#358： The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit
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Summary
Have you ever wanted to get into your car, drive off in the middle of nowhere, leave behind the hustle and bustle of civilization, and just be by yourself? Well, in 1986, a man named Chris Knight did just that and lived in the woods without any human contact for 27 years.
Transcript
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brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast have you ever
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wanted to get into your car drive off in the middle of nowhere leave behind the hustle and
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bustle of civilization and just be by yourself well in 1986 a man named christopher knight did
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just that and lived in the main woods without any human contact any human contact for 27 years until
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he's discovered in 2013 my guest day wrote a biography the stranger in the woods about this
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man who locals called the hermit of the north pond author's name is michael finkel the day on the
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show we discuss how chris survived in the main woods alone by himself but more importantly we
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discuss why chris wanted to be by himself for so long and by looking at the life of one of the
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modern world's last true hermits michael and i explored the idea of hermitage solitude and
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why being an individual requires you to be alone after the show's over you're going to want to go
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off in the woods and be by yourself but before you do that go check out the show notes at aom.is
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well mike finkel welcome to the show thanks happy to be here so you wrote an interesting book it's
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sort of a hybrid of looking at the life of a hermit named chris knight we're going to talk about him
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but also exploring the ideas of solitude and being alone and is that important to being a human being
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an individual so let's let's talk about how what drew you to the story of chris knight so this is a
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guy who lived in the main woods middle of the main woods by himself for 27 years how'd you get
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connected with the story and why did you decide to write this book yeah so i've been a journalist for
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like 27 years this is only my second book i got three little kids i have a short attention span if a
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story doesn't deserve to be a book length telling and i'm gonna going to avoid it it's just my it's
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my tendency i'm an impatient person and boy this story of christopher knight the main hermit really
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just grabbed me by every sense possible you know as you mentioned before here's a guy who lived
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completely alone in the woods of maine which is really really cold by the way for 27 years and
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claimed he not only didn't speak with anyone didn't see the internet didn't make a phone call
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never spoke a word aloud except for one syllable once he said hi to a passing hiker never even lit
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a fire which is boggles the imagination for fear that smoke might give his position away also he
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became this like over the 27 years he also became this very odd legend for food and clothing and a few
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survival things and books he broke into these small cabins i'm sure we'll talk about this further he
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broke into these second uh these sort of summer cabins simple summer cabins in the woods on the
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lake country of central maine and so he there was this sort of legend built up about him and people
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had wildly different opinions of him some people thought that this guy breaking into houses was like
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the worst thing that ever happened to them you know this guy broke into you know if you break into
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someone's house it's you know it's you can get 10 years in prison even if you don't take anything
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and other people thought this mysterious person might have some heroic qualities and i love the
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fact that there was a myth there was a person and then of course the great question is you know how
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did he survive why and then what happens after a person who has been away for so long is thrown back
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into our very loud very you know 24 7 365 society what happens then how could you not be interested
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it's catnip for a journalist is what i'm trying to say oh yeah for sure so let's talk about chris
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knight's backstory what year did he go off into the woods by himself how old was he when he decided
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to do this christopher knight grew up in central maine in a kind of an unusual family he had four
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older brothers one younger sister they were very private family all the children the knight children
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were got extremely good grades in school but more than that they the family did not have a lot of
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money but they learned how to hunt and fish they learned how to fix everything from electrical to
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automotive to plumbing their house according to people that have been inside it was like a
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library they all read everything from shakespeare to poetry in the evening they studied like
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theoretical physics and hydrodynamics and these guys built this crazy greenhouse where they could you
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know grow food all winter and not pay a dime to the electric company and chris knight you know
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people i spoke to that went to high school with him considered him shy some people said nerdy but
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no one expected him to do something as radical as he did anyway so christopher knight quit the world
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at age 20 which is extraordinarily young for a hermit i just imagine never getting another piece of
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advice from your elder after the age of 20 i mean i'm uh i'm 48 years old and i still call my father
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for advice frequently he drove his car subaru brat into the woods of central maine and abandoned it there
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through the keys in the center console and at the age of 20 with very little supplies just the most
