Hermitericum
The first book of mine to ever be printed is called Hermitericum, which serves as the core thesis of my philosophy, Solitary Individualism. The book's name is a pun of a combination of the words "hermit" and "intercom", which literally means "the introduction of my hermetic philosophy".
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The book itself has 235 pages and contains many articles. To date, this is my only printed book where each article has a specific name instead of a number, particularly because it was originally an arrangement of various articles combined into a collection in the form of this book.
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This is the book's first article, translated. It's the introduction article, which also called “Introduction (Part 1)”. The next part of the book’s introduction is a short story I wrote in an attempt to describe my ideology in a more creative, rememberable way.
I am Tomasio the Monk. After a period of time, I decided to dedicate my life to the development of a specific philosophy. This philosophy is not well-known, and it is about a subject that is hated by most people. However, I believe that this subject is important, and I want to bring it to the forefront of human consciousness in the post-modern age.
This subject is fundamentally esoteric, and I became obsessed with it after I was exposed to it. It has become my most important meaning in life, and I believe that it is worth dedicating my entire lifetime to its development, evolution, and awareness.
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This subject is radical, and it challenges the limits and norms of the collective consciousness. I believe that it has the potential to leave a mark on the world, and I want to contribute to this by contemplating the meaning of human existence.
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This subject is controversial, and most people either look down on it with pity or look up to it with fear. I believe that these negative stereotypes are the result of the collective's imperialistic desire to control the individual.
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The collective is the biggest obsession of the post-modern individual. Every subject of interest indulges in togetherness, groups, and collectives. This obsession has become a neurosis, and its preachers - people in education, politics, science, and the media - claim with a subjective sense of objectivity that being together with other people is the meaning of life. They claim that without this, the human being is nothing.
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This book aspires to prove the opposite: that beyond the social dome, there is a whole world that humanity has yet to explore. This is a world that the preachers of the social religion have tried to hide from their followers, claiming that it is a meaningless void that leads to depression, boredom, anxiety, misery, and many other stereotypes.
This book is a collection of articles about this controversial subject, which has been viewed negatively for thousands of years, even as humanity has progressed from primitivism to benevolence. This negative view has prevented people from experiencing the most basic of things that exist within humanity as a whole, and which can be viewed by intellectuals as a disease, a plague, or a problem.
However, the mainstream approach to this subject has viewed it in such a negative light that it has made it seem like a problem that needs to be eliminated. This is how the social religion came to power, in its quest to destroy the phenomenon of solitude and eventually make it disappear from the human experience for eternity. From international media bodies to ordinary people, it seems that everyone is damaging this sensitive issue instead of learning to accept it as part of the human experience.
I call this approach the Sociocentric Approach. It abuses individuals by forcing them to conform to the collective's wide ego, while preventing them from being exposed to solitude in a more positive light.
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Think about this subject: the subject that you have learned to avoid in both good and bad ways. What associations do you have with it? Do you think of a figure crying in a dark corner, abandoned? Do you think of a person whose partner has left them, sitting in a home that used to be full of life and love? Do you think of a sociopath who has abandoned all sanity and is attempting to commit a massacre for their own amusement? These are all theoretically possible options, but they represent only the empty side of the glass. This is the side that the average individual has been taught to see when it comes to solitude.
If these are the only associations you can come up with, then you are still being prevented from seeing what lies beyond the collective consciousness. This book offers a different perspective on this issue, in an attempt to improve its reputation with more positivity. This can be seen in the following associations:
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A man in a lotus posture meditating in a Buddhist temple.
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A free-roaming child in the orchid of an afternoon spring.
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A writer who secludes themselves to concentrate on writing a book.
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A person drinking tea before dawn.
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A student in their room preparing for a test in quiet and serenity.
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The philosophical approach that this book functions on is Solitary Individualism. This is the belief that an individual can be free, independent, and authentic to the fullest only when they are by themselves, alone. This book is also a book of humanities, which does not attempt to connect the reader with a divine entity, but to a higher meaning. This higher meaning is found within the contemplation of one's solitude.
