The Art of Manliness - #358： The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast have you ever

00:00:19.080 wanted to get into your car drive off in the middle of nowhere leave behind the hustle and

00:00:23.220 bustle of civilization and just be by yourself well in 1986 a man named christopher knight did

00:00:28.980 just that and lived in the main woods without any human contact any human contact for 27 years until

00:00:34.720 he's discovered in 2013 my guest day wrote a biography the stranger in the woods about this

00:00:39.260 man who locals called the hermit of the north pond author's name is michael finkel the day on the

00:00:43.460 show we discuss how chris survived in the main woods alone by himself but more importantly we

00:00:49.180 discuss why chris wanted to be by himself for so long and by looking at the life of one of the

00:00:54.020 modern world's last true hermits michael and i explored the idea of hermitage solitude and

00:00:58.960 why being an individual requires you to be alone after the show's over you're going to want to go

00:01:03.500 off in the woods and be by yourself but before you do that go check out the show notes at aom.is

00:01:07.840 slash hermit 0.97

00:01:08.540 well mike finkel welcome to the show thanks happy to be here so you wrote an interesting book it's

00:01:17.120 sort of a hybrid of looking at the life of a hermit named chris knight we're going to talk about him

00:01:21.960 but also exploring the ideas of solitude and being alone and is that important to being a human being

00:01:29.280 an individual so let's let's talk about how what drew you to the story of chris knight so this is a

00:01:34.980 guy who lived in the main woods middle of the main woods by himself for 27 years how'd you get

00:01:42.080 connected with the story and why did you decide to write this book yeah so i've been a journalist for

00:01:45.360 like 27 years this is only my second book i got three little kids i have a short attention span if a

00:01:50.420 story doesn't deserve to be a book length telling and i'm gonna going to avoid it it's just my it's

00:01:56.000 my tendency i'm an impatient person and boy this story of christopher knight the main hermit really

00:02:01.920 just grabbed me by every sense possible you know as you mentioned before here's a guy who lived

00:02:07.140 completely alone in the woods of maine which is really really cold by the way for 27 years and

00:02:13.020 claimed he not only didn't speak with anyone didn't see the internet didn't make a phone call

00:02:17.760 never spoke a word aloud except for one syllable once he said hi to a passing hiker never even lit

00:02:24.720 a fire which is boggles the imagination for fear that smoke might give his position away also he

00:02:30.540 became this like over the 27 years he also became this very odd legend for food and clothing and a few

00:02:40.400 survival things and books he broke into these small cabins i'm sure we'll talk about this further he

00:02:46.440 broke into these second uh these sort of summer cabins simple summer cabins in the woods on the

00:02:51.600 lake country of central maine and so he there was this sort of legend built up about him and people

00:02:56.820 had wildly different opinions of him some people thought that this guy breaking into houses was like

00:03:02.200 the worst thing that ever happened to them you know this guy broke into you know if you break into

00:03:06.880 someone's house it's you know it's you can get 10 years in prison even if you don't take anything

00:03:10.840 and other people thought this mysterious person might have some heroic qualities and i love the

00:03:16.420 fact that there was a myth there was a person and then of course the great question is you know how

00:03:20.340 did he survive why and then what happens after a person who has been away for so long is thrown back

00:03:27.100 into our very loud very you know 24 7 365 society what happens then how could you not be interested

00:03:34.300 it's catnip for a journalist is what i'm trying to say oh yeah for sure so let's talk about chris

00:03:38.260 knight's backstory what year did he go off into the woods by himself how old was he when he decided

00:03:43.360 to do this christopher knight grew up in central maine in a kind of an unusual family he had four

00:03:48.560 older brothers one younger sister they were very private family all the children the knight children

00:03:53.660 were got extremely good grades in school but more than that they the family did not have a lot of

00:03:58.160 money but they learned how to hunt and fish they learned how to fix everything from electrical to

00:04:03.260 automotive to plumbing their house according to people that have been inside it was like a

00:04:08.040 library they all read everything from shakespeare to poetry in the evening they studied like

00:04:12.840 theoretical physics and hydrodynamics and these guys built this crazy greenhouse where they could you

00:04:17.480 know grow food all winter and not pay a dime to the electric company and chris knight you know

00:04:21.660 people i spoke to that went to high school with him considered him shy some people said nerdy but

00:04:26.740 no one expected him to do something as radical as he did anyway so christopher knight quit the world

00:04:32.120 at age 20 which is extraordinarily young for a hermit i just imagine never getting another piece of 0.96