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scant amount of camping gear no maps no compass walked into the woods of central maine and wasn't
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seen again for 27 years it's an incredible story and i do want to emphasize that everything i'm saying
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tonight is not only true but it has been thoroughly vetted by fact checkers and the lawyers and the police
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investigators and everything this is a true story no fake news going on here at the art of manliness
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so what year was this that's another important factor because he you know probably missed a lot
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in 27 years yeah so chris knight departed the world i believe it was 1986 and wasn't pulled out of the
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woods until 2013. so just imagine that in 1986 there had been i think reagan was president there were
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no cell phones nobody had heard of the internet yet it's not just even the years it's like the
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years of his life between the ages of 20 and 47 most people you know more or less live their entire life
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before that you're sort of a young kid and after that you're sort of a middle-aged man this is when
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most people go to school pick their job get married have a family you know make all these massive life
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changes buy a house you know figure things out but this guy lived by himself for the basically the heart
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of his life so the next question is like why like what caused him to do it i mean most was it a
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unabomber thing where he's like fed up with society wanted to get away from it he has some sort of
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spiritual motive like what why did what caused him to drive his car in the middle of the woods and
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just give it up and then walk out into it yeah i think that's the operative question why and of
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course that was the first question on my mind it was like how did he survive which we can get into but
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why why would you quit the world for 27 years and i'll try and be as brief as possible and the answer is
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actually sort of simple but the reason why it's very difficult to imagine is that most people
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me you i'm sure the vast majority of people listening to this don't really spend much time
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alone and we really as humans we really don't like to spend that much time alone it's clear like you
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know watch anybody when they have like 12 idle seconds what's the first thing most people do
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these days they fish their cell phone out of their pocket and start to connect in some way or another
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but chris knight like you know despite the fact that 99.9 of us don't like to be alone there has
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been throughout human history since the beginning of recorded time which goes back about 5 000 years
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in every culture at all times there's been a thin but distinct stream of people that really wanted to
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be alone and there is even a genetic component to this and chris knight expressed many of the same things
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that you know the hermits throughout history have said which is that he always felt a little
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uncomfortable around other people more than a little uncomfortable and he really liked his own
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company and it was like he described it as this sort of gravitational pull you know when i was talking
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to chris knight you know i was guessing you know well you did you commit a crime were you embarrassed
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about something we confused about say you know this is the 80s in central maine were you confused about
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your sexuality something and he said no no it was nothing specific like that and really anything like
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that's not going to keep you away for 27 years so chris knight had this radical idea of how he wanted
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to live his life and he decided to attempt it and decided to fulfill his most radical idea pretty much
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probably more fully than i'll just speak for myself more fully than i will ever dare and probably most
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people listening will ever dare and why did he leave the world he left the world because he just didn't
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feel comfortable being around other people he felt this tug to be alone but the better question
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brett the better question is why did he stay and the answer to that question i find really
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fascinating he stayed alone because he really liked it he expressed a great deal of contentment now he
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definitely suffered during winters and definitely suffered from hunger sometimes but overall he said he
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loved being alone he expressed more contentment about his life than most people i meet out here in the
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world and so he left because he found this strong tug but he stayed because he was happy i mean i what
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are we all searching for in life life liberty the pursuit of happiness he found it yeah we'll get
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into how he how he's able to do this i thought it was interesting when they when he finally got caught
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there's all these therapists and analysts like you know doing trying to figure out like what was that
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component was a you know he felt uncomfortable around people was he autistic or did he have some
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sort of other thing but like the consensus was there was no consensus that something was you know
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quote-unquote wrong with chris knight like he just had a tendency he wanted to be by himself and he
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enjoyed it i mean of course it's it's i can't blame anyone for thinking like oh what's wrong with
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this guy because that's exactly what i thought and he chris knight was examined by a state psychologist who
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offered a couple of things the obvious sort of like the asperger's or something on the autism
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spectrum but i spoke with many you know people who said they couldn't make a specific diagnosis
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without actually talking to chris knight himself but really reviewed the case and as you just said