I, Tomasio the Monk, aspire to actualize my contemplation, ideas, and insights, which were composed, invented, and found in my own solitude. I do this in the quest to bring a more sweet, golden solitude to its proper glamour. I wish the reader enjoyment, harmony, insight, and enlightenment.
The first story of mine to ever get printed may seem to have a quite "dry" and formal name, but it is the second and final part of Hermitericum's Introduction. The purpose of this short story is to present the basis of my philosophy as a sort of a fable, the "genesis" of all my published and later-to-be-published books.
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In summary, the story is about a solitary person (who is not necessarily lonely) who was invited to the apartment of an important intellectual and his wife. While it may seem quite laconic and lack some spice, it is about the small details that hold a metaphor to my ideology of Solitary Individualism. While there are no specific names for the three characters, they are viewed as archetypes.
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This is the translated story by the name of “A Story on The-Man-as-Himself in contrast to The-Man-Relative-To-Others”:
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This is a story about two people. One is self-propelled, well-informed on the thesis of individualism and its writings. He has mental resilience and a huge drive for social and mental independence. He is an autodidact who values the company of his own mind, free from the ideals of the collective ego.
He dedicates his life to creating a new nature, a solitary nature, a nature that is immune and independent from anyone for his emotional needs, which are self-fulfilled. He abstains from the romantic urges of the social nature, which he abandoned for his monastic survival. He aspires to become the Übermensch archetype that Nietzsche composed in the 21st century, an age in which the individuality of the external world is slowly sinking in the name of the non-restraining, horribly dependent, and never-ending social-romantic-hedonistic nature of the mainstream. This is The-Man-As-Himself.
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One day, The-Man-As-Himself was invited to an informal meeting with The-Man-Relative-To-Others. The-Man-Relative-To-Others's drives are all originated from requests and desperation of his external environment: his enslaving wife, his pressuring peers, and his authoritarian boss, who is also his mentor and nicknamed The Sociocentric.
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Because The-Man-As-Himself decided, for ideological reasons, to be and to remain peerless, this eccentric man came to his collectivist friend’s house by himself, while he’s silent as a monk but polite like a man of the higher classes of society. The door to his friend’s house was opened not the friend himself, but his seductive partner, by the name of The Enslaver. Her face were utterly in make-up, however wonderfully charming. Her inviting voice would have seduced The-Man-As-Himself if he wouldn’t have ventured in the eccentric and esoteric writings of a philosopher by the name of Tomasio The Monk.
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The-Man-As-Himself has developed a mindset that may assist him to abstain from the temptations of romance, and especially adultery. The beautiful women greeted him as he entered the host's abode, which was full of pictures and portraits of family members and social revolutionaries. Above the fireplace, prominently displayed, was the host's prideful mentor, the famous sociologist and scientist Mr. Sociocentric.
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The-Man-As-Himself, an indie-solitaire (one who believes in solitary individualism), had read Mr. Sociocentric's writing and the theory named after him in the past. Nevertheless, The-Man-As-Himself (who shall be called Mr. Mah for brevity), the protagonist, was able to use the skill of judgment that Tomasio the Monk called for in the genesis of his theory, the Hermitericum, skillfully. This anonymous philosopher, who called for self-analysis and social-analysis in order to reach material objectivity, heavily condemned the Sociocentric Approach. He criticized the approach on the basic grounds that a collective, too, can have an enormous ego just like a single individual, and yet egoism is viewed negatively.
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The-Man-Relative-To-Others (which shall be called Mr. Merato for acronym-like comfort) sat on a highly-decorated sofa, a gift from his family. His bored expression displayed his restlessness as he waited for his solitary friend, who had arrived on time. The void that The Monk claimed to contain much more meaning than it has "on the ground" seemed to stare back at him.
