamoring for attention, it feels damn good.  Work on it if you aren't there already....

Some people are alive. Some people just take up space and consume reasources. These folk have died a long time ago and their bodies just have go the memo yet. I'm a computer nerd. I could get lost in a computer program, game, database design session, whatever and just shut the world out and be blissful for as long as my bological needs didn't drive me back out into the real world. But, that ain't really being alive. That's escapism. That's runing away. All of us introverts need a some of this from time to time. But this is therapy not real life. Real life involves other living things, usually that includes people.

If we try to live within ourselves, think mostly about ourselves, focus mostly on what we want and base our deceisions on what's best for us; we are destroying our own lives. Life is worth having only after you've given it away. Not died for something as much as lived for others. When you problems and pains are just too much; go out and find people that you can help with their problems.

Its strange but when we try to save our own lives, to cling to our own needed; we loose our joy and our sense of being alive. When we give ourselves away and strive to focus on the needs of others, we get a fuller life, find our joy and can feel life as we make a difference in the lives of others.

We are not meant to abandon the fellowshipping or the gathering of ourselves together.

I believe at some point in out lives, MOST of us get stinking FED UP!

It's a natural thought process to consider that the future has no relief in sight and to want to withdraw from it all.

Everything is bad for our health.  We might as well grow all our own food and raise and slaughter our own livestock.

Politics is relentless, and begins earlier each election year.

The capitalistic machine invades our senses in the stores, earlier and earlier each year.  It's not even Halloween yet and the Christmas stuff is out in the stores.

You make a VERY valid point.  But I fear that reclusion / withdrawal is not the answer.

It also carries with it the possibility of depression becoming an obsession like Ted Kazinski or some such non-sense.

We're born as relational beings.  We NEED healthy relationships and diversity in thos relationships.  I've got friends that agree with most of what I believe and some that downright oppose nearly everything I believe.  They're all still my friends.  ( though I wish some of them would see the light ) ROFL !!

Hang in there and turn the TV off and find some rational reason in it all. 

It's a crazy world.  What can we do to be part of the answer and not the problem?  What is the solution?  It's a big question with endless possibilities.  But in some small way, we can change the world.  There is a power of one to do so.

JF Kennedy

Martin Luther King Jr.

Jesus Christ

Mother Theresa

When we change our point of view, our persepective, we change the entire world!  When we change the ONLY thing that we can actually change, our self; then we actually change the entire world and how we interact with it.

Dr. Phil has a saying: "There is no reality, only perspective."

Your perspective is your reality.  If you see removing yourself from society at large as the answer to the problem, then it is your reality and if your perspective changes and you believe that you can better serve society by hanging in there and refusing to bow donw to it's lowering standards and make an impression on the youth in the hopes that your exapmle will shine to them and inspire them to do the same, then you have changed the world forever for more lives than your own.

On top of all that, if you believe in the power of prayerd, then by all means, have at it !

The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.  James 5:16

I would love to be a hermit, I have tried several times but it just doesn't work out when you have family and loved ones who will not leave you alone.  I tried to isolate myself to the confines of my home just me alone, no pets I unpluged the phone, all I did was watch T.V. after about 1 week   I looked up and my mother and sister in law were climbing through my bedroom window.  So I guess it just wasn't the right time. I will try again, but I think I might move lol.