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there really is nothing no diagnosable syndrome that you can pin on chris knight many autism experts said
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to me we just could not consider him to be on the autism spectrum there's just he had to plan ahead
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there's no in the annals of autism there's no examples of a person who survived by themselves
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for this long who can plan ahead who had all these you know he just didn't fit any diagnosis at all
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in fact you know it'd be like saying you know every hermit has a problem in fact you know
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and i don't want to i don't want to i don't want to get too deep into this but the truth is like
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you know probably there's two or three days a week where i'm you know driving driving my three
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kids around and they're fighting in the back seat and i'm stuck in traffic and there's terrible news
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coming out of the radio and six you know text messages my phone's binging constantly and i'm
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late for not only my projects but the meeting i'm supposed to be at and i'm sort of stressed out and
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i'm thinking that you know it's not really chris knight it's crazy it's it's the rest of us and i
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really mean that yeah and like he he was kind of self-aware of that he when you talk to him you know
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he'd say like i know people think i'm crazy i understand that but like maybe you guys are the crazy
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ones like he was very like he was very philosophical about his solitude even though
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he wouldn't say that he's being philosophical right so you know just briefly to you know to keep
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the story a little coherent um you know chris knight planned to spend his entire life in the
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woods he never wanted to come out ever not 27 years not ever he wanted to he planned to die
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completely anonymously but as i mentioned he did steal food and other survival supplies and books
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and was eventually caught and we can get into that but um and so was forcibly removed from his
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solitude and that's the only reason i was able to talk to him he was actually in jail and so most of
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our the time we met was in a jail visiting room and if there is one thing i can say about chris knight
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and there's lots of things i can say about him but he is extraordinarily intelligent i rarely encountered
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someone who could not just quote from a thousand books he seemed to have a photographic memory though
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he denied it i don't have a photographic memory i just remember everything which seems to me like
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and as you mentioned he said he didn't leave the world to make any statement he wasn't trying to make
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any of us feel bad about our decisions he just did what he wanted to do he did feel terrible about
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having to steal and we can you know that's a whole other issue whether you know whether whether
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chris knight should be forgiven or not for his crimes and nobody's wrong on that one but he
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you know he felt that he found the place where he was most content in the world and if if for other
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people it was you know in the middle of a office building or you know sitting in front of a computer
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most of the day or raising a family then he never he never wanted anyone to feel bad about their own
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choices but had this very sort of i don't know sophisticated intelligence is sort of inscrutable air
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about him where he felt that his choices were completely logical for him and it wasn't like
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scary because like a lot of times you know hermits or people kind of go out like they kind of scare you
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because they go out there for like scary reasons like i just said he didn't judge others he's like i
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just want to do my thing and be left alone yeah unfortunately and chris knight was aware of this
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he did frighten other people he broke into about there are a couple of maybe 300 houses in a second
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homes in the lake region where chris knight he camped in the same site chris knight for
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more than 25 of his 27 years he basically spent a little more than a year wandering around the
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woods of central maine really not knowing exactly where he was though sensing it and then found this
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amazing spot in the woods not too far from civilization but certainly far enough so that he could be
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completely alone and broke into approximately he had about 100 cabins in his repertoire and really some
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people were extraordinarily disturbed by his actions and he knew this and didn't feel great
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about it but sort of made the decision that he would rather be alone and steal than in the world
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and law-abiding and so it's very complicated and sort of he never quite uh chris knight himself never
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quite resolved the conundrum about being a thief so let's talk about okay you know how he survived
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for 27 years so you've been talking about he's been stealing food what was his camp like and you know
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because like as you said maine winters are crazy cold during the springtime they have this terrible
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black fly season where they just swarm you and bite you it's terrible he never lit a fire so how was he
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able to build himself a place to live comfortably i mean yeah relatively comfortably for 25 years yeah so
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i mean chris knight's story is literally unbelievable like you know everybody i asked i'd say about 80
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percent of the residents of central maine the victims of his crime and normally the closer i get to a
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story the more people explain it the more believable it is but this was this was almost the opposite the
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closer i came to the area chris lived the less people could believe it you know and a few other
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things people said to me were like you know how is it possible to go 27 years without lighting a fire