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In accordance with the social codes of the external world and its infinite social rituals, Mr. Mah greeted his host and asked about his well-being. He did this not out of interest or innocence, but in the hope of engaging in intellectual exchange, in the name of "alternative hedonism," an idea from the book he had read by the ascetic philosopher. However, his blabbering host, who disliked silence, spoke and talked about the usual things that are included in the art of small talk, without any apparent reason to Mr. Mah, who found existential emptiness in small talk.
He listened with great attention throughout the conversation, commenting in the hypocritical submission of the social consciousness.
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The romantic enslaver, sat next to her mate on the end of the expensive couch, staring at him with her sparkling, made-up eyes, craving affection and the preservation of her reputation in society. She would sometimes implore her chattering lover to remind the guest of experiences that were unnecessary to bring up.
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The afternoon passed, and the night's darkness descended with deterministic submission. The guest, who had come in the failed hope of learning from the sociocentric devotee and his wife's wisdom-of-the-masses, gave up on the expectation of gaining sufficient intellectual stimulation from them. He hid this from them in order to preserve the interaction, an act he hated but knew well. In fact, he wanted to return to his own abode in the city's outskirts and spend the rest of the weekend alone, perhaps reading a book or being lost in thought. He knew that there was no escape from the "plague" of solitude.
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Mr. Mah also knew that it was not wise to highlight his authentic self and his book-acquired and inwardly-acquired insights. He thought of "The Monk"'s socially-controversial book, which he and others had learned from his esoteric philosophy. He had read enough of the Hermitericum to understand that "The Monk" was not a cult leader or a psycho. He viewed this controversial person as a reasonable individual whose love for solitude was limitless. However, Mah refused for a time to express this man's philosophy to Mr. Merato and his mate, who disapproved harshly of him, even though he himself wanted to do so.
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In the moments of silence that appear in every conversation, Mr. Mah dared to speak in approval of "The Monk," while doing his best to avoid insulting his host, who was on the other side of the ideological spectrum. Despite Mah's efforts, Merato and his partner rebuked him, as their belief in the social nature and the sociocentric approach was religious-like.
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Unfortunately for the Indie-Solitaire guest, who supported the freedom of belief, and fortunately for the hosts, who believed firmly that they were objective in their thoughts, the rest of the meeting was used - or wasted - for their words of preach in the name of sociology and dependency, on condemning "The Monk" and on glorifying their own romantic love and the beliefs of Mr. Sociocentric, their mentor.
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At the end of the meeting, Mr. Merato offered his socially-repressed friend some books to read, and summarized that he himself works and reads only when he is forced to. This declaration, even if humorous in nature, summarized himself as a wholly-dependent individual. Unfortunately for Mr. Mah, who was now bitter because of the allegedly-objective atmosphere his hosts were so immersed in, he knew that revelation from the heart would be considered a distortion capable of threatening the harmony of this situation. Therefore, he remained silent. Some say he did it out of empathy, but he knew that emotional repression was rational.
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After this meeting, Mr. Mah once again found himself alone in the world at night, screaming to the skies as a sign of his authenticity, as an expression fully justified when alone. On his way to his humble abode, as he analyzed the meeting and was puzzled by it, he summarized it as a failure. He felt that this time had been wasted for nothing, without any intellectual exchange that could have justified the probability of him feeling enjoyment in company.
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During that time, in Mr. Merato’s apartment, he and his partner celebrated with a last glass of wine for this night (Mr. Mah did not even touched his own glass) in a feeling of victory, and ended their waking hours for this day with passionate intimacy in their room, devoted completely to their deed of love, in the craving to minimize even more the solitude of their apartment, which was nevertheless always filled with friends and family members, drunken in love, alcohol and reputation.
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After a while, Mr. Mah eventually decided to terminate the friendship with the couple, who were now married and were from now on Mr. and Mrs. Merato. Regardless of the praised and widely known celebration of their marriage, there was still something missing in their happiness.
The sharp turn of events with their former guest and friend, and despite their desperate request, the friendship between the Indie-Solitaire and the social devotees, which was already small, had disbanded to the misfortune of the latters, and to the liberation of the former, as the husband and wife remembered him to eternity, for good and for bad.