00:04:40.160 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

00:04:46.280 for advice frequently he drove his car subaru brat into the woods of central maine and abandoned it there

00:04:55.240 through the keys in the center console and at the age of 20 with very little supplies just the most

00:05:01.080 scant amount of camping gear no maps no compass walked into the woods of central maine and wasn't

00:05:08.120 seen again for 27 years it's an incredible story and i do want to emphasize that everything i'm saying

00:05:13.960 tonight is not only true but it has been thoroughly vetted by fact checkers and the lawyers and the police

00:05:20.840 investigators and everything this is a true story no fake news going on here at the art of manliness

00:05:26.280 so what year was this that's another important factor because he you know probably missed a lot

00:05:31.000 in 27 years yeah so chris knight departed the world i believe it was 1986 and wasn't pulled out of the

00:05:39.000 woods until 2013. so just imagine that in 1986 there had been i think reagan was president there were

00:05:47.800 no cell phones nobody had heard of the internet yet it's not just even the years it's like the

00:05:53.240 years of his life between the ages of 20 and 47 most people you know more or less live their entire life

00:05:59.880 before that you're sort of a young kid and after that you're sort of a middle-aged man this is when

00:06:03.960 most people go to school pick their job get married have a family you know make all these massive life

00:06:11.160 changes buy a house you know figure things out but this guy lived by himself for the basically the heart

00:06:16.200 of his life so the next question is like why like what caused him to do it i mean most was it a

00:06:21.640 unabomber thing where he's like fed up with society wanted to get away from it he has some sort of

00:06:26.760 spiritual motive like what why did what caused him to drive his car in the middle of the woods and

00:06:30.840 just give it up and then walk out into it yeah i think that's the operative question why and of

00:06:34.840 course that was the first question on my mind it was like how did he survive which we can get into but

00:06:39.640 why why would you quit the world for 27 years and i'll try and be as brief as possible and the answer is

00:06:45.320 actually sort of simple but the reason why it's very difficult to imagine is that most people

00:06:50.520 me you i'm sure the vast majority of people listening to this don't really spend much time

00:06:55.480 alone and we really as humans we really don't like to spend that much time alone it's clear like you

00:07:00.680 know watch anybody when they have like 12 idle seconds what's the first thing most people do

00:07:04.840 these days they fish their cell phone out of their pocket and start to connect in some way or another

00:07:09.800 but chris knight like you know despite the fact that 99.9 of us don't like to be alone there has

00:07:16.680 been throughout human history since the beginning of recorded time which goes back about 5 000 years

00:07:22.760 in every culture at all times there's been a thin but distinct stream of people that really wanted to

00:07:29.560 be alone and there is even a genetic component to this and chris knight expressed many of the same things

00:07:34.680 that you know the hermits throughout history have said which is that he always felt a little

00:07:39.880 uncomfortable around other people more than a little uncomfortable and he really liked his own

00:07:44.280 company and it was like he described it as this sort of gravitational pull you know when i was talking

00:07:50.040 to chris knight you know i was guessing you know well you did you commit a crime were you embarrassed

00:07:54.680 about something we confused about say you know this is the 80s in central maine were you confused about

00:07:58.600 your sexuality something and he said no no it was nothing specific like that and really anything like

00:08:03.640 that's not going to keep you away for 27 years so chris knight had this radical idea of how he wanted

00:08:09.480 to live his life and he decided to attempt it and decided to fulfill his most radical idea pretty much

00:08:15.560 probably more fully than i'll just speak for myself more fully than i will ever dare and probably most

00:08:20.760 people listening will ever dare and why did he leave the world he left the world because he just didn't

00:08:26.840 feel comfortable being around other people he felt this tug to be alone but the better question

00:08:32.200 brett the better question is why did he stay and the answer to that question i find really

00:08:38.680 fascinating he stayed alone because he really liked it he expressed a great deal of contentment now he

00:08:47.480 definitely suffered during winters and definitely suffered from hunger sometimes but overall he said he

00:08:53.960 loved being alone he expressed more contentment about his life than most people i meet out here in the

00:09:00.920 world and so he left because he found this strong tug but he stayed because he was happy i mean i what

00:09:06.440 are we all searching for in life life liberty the pursuit of happiness he found it yeah we'll get

00:09:11.000 into how he how he's able to do this i thought it was interesting when they when he finally got caught

00:09:15.480 there's all these therapists and analysts like you know doing trying to figure out like what was that

00:09:20.920 component was a you know he felt uncomfortable around people was he autistic or did he have some