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how is it possible to go 27 years without seeing a doctor you know how is it possible to have a campsite
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not that far away that no one's ever been by you know how did chris knight survive the great ice
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storm of 1998 and on and on and on and i was able to ask chris knight all of these questions and i was
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searching for like one you know when someone tells you a story and you find one tiny thing that that
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contradicts what they're saying well then the whole story falls apart like a house of cards like if i had
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gone to his site and found one charred piece of wood that indicated there was a fire the whole thing
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would fall apart and i'm going to tell you i never after i spent three years working on this book i
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never found a single thing that contradicted anything chris knight said and even the police
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officers that arrested him exclaimed that they probably had rarely met someone who seemed so honest
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as chris knight so just quickly like how do you go 27 years without getting sick or needing to see a
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doctor well the way we get sick is by being around each other we exchange bacteria we exchange germs we
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exchange viruses if you're not around other people you don't get sick i mean you can still get
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something like diabetes or cancer but when i talked to doctors they said it made perfect sense that chris
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knight never got sick it's in terms of say the great ice storm of 1998 as chris knight himself said
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you know it was like 28 degrees during that great ice storm it really wasn't that cold it was terrible
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for the electrical wires and he couldn't drive a car 10 feet without skidding off the road but it was
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perfectly fine for him not only that he actually liked it to put a layer of ice over the snow and he
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could walk around without leaving footprints he wished it was a great ice storm every week now he
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told me to find his site and a lot of the answers would be clear and i spent most of my life in
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montana i've i've spent a lot of time camping and hiking in the woods i consider myself a decent
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woodsman but wow i have never seen woods as thick as dense as difficult to navigate as chris knight's
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forest not only were there tons of trees tangled all over each other in a very thick undergrowth the
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last ice age smothered maine in glaciers and when the glaciers retreated they left behind these
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enormous automobile sized boulders which are just everywhere in chris knight's woods the woods are so
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thick not even that many deer walk through it's just impossible to navigate chris knight learned to
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walk in these woods almost silently he memorized all these patterns where he could step on a root and
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on a rock he could not snap a branch he could not even leave a footprint and it took me a long
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time to find this site even though i knew approximately where it was and that it was
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very close you know within if you knew exactly where you're going three minutes to the nearest
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mud driveway and it was one of the most i i'm still imagining right now as i'm talking to you the
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first time i found this site it was like the entrance was between these two boulders that when you looked
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at it most directions it looked like it was one big rock i called it the elephant rock but from a certain
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angle you could see that there was a big crack in the rock or i guess it had split during the glacial
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period and you could sort of twist your body and sneak between these two rocks and i did that and
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there was a site and it was like one of the most gorgeous things i've ever seen and i told you i've
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spent a lot of times in the woods is like chris knight had cleared out like a cube of forest imagine
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the forest as dense as a brillo pad all around you and suddenly you walk into this clearing but it even had
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a roof overhead because the tree branches linked and you know chris knight was aware of this and
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a couple of police officers said they did a few flyovers looking for this dude's camp well you
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know i never found it and it was understandable why because there was a roof overhead it was
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completely cleared out his floor was perfectly flat and what chris knight had done for years and
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years and years he stole and read a lot of magazines and books and very often when he was finished with
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them he would would make what he called bricks he would tie stacks of them together tape them with
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electrical tape which he stole the electrical tape and bury them in his sight and make a perfectly flat
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floor that also was excellent for draining rainwater and so he had this perfectly flat floor this
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beautifully cleared out space impossible to find spot in a dense woods and you know i spent five nights
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there across all seasons and you know even even to this moment right now talking to you when i'm
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when i feel stressed out when i feel like the world is getting a little too loud and crazy i i think
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about that spot i i never went there with anybody else i spent that time alone and it was amazing you
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could hear the forest you could see not too far into the forest because it was so dense but you really
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felt like you were in this i don't know you ever been to like one of those aquariums where there's like
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a tube where you can walk through and you're like underwater i could felt like i was like in a room in the
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forest with like but yet able to breathe and have my own little space it i don't think i could really
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overstate how fantastically lovely this spot was and i understood why he wanted to stay there you
