Living in Seclusion

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So I’m sitting on a deck enjoying the sunshine, a cup of coffee, and the conversations going on around me.

 I usually don’t come this way but since I’m tearing the kitchen apart I am doing without hot water for coffee so since I was going to the post office to mail my jury duty acceptance information I decided to stop by the grill.

 Now coffee is coffee to me. It is just dirty water. I don’t go those fancy shops that sell cardboard cups and cost more than it should but instead try to accommodate my desires at the local mom and pop.

 This place used to be one of the last true mom and pop places in the neighborhood but was sold last year and cleaned up and revitalized with still good prices, a little more room, reasonable menu so it can reflect the yuppie west end college crowd and still feel comfortable.

 Overhearing the conversation going on at the next table it reminds me of the “This American Life” that I woke up to. Between checking their electronics they laughed about the music they heard yesterday at the Richmond Folk Festival. That brought a smile.

 Yesterday I too went to the festival hoping to hear some of the music that is only played Saturday night on NPR. Unfortunately I forgot about “the people”. This festival is probably the biggest event in this small burg so everyone (and I mean everyone) comes out on this warm fall day to drink overpriced watered down beer, eat fried foods, and listen to performers they would never buy or listen too again. So I left.

 Now people in themselves are bad. Some are interesting, some are exciting, some are boring and some you don’t need to bother about.

 Yet it is much more comfortable to be back home in my sweats, college football on the screen, critters running amok in the sun splattered yard, and a cold beer.

 Now if this is reclusion then this is what it is. I remember hearing “I’ve lived within walking distance of this place all my life.”

 

 

A recluse is a person who lives in voluntary seclusion from the public and society. The word is from the Latin “recludere”, which means, "sequester."

 There are many potential reasons for becoming a recluse:

* A personal philosophy that rejects consumer society

* A mystical religious outlook that involves becoming a hermit or an anchorite

* A survivalist may be practicing self-sufficiency

* A criminal might hide away from people to avoid detection by police

* A misanthrope may be unable to tolerate human society.

 It can also be due to psychological reasons, such as posttraumatic stress disorder, apathy, an autism spectrum disorder or avoidant personality disorder.