00:09:25.400 sort of other thing but like the consensus was there was no consensus that something was you know

00:09:30.280 quote-unquote wrong with chris knight like he just had a tendency he wanted to be by himself and he

00:09:35.480 enjoyed it i mean of course it's it's i can't blame anyone for thinking like oh what's wrong with

00:09:40.360 this guy because that's exactly what i thought and he chris knight was examined by a state psychologist who

00:09:46.280 offered a couple of things the obvious sort of like the asperger's or something on the autism

00:09:50.360 spectrum but i spoke with many you know people who said they couldn't make a specific diagnosis

00:09:55.400 without actually talking to chris knight himself but really reviewed the case and as you just said

00:09:59.960 there really is nothing no diagnosable syndrome that you can pin on chris knight many autism experts said

00:10:08.120 to me we just could not consider him to be on the autism spectrum there's just he had to plan ahead

00:10:13.640 there's no in the annals of autism there's no examples of a person who survived by themselves

00:10:18.360 for this long who can plan ahead who had all these you know he just didn't fit any diagnosis at all

00:10:25.240 in fact you know it'd be like saying you know every hermit has a problem in fact you know 0.75

00:10:31.080 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

00:10:35.000 you know probably there's two or three days a week where i'm you know driving driving my three

00:10:39.240 kids around and they're fighting in the back seat and i'm stuck in traffic and there's terrible news

00:10:43.560 coming out of the radio and six you know text messages my phone's binging constantly and i'm

00:10:47.560 late for not only my projects but the meeting i'm supposed to be at and i'm sort of stressed out and

00:10:52.440 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

00:10:57.080 really mean that yeah and like he he was kind of self-aware of that he when you talk to him you know

00:11:02.760 he'd say like i know people think i'm crazy i understand that but like maybe you guys are the crazy

00:11:08.040 ones like he was very like he was very philosophical about his solitude even though

00:11:12.680 he wouldn't say that he's being philosophical right so you know just briefly to you know to keep

00:11:17.240 the story a little coherent um you know chris knight planned to spend his entire life in the

00:11:23.240 woods he never wanted to come out ever not 27 years not ever he wanted to he planned to die

00:11:30.120 completely anonymously but as i mentioned he did steal food and other survival supplies and books

00:11:37.960 and was eventually caught and we can get into that but um and so was forcibly removed from his

00:11:43.960 solitude and that's the only reason i was able to talk to him he was actually in jail and so most of

00:11:48.840 our the time we met was in a jail visiting room and if there is one thing i can say about chris knight

00:11:55.880 and there's lots of things i can say about him but he is extraordinarily intelligent i rarely encountered

00:12:02.600 someone who could not just quote from a thousand books he seemed to have a photographic memory though

00:12:08.840 he denied it i don't have a photographic memory i just remember everything which seems to me like

00:12:13.880 and as you mentioned he said he didn't leave the world to make any statement he wasn't trying to make

00:12:17.880 any of us feel bad about our decisions he just did what he wanted to do he did feel terrible about

00:12:23.480 having to steal and we can you know that's a whole other issue whether you know whether whether

00:12:29.160 chris knight should be forgiven or not for his crimes and nobody's wrong on that one but he

00:12:34.040 you know he felt that he found the place where he was most content in the world and if if for other

00:12:39.320 people it was you know in the middle of a office building or you know sitting in front of a computer

00:12:44.120 most of the day or raising a family then he never he never wanted anyone to feel bad about their own

00:12:48.520 choices but had this very sort of i don't know sophisticated intelligence is sort of inscrutable air

00:12:54.440 about him where he felt that his choices were completely logical for him and it wasn't like

00:12:58.920 scary because like a lot of times you know hermits or people kind of go out like they kind of scare you 0.94

00:13:02.360 because they go out there for like scary reasons like i just said he didn't judge others he's like i

00:13:05.960 just want to do my thing and be left alone yeah unfortunately and chris knight was aware of this

00:13:10.520 he did frighten other people he broke into about there are a couple of maybe 300 houses in a second

00:13:18.440 homes in the lake region where chris knight he camped in the same site chris knight for

00:13:23.000 more than 25 of his 27 years he basically spent a little more than a year wandering around the

00:13:27.720 woods of central maine really not knowing exactly where he was though sensing it and then found this

00:13:32.680 amazing spot in the woods not too far from civilization but certainly far enough so that he could be

00:13:38.840 completely alone and broke into approximately he had about 100 cabins in his repertoire and really some