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know i don't know if i want to stay there 25 years but boy i could use a couple of long weekends there
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now and again right so as i said earlier this book you use it to explore the idea of solitude and
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hermitage let's talk about i mean as you mentioned earlier there since the beginning of
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recorded history there have been hermits can you kind of give us the the rough thumbnail sketch
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of the history of hermitage in in humanity yeah the very first some of the very first writings
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we have that exist some writings etched on animal bones from ancient china and some writings
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scratched onto clay tablets from mesopotamia mentioned wild men are shamans people living alone
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in the in the wilderness and so as i said you know certainly before recorded history and for all of
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recorded history there have been people that wanted to be by themselves the majority of these people
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did it for religious reasons to seek a closer relationship with god there's the famous desert
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fathers of early christianity many buddhists of course go on long retreats now chris knight
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did not follow a formal formal religion and did not escape for any religious reasons but the religion
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is the main reason a secondary reason is sort of what i call protester hermits you know a lot of people
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left the world because of war because of pollution even right now in japan there are approximately
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a million young kids most of them male called hikikomori which means pulling away people that live
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in their rooms often for more than a decade and you know this is sort of a there's more than a million
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of them it's sort of a epidemic in japan there's even like therapists that offer counseling through the
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internet but people that sort of just quit the pressure cooker society that's especially prevalent in
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japan and so these are like pro people that are protesting and then the last type of hermit is
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someone like a henry david thoreau someone who does who leaves for maybe artistic or self-fulfillment
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reasons you know there's been also some sort of sort of tangential hermits in the early 1800s there
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was a fad in england among the aristocracy if you had a large estate it was a fad to have a to hire a
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hermit they were called ornamental hermits and there's these people put advertisements in newspapers
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offering to pay it was like seven dollars a month for a person who was willing to grow a long beard
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and live in a cave on a estate in a british countryside and you know these these aristocrats
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felt that hermits sort of had the air of wisdom and maybe i don't know mystery or something and it
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became this very amusing fad that lasted 30 or so years yeah and are there hermits still today that
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i mean i'm sure there are hermits still that you just mentioned the people in japan but like
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i think you mentioned there's like internet forms dedicated to being a hermit which seems sort of
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counterintuitive yeah you know actually paradoxical i have hermit ish tendencies i am certainly by no
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means a hermit but you know my job writing involves spending a lot of time by myself and
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sometimes i even find it enjoyable and i you know i was a long-distance runner and things like
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that so while i am by no means a hermit i sort of get the need to be apart from people i do need
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my alone time there are hermits today now i want to say one more thing which sometimes i'm almost like
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i don't know if shy is the right word like sometimes there's things that are so extraordinary that you
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just don't even bother to say it because people don't believe it but i'm just going to say one
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more thing i lost my mind researching hermits now i will not brag about too many things on this world
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but i will tell you might never speak to anyone who knows more about hermits than i do i read more
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than a hundred books about hermits i read thousands of articles about hermits i read everything there was to
00:23:14.920
no i just wanted to compare chris knight's experiences with other hermits and i'm going
00:23:19.560
to tell you i never found a single example of another person who went 27 years without at least
00:23:28.360
somebody checking up on them bringing them food just asking if they were okay never did i find a
00:23:35.240
single example i will say that with pretty fair authority that chris knight right here with 7 billion
00:23:41.880
or so people on planet earth in the age of you know facebook and twitter i think chris knight might
00:23:46.680
be the most solitary known human who ever lived that's great but it's interesting you talk about
00:23:52.840
how even like the hermits like they sort of debated what whether chris knight was a true hermit i mean
00:23:58.840
what was going on there because yeah he didn't see anybody except for a lone hiker you know there's
00:24:02.840
a little hermit community which sounds like a an oxymoron but yes there is a there's a wonderful
00:24:07.720
website called hermitary.com check it out i read every single article on it's a great if you're at
00:24:12.920
all interested in hermits this is a great storehouse and they actually have a you know a i guess you
00:24:18.040
could call it a chat room now you have to prove that you're a hermit and i did not qualify to join
00:24:22.440
the chat room but i was privy to some of the things that people write and mostly you know it's not like
00:24:27.080
they're chatting with each other you just sort of post a message and log off usually there was only one
00:24:31.880
or two people on the site at a time and even chris knight said to me that the internet sounded
00:24:36.680
interesting to him because you could you could send a message to someone without actually talking
00:24:42.120
to them via telephone or meeting them in person so in a very strange way if you are a very shy person
00:24:48.280
or have hermit tendencies email is a great way to communicate with someone because there is no
00:24:53.240
face-to-face there is no back and forth there's no conversation at all it's uh it's it's it sort of
00:24:58.680
makes sense if you think about it but this community really debated whether you could
00:25:04.040
consider chris knight to be a hermit because he stole and that goes against the ideal of hermits
00:25:11.160
now there are no official rule books for hermits by the way so it's not like you know you know there's
