[Mitchhhs]

Who assumes that hermits are insightful? Thats definitely not my connotation and the fact that the author goes in with this supposition is weird.

The general vibe of the assumptions feels like a bunch of privileged millennials going to become hermits for 6 months and then talk about all they learned from their solitude on their Harvard Business School essays and how it shaped them into a better leader.

[msla]

> Who assumes that hermits are insightful?

Centuries of ascetic mysticism and veneration of same disagree with your skepticism.

As for your scorn for privileged people becoming hermits and thinking they gained something from the experience...

I'd laugh, but that's literally the foundation of one of the great world religions.

[placebo]

The assumption that hermits are insightful is probably derived from an image of some experienced meditating wise soul, contemplating in solitude the meaning of life. While people who genuinely want to meditate upon life might sometimes wish to do so in solitude, the converse is not true and finding a hermit will definitely not guarantee finding some enlightened spirit. I'd bet on there being a larger probability of finding someone who is mentally unstable, whose condition was made more extreme by the solitude.