00:13:46.040 people were extraordinarily disturbed by his actions and he knew this and didn't feel great

00:13:50.520 about it but sort of made the decision that he would rather be alone and steal than in the world

00:13:56.680 and law-abiding and so it's very complicated and sort of he never quite uh chris knight himself never

00:14:02.760 quite resolved the conundrum about being a thief so let's talk about okay you know how he survived

00:14:07.480 for 27 years so you've been talking about he's been stealing food what was his camp like and you know

00:14:13.240 because like as you said maine winters are crazy cold during the springtime they have this terrible

00:14:18.520 black fly season where they just swarm you and bite you it's terrible he never lit a fire so how was he

00:14:25.480 able to build himself a place to live comfortably i mean yeah relatively comfortably for 25 years yeah so

00:14:31.480 i mean chris knight's story is literally unbelievable like you know everybody i asked i'd say about 80

00:14:37.720 percent of the residents of central maine the victims of his crime and normally the closer i get to a

00:14:43.240 story the more people explain it the more believable it is but this was this was almost the opposite the

00:14:48.120 closer i came to the area chris lived the less people could believe it you know and a few other

00:14:53.320 things people said to me were like you know how is it possible to go 27 years without lighting a fire

00:14:58.920 how is it possible to go 27 years without seeing a doctor you know how is it possible to have a campsite

00:15:03.800 not that far away that no one's ever been by you know how did chris knight survive the great ice

00:15:07.800 storm of 1998 and on and on and on and i was able to ask chris knight all of these questions and i was

00:15:15.480 searching for like one you know when someone tells you a story and you find one tiny thing that that

00:15:21.320 contradicts what they're saying well then the whole story falls apart like a house of cards like if i had

00:15:25.320 gone to his site and found one charred piece of wood that indicated there was a fire the whole thing

00:15:29.320 would fall apart and i'm going to tell you i never after i spent three years working on this book i

00:15:35.080 never found a single thing that contradicted anything chris knight said and even the police

00:15:40.840 officers that arrested him exclaimed that they probably had rarely met someone who seemed so honest

00:15:47.000 as chris knight so just quickly like how do you go 27 years without getting sick or needing to see a

00:15:52.040 doctor well the way we get sick is by being around each other we exchange bacteria we exchange germs we

00:15:58.920 exchange viruses if you're not around other people you don't get sick i mean you can still get

00:16:03.240 something like diabetes or cancer but when i talked to doctors they said it made perfect sense that chris

00:16:08.200 knight never got sick it's in terms of say the great ice storm of 1998 as chris knight himself said

00:16:12.760 you know it was like 28 degrees during that great ice storm it really wasn't that cold it was terrible

00:16:16.760 for the electrical wires and he couldn't drive a car 10 feet without skidding off the road but it was

00:16:20.520 perfectly fine for him not only that he actually liked it to put a layer of ice over the snow and he

00:16:25.400 could walk around without leaving footprints he wished it was a great ice storm every week now he

00:16:30.760 told me to find his site and a lot of the answers would be clear and i spent most of my life in

00:16:36.520 montana i've i've spent a lot of time camping and hiking in the woods i consider myself a decent

00:16:41.720 woodsman but wow i have never seen woods as thick as dense as difficult to navigate as chris knight's

00:16:50.360 forest not only were there tons of trees tangled all over each other in a very thick undergrowth the

00:16:55.240 last ice age smothered maine in glaciers and when the glaciers retreated they left behind these

00:17:00.200 enormous automobile sized boulders which are just everywhere in chris knight's woods the woods are so

00:17:05.320 thick not even that many deer walk through it's just impossible to navigate chris knight learned to

00:17:10.680 walk in these woods almost silently he memorized all these patterns where he could step on a root and

00:17:16.440 on a rock he could not snap a branch he could not even leave a footprint and it took me a long

00:17:22.360 time to find this site even though i knew approximately where it was and that it was

00:17:25.720 very close you know within if you knew exactly where you're going three minutes to the nearest

00:17:29.880 mud driveway and it was one of the most i i'm still imagining right now as i'm talking to you the

00:17:38.600 first time i found this site it was like the entrance was between these two boulders that when you looked

00:17:44.120 at it most directions it looked like it was one big rock i called it the elephant rock but from a certain

00:17:48.680 angle you could see that there was a big crack in the rock or i guess it had split during the glacial

00:17:53.480 period and you could sort of twist your body and sneak between these two rocks and i did that and

00:18:00.600 there was a site and it was like one of the most gorgeous things i've ever seen and i told you i've