00:25:15.960
a it's it's not baseball here it's not like you know we can do the replay and decide whether he's
00:25:20.360
hermit or not a hermit but they thought that anyone who invaded other people's privacy or their lives
00:25:26.040
didn't didn't deserve the lofty label of hermit and chris knight himself said he didn't care whether
00:25:31.000
he was a hermit or not that wasn't that he didn't put a label at all on what he did and putting a
00:25:35.000
label on anything is a really worthless exercise and you know i sometimes love talking with chris
00:25:39.000
knight because he always made me feel that even writing an entire book about him was sort of a
00:25:42.920
just a egotistical trip on my part and i would sometimes uh you know he's like oh you're so you're
00:25:47.880
gonna take your thoughts and package them in a commodity and ask people to spend money to read it well
00:25:52.280
very very good for you well you mentioned thoreau he's kind of held as america's prototypical hermit
00:25:58.360
but knight when you asked you brought up thoreau with chris like chris said no he's a deletante
00:26:02.840
he's a phony why why did knight have so much disdain for thoreau oh man you know i like i i think that
00:26:08.920
walden is one of the most uh it's i reread walden doing this research for this book and i maybe maybe i
00:26:16.840
was too young when i read it the first time because i i was like all right i'll give walden a shot it's a
00:26:20.680
very difficult thing but boy i really found it to be beautifully written and i'm a fan of thoreau
00:26:26.200
now you know so i was like of course you know walden pond was in massachusetts not that far from
00:26:30.840
you know new england crotchety people guys going off by themselves i'm like of course i'm going to
00:26:35.400
you know compare you to thoreau i meant it as a compliment chris knight had a such humorously
00:26:41.000
negative reaction to thoreau now let me just tell you a couple things about henry david thoreau first of
00:26:45.160
all thoreau spent only two years in his cabin in walden pond he walked into the town of concord
00:26:50.440
up frequently his mother did his laundry he once had a dinner party that had 20 guests
00:26:55.400
and the worst thing thoreau did of course was right walden and the reason why chris knight felt that
00:27:01.720
thoreau did not deserve to be a hermit is because when you write a book you're basically telling
00:27:07.000
everyone in the world like you know look at me here i am this is what i think chris knight didn't
00:27:11.720
care about anybody else his back was totally turned to the world the thought of he didn't even write
00:27:17.080
one sentence down his entire time the woods didn't take one photo didn't draw any pictures
00:27:22.120
these were all for other people to see chris knight just really wasn't interested in anybody else and
00:27:28.200
he thought that anybody who went off by themselves to write a poem or you know paint a picture or do
00:27:32.920
an opera was really just spending time alone so that they could show off for the rest of the world and
00:27:37.400
chris had no interest in that yeah as always reading your book you know reading about the history of
00:27:41.800
hermits and being alone and even chris knights i thought it was interesting that being a hermit both
00:27:46.680
conceptually and practically requires other people right like as you said these hermits in the past
00:27:53.160
they have people bring them food make pilgrims check on them like but even chris even though he didn't
00:27:57.640
see people he still depended on people in their cabins to provide food for him so it's like it's like
00:28:04.280
pretty much like this idea of like the self-contained self-reliant person like it's kind of a myth
00:28:09.000
like you need we need other people i think you're absolutely right i mean there's no shortage of
00:28:13.240
contradictions in this tale even chris knight would not and say that there are the chris knight of
00:28:19.080
course he relied on other people he stole everything he needed to survive in fact when he was arrested
00:28:27.000
after 27 years the only thing in the world he had that he could say was his that he didn't steal or his
00:28:34.120
eyeglasses and in fact the arresting officers were also disbelieving of his story they found a high
00:28:40.200
school photo of chris knight he actually went to school in central maine not too far away from
00:28:45.320
where he was arrested and the high school yearbook was brought to them and lo and behold there was
00:28:50.120
chris knight in the high school yearbook at the you know age of whatever 18 wearing the same set of
00:28:55.720
glasses that he was arrested in at age 47 and when they saw that they were that they were the same pair
00:29:02.040
glasses both arresting officers said to me that there was something in their head that clicked
00:29:06.120
that this guy was telling the truth it would have been really really complicated for a shy person
00:29:11.720
not seeking publicity to make this all up it just didn't make sense that he would make this up and
00:29:17.640
you know the the pair of glasses really was the moment when people realized that chris knight was
00:29:23.880
telling the truth did chris ever describe to you like what it felt like being alone all those years he
00:29:30.920
did yeah you know why how and then what did it feel like and i have to tell you again this is one
00:29:37.080
of those topics that just sort of defies imagination chris knight he read a lot he even played a couple of
00:29:43.640
old handheld video games that he stole he had a handheld video game policy only just stole them that
00:29:48.280
were at least two generations old he didn't want to deprive any children of their christmas presents
00:29:52.840
he said and besides in a couple years he'd be stealing them anyway no but he didn't he listened to the
00:29:57.720
radio a little bit but for the most part what chris knight did what do you do for 27 years old by
00:30:03.160
yourself for the most part what chris knight did was what you and i would term nothing he just sat
00:30:10.040
there but chris knight told me that he was never for an instant bored in fact he said that he didn't
00:30:17.480
really even understand the concept of boredom and then what's even more impressive and i don't think i
00:30:24.120
could capture the poetry of chris knight as well as he you know he spoke very beautifully and i tried
00:30:27.640
to capture it in the book but i will paraphrase he said to me that he didn't actually even feel alone
00:30:35.400
in fact he told me and this sentiment was repeated in various forms in dozens upon dozens of books
00:30:42.280
written by hermits religious and non-religious alike he said that rather than feeling alone he felt
00:30:48.360
absolutely and entirely connected to like the rest of the universe the world he said that you know
00:30:55.720
there was not even a a mirror in his camp so he didn't even know what he looked like he said that
00:31:01.000
after a very short period of time alone he wasn't entirely aware of where he ended and the forest began
00:31:08.120
he said he just felt intimately connected with everything and never lonely it's the way he described it
00:31:14.680
was in fact it frankly it gave me sort of it sort of gave me chills it's like i feel like people in
00:31:20.360
this outside world you know as opposed to chris knight's world where we have a billion video games
00:31:24.360
and a million books and a lot of things to occupy our mind people often express that they're bored
00:31:29.880
or have nothing to do and chris knight without any of these distractions never felt that for a second
00:31:35.720
so why is it that chris knight and these other hermits can feel that and then we use solitude as
00:31:41.800
punishment in our prisons and that you know there's research that people basically go crazy
00:31:45.880
when they're alone like that so what's the difference what's going on there right as you
00:31:49.560
mentioned the harshest punishment in the united states penal system besides the death penalty
00:31:54.840
is solitary confinement and in fact amnesty international has declared that you know
00:31:59.800
spending more than two weeks in solitary confinement injured torture a huge percentage of prisoners that are
00:32:07.240
in solitary confinement lose their mind and go crazy solitude is a very interesting state some people
00:32:15.640
seek it and love it most people avoid it at all costs and absolutely hate it it is one of the reasons why it
00:32:25.320
is fascinating and so when i talk about people finding solace and people finding joy i'm talking about
00:32:32.440
voluntary solitude involuntary solitude is practically torture and it's just it's it's it's one of the
00:32:40.040
reasons why the subject is extremely fascinating most of us just hate it there was a study conducted by
00:32:46.600
the university of virginia a couple of years ago in which they showed that about 60 of men and 35 of women
00:32:53.560
would rather give themselves electric shocks than sit quietly with nothing to do for 15 minutes
00:33:01.880
we really don't like to be alone with ourselves humans you know humans were uh one of the reasons
00:33:07.720
most anthropologists consider humans to be the dominant species on the planet isn't because we're
00:33:12.200
the fastest animal or the strongest animal but because we have really big brains but more importantly
00:33:16.680
we're able to link them up and work together we're sort of programmed to work together and even in
00:33:22.680
in genesis in the bible it said you know god did not want adam to be alone it was like one of the
00:33:27.880
first things that god did was like oh he needs he can't be alone it's just it goes to be alone
00:33:33.480
voluntarily for most of us seems to go against everything we've ever felt or heard but there are like
00:33:40.840
i said those that love it speak so highly of it and talk about such rich experiences this is voluntary
00:33:46.680
aloneness there have been like 20 studies done around the world that sort of examine the effects of
00:33:54.520
solitude and quiet on humans and every study has come up with the exact same conclusions which is
00:34:01.400
that time alone time in nature time by yourself makes you calmer it makes you healthier there's the
00:34:10.120
all the stress hormones are reduced it makes you smarter there are tests of memory and reading retention
00:34:17.960
and it makes you happier there's really time alone voluntary time alone is great for you you know
00:34:24.840
humans are what our species is about two million years old and for 99 of the time that we've been humans
00:34:31.080
we all lived in small groups of hunter gatherers and spent a lot of time alone or in tiny groups in
00:34:37.880
quiet situations and every single one of our senses is calibrated to that you know technology you know
00:34:45.880
change changes very quickly evolution is very slow all you know take a hike in the woods all of us feel
00:34:52.040
good about it why because that's what all of our senses are calibrated to being quiet in the woods not
00:34:57.640
playing nintendo right so 27 years and i was alone how did he eventually get caught what what changed so
00:35:05.080
as i mentioned there was this sort of legend that built up you know the there's several hundred houses
00:35:11.320
around these lakes and everybody was missing you know people are missing stakes their stephen king
00:35:16.120
novel their flashlights their batteries their sleeping bag and but there were no smashed windows
00:35:20.600
there was no kicked in doors your tv's there your computer's there your jewelry's there people were very
00:35:26.840
confused but there was definitely something going on when people examine their cabins very closely they
00:35:31.400
saw that sometimes the hasp on their window the lock on their window was open and there were
00:35:35.800
file marks and even some file shaving so someone had been inside and the police had been called and they
00:35:40.680
couldn't find it and nobody knew was it a was it a neighbor was it a some vietnam vet that was
00:35:46.680
disgruntled was it a gang initiation was it you know two brothers that both owned cabins on a
00:35:52.680
pond thought the other was the one who was stealing you know nobody knew and this went on for 5 10 15 20 25
00:35:58.840
years and became this legend and the people around the lake gave the legend a name they called it the north
00:36:04.040
pond hermit but they really didn't know if there was a hermit in fact most people assumed no way would a
00:36:08.680
guy be out there for that long it was probably some neighbor some gang initiation some prank
00:36:13.160
something anyway finally after more than a quarter century and intermittent police searches i mean
00:36:19.240
really it just sort of fell between the cracks like you know there's a lot of problems in in central
00:36:23.880
maine and somebody stealing hamburger meat and batteries just never made it to like the number
00:36:27.880
one problem for the police department but a game warden named terry hughes who lived in the area where
00:36:33.800
this legend took place realized that this was not this was not the lochness monster or the himalayan
00:36:38.920
yeti there was something happening and damn it he was going to solve it and terry hughes is a great
00:36:44.040
guy but when he puts his mind to something he sort of puts his mind to it and like he contacted homeland
00:36:49.160
security and i won't get into all the details but he put like electric eyes around in the forest and he
00:36:54.120
had um silent alarms that would ring his cell phone in the middle of the night and finally after 27
00:37:00.200
years terry knight caught the north pond hermit red-handed stealing some hamburger meat and cheese
00:37:06.760
from a local summer camp that was closed for the season and the 27-year reign the hermit came to an
00:37:13.400
end and what was that like for knight to have his his reign in the woods ended well knight was an
00:37:19.480
extremely cautious thief but he knew that every time he left his camp in the woods and even in his
00:37:26.360
camp in the woods which by the way was on private property a 200 acre lot he knew that his time in
00:37:31.960
the woods could come to an end at any moment and he sort of he sort of sensed it he over the 27 years
00:37:39.640
he saw technology improve he's you know first there was no security system then there was these very
00:37:44.680
large clunky cameras and then they got so small that they could hide inside of smoke detectors and he
00:37:49.560
knew that technology was getting better locks were getting better and that he hoped to stay out there
00:37:54.120
all his life but while he was certainly startled and shocked it was there was always a piece of
00:37:59.640
his mind as i mentioned he was a very bright person he there was no part of him that thought you know
00:38:03.800
this is a sure thing that i could live out here forever you know he was uh let's just say he was
00:38:09.240
stoic he was certainly not happy but realized that this was a possibility terry hughes for the straight
00:38:17.240
up law and order man who spent a decade in the marines before he spent 18 years as a forest game warden
00:38:23.640
had a very very interesting reaction a man who really did most of the arrest there was another
00:38:28.200
officer named diane vance who was also involved but terry hughes did most of the heavy lifting
00:38:32.600
he had a very interesting reaction to chris knight terry hughes is a extraordinarily able woodsman you
00:38:38.760
know has found many lost hikers children that were lost in the woods has just a sixth sense able to read
00:38:45.160
the woods so well looking for any snapped branches or even a trace of a partial footprint can notice these
00:38:51.800
things and never was able to find chris knight the night of his arrest he asked chris knight to show
00:38:57.240
him his camp in the woods and chris knight led him to it and terry hughes followed chris knight
00:39:04.280
step for step and is the only known person ever to have witnessed chris knight walk in the woods
00:39:09.240
and he watched chris knight walk absolutely silently through this crazily dense forest stepping on roots
00:39:15.880
that he had stepped on for 20 years moving bending twisting striding then didn't need a flashlight didn't
00:39:22.280
break a branch had memorized the patterns of branches on hundreds of trees knew how to duck and weave and
00:39:28.440
brought him to his magical site between the elephant rocks and terry hughes said to me it was possibly the
00:39:34.760
most extraordinary thing event he had ever witnessed in his life he had he thought he was a great woodsman and
00:39:41.880
then he basically met the king woodsman of of all the world and told me that here he is a law and
00:39:49.480
order guy that just arrested someone who confessed to breaking into homes a thousand times that's a
00:39:54.520
thousand felonies and he actually felt a little bit bad for arresting the hermit and i mean what's
00:40:02.520
what's chris knight doing now so what do you do with a guy like chris knight see i think one of this one
00:40:08.280
of the things that also interested me about this story is that you know chris knight is not clearly
00:40:13.240
completely crazy and if someone is crazy we have mental hospitals for them and chris knight is clearly
00:40:19.080
not a violent and evil criminal and if you are that way then we have jails for you what do you do with
00:40:27.160
a person who's not a criminal and not clearly mentally insane but just doesn't fit into the world what do we
00:40:32.680
do what do we do with that person and the answer is we don't have any spot for that person we just
00:40:38.040
don't have we don't know what to do with them what do you do with chris knight there was a huge debate
00:40:42.920
without getting into too many details he ended up spending seven months in the county jail now even
00:40:49.080
one break-in as i mentioned one unauthorized break-in can get you 10 years in the state penitentiary
00:40:54.920
he confessed to 1 000 of them so it was possible that he could have spent his entire life locked up
00:41:01.000
in a cell but even the district attorney realized that someone who just spent 27 years completely
00:41:06.440
free in the woods being locked in a cage with another person whether or not he deserved it was
00:41:11.240
not a just thing and he spent seven months and was given an extremely harsh probation that if he broke
00:41:18.520
it he would spend seven years in jail and chris knight observed his probation to the very letter
00:41:25.720
and never made a tiny misstep where is he now well chris knight gave me the most valuable thing he owns
00:41:33.880
in all the world which was his story and he asked for nothing in return he did not want me to pay him
00:41:40.840
he just he told his story because he realized that he would be hounded by journalists probably
00:41:46.440
all his life i was one of 500 journalists that requested an interview and as far as i know
00:41:52.040
he only spoke to me i'm very very fortunate and i will remain grateful to chris knight for sharing a
00:41:57.640
story with me for all my life thank you chris um he told me a story he realized that he would be
00:42:03.880
hounded all his life and if he told me his story that he could sort of use it as a rampart as a wall
00:42:08.520
as a defense like if you want to read about chris knight take a look at the book but please leave
00:42:12.680
him alone he told me a story and then he said please mike we're not friends there was no phony journalist
00:42:18.200
subject friendship going on here he is a real true hermit chris knight he said when he was done
00:42:23.720
he said i really don't want to see you again i'm done talking to you and while i would love to receive
00:42:28.680
a letter or a call from chris knight one day i have left him completely alone we're not in contact
00:42:34.200
so i'm not exactly sure where he is but to the best of my knowledge he's still living in central maine
00:42:40.200
has carved out he's truly a survivor has carved out a very quiet life for himself and has as far as i
00:42:47.000
know is not being disturbed by the outside world so writing this story and interacting with chris all
00:42:53.080
the year all these years what like what did you learn about solitude and did you find yourself
00:42:59.880
looking for more of it in your life after interacting with chris yeah i i i sort of touched on this during
00:43:05.640
our conversation about how our senses are calibrated to the woods and how it seems like we avoid being by
00:43:13.560
ourselves at all costs i mean literally to the point that we have an extra 90 seconds we will
00:43:19.320
fish out our phone and send a text message or view our twitter feed we like feel this crazy need to be
00:43:25.720
in constant connection i have a weird idea and it's possibly the simplest suggestion uh that anyone could
00:43:32.600
ever make if i bet you i'm not alone here in thinking that the tone the tempo the the the discourse the
00:43:41.880
public what's going on in in society right now seems a little bit crazy i think we are tearing
00:43:49.000
ourselves apart i think that it doesn't matter where you are in the political spectrum i think
00:43:53.560
that we are really really feeling like anger comes before any sort of understanding or compromise i think
00:44:00.040
we're i think we're i think we're all going crazy to be to be honest with you i have an idea i this is
00:44:05.880
something that i have been doing it would be wonderful if every single person who is listening
00:44:11.240
to this spends i'm not saying 27 years alone i'm saying 10 minutes the next time you have nothing
00:44:16.920
to do do nothing don't pull out your phone don't call anyone don't check your email don't do anything
00:44:26.280
just be there quietly i don't care if you're in the middle of a city street or in your bedroom
00:44:32.440
or in a city park don't do anything for just a couple of minutes try it how can that be a hard
00:44:39.480
thing to do i'm just asking people to do nothing i'm not asking you to go and take some crazy
00:44:43.080
meditation class or you know lift weights every morning for two hours or take yoga just do nothing
00:44:49.480
i think if everybody in the entire world did nothing for 10 or 15 minutes a day the temperature of the
00:44:56.680
society this craziness that's going on would be decreased by an essential margin we might all
00:45:02.680
actually get along a little better it's just my idea i like that do nothing well michael this has
00:45:07.960
been a great conversation where can people go learn more about the book and i promise after you guys
00:45:11.720
read this book you're going to kind of want to go out in the main woods by yourself literally yeah
00:45:15.880
just for take a take a long weekend and maybe take this book along it's called the stranger in the
00:45:19.720
woods yeah take a long weekend i have a website um i go by michael finkel very funny rhyming name so
00:45:25.880
www.michaelfinkel.com if you're inspired to there's a contact tab send me a note takes me sometimes a
00:45:32.440
little while to get back in touch but i answer everybody even if you want to say something
00:45:36.840
negative positive questions feel free to get me on my website michaelfinkel.com michael finkel thank you
00:45:42.520
so much time it's been a pleasure thank you for having me on it really is a a fun and rich topic to
00:45:47.400
discuss and appreciate it i guess there's michael finkel he's the author of the book the stranger
00:45:51.000
in the woods the extraordinary story the last true hermit find that book on amazon.com and bookstores
00:45:55.560
everywhere you can also find out more information about michael's work at michaelfinkel.com also check
00:45:59.560
out our show notes at aom.is slash hermit you can find links to resources we delve deeper into this topic
00:46:17.400
well that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast for more manly tips and advice
00:46:21.320
make sure to check out the art of manliness website at artofmanliness.com if you enjoy the
00:46:24.600
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00:46:27.640
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00:46:30.920
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00:46:35.160
always thank you for your continued support until next time this is brett mckay telling you to stay manly