00:18:06.360 spent a lot of times in the woods is like chris knight had cleared out like a cube of forest imagine

00:18:11.400 the forest as dense as a brillo pad all around you and suddenly you walk into this clearing but it even had

00:18:17.240 a roof overhead because the tree branches linked and you know chris knight was aware of this and

00:18:22.120 a couple of police officers said they did a few flyovers looking for this dude's camp well you

00:18:26.040 know i never found it and it was understandable why because there was a roof overhead it was

00:18:30.840 completely cleared out his floor was perfectly flat and what chris knight had done for years and

00:18:35.880 years and years he stole and read a lot of magazines and books and very often when he was finished with

00:18:40.440 them he would would make what he called bricks he would tie stacks of them together tape them with

00:18:45.400 electrical tape which he stole the electrical tape and bury them in his sight and make a perfectly flat

00:18:51.800 floor that also was excellent for draining rainwater and so he had this perfectly flat floor this

00:18:58.440 beautifully cleared out space impossible to find spot in a dense woods and you know i spent five nights

00:19:05.400 there across all seasons and you know even even to this moment right now talking to you when i'm

00:19:11.320 when i feel stressed out when i feel like the world is getting a little too loud and crazy i i think

00:19:15.640 about that spot i i never went there with anybody else i spent that time alone and it was amazing you

00:19:20.600 could hear the forest you could see not too far into the forest because it was so dense but you really

00:19:26.040 felt like you were in this i don't know you ever been to like one of those aquariums where there's like

00:19:29.320 a tube where you can walk through and you're like underwater i could felt like i was like in a room in the

00:19:33.800 forest with like but yet able to breathe and have my own little space it i don't think i could really

00:19:39.640 overstate how fantastically lovely this spot was and i understood why he wanted to stay there you

00:19:45.880 know i don't know if i want to stay there 25 years but boy i could use a couple of long weekends there

00:19:49.320 now and again right so as i said earlier this book you use it to explore the idea of solitude and

00:19:54.840 hermitage let's talk about i mean as you mentioned earlier there since the beginning of

00:19:58.120 recorded history there have been hermits can you kind of give us the the rough thumbnail sketch

00:20:02.920 of the history of hermitage in in humanity yeah the very first some of the very first writings

00:20:09.160 we have that exist some writings etched on animal bones from ancient china and some writings

00:20:14.840 scratched onto clay tablets from mesopotamia mentioned wild men are shamans people living alone

00:20:20.920 in the in the wilderness and so as i said you know certainly before recorded history and for all of

00:20:25.960 recorded history there have been people that wanted to be by themselves the majority of these people

00:20:32.200 did it for religious reasons to seek a closer relationship with god there's the famous desert

00:20:38.440 fathers of early christianity many buddhists of course go on long retreats now chris knight

00:20:44.360 did not follow a formal formal religion and did not escape for any religious reasons but the religion

00:20:50.680 is the main reason a secondary reason is sort of what i call protester hermits you know a lot of people

00:20:55.480 left the world because of war because of pollution even right now in japan there are approximately

00:21:02.360 a million young kids most of them male called hikikomori which means pulling away people that live 0.84

00:21:09.880 in their rooms often for more than a decade and you know this is sort of a there's more than a million

00:21:15.400 of them it's sort of a epidemic in japan there's even like therapists that offer counseling through the

00:21:19.800 internet but people that sort of just quit the pressure cooker society that's especially prevalent in

00:21:25.400 japan and so these are like pro people that are protesting and then the last type of hermit is 0.68

00:21:31.560 someone like a henry david thoreau someone who does who leaves for maybe artistic or self-fulfillment

00:21:37.400 reasons you know there's been also some sort of sort of tangential hermits in the early 1800s there

00:21:42.200 was a fad in england among the aristocracy if you had a large estate it was a fad to have a to hire a

00:21:49.160 hermit they were called ornamental hermits and there's these people put advertisements in newspapers

00:21:53.800 offering to pay it was like seven dollars a month for a person who was willing to grow a long beard

00:21:59.880 and live in a cave on a estate in a british countryside and you know these these aristocrats

00:22:05.480 felt that hermits sort of had the air of wisdom and maybe i don't know mystery or something and it

00:22:10.680 became this very amusing fad that lasted 30 or so years yeah and are there hermits still today that 1.00

00:22:16.840 i mean i'm sure there are hermits still that you just mentioned the people in japan but like 0.62

00:22:20.120 i think you mentioned there's like internet forms dedicated to being a hermit which seems sort of

00:22:23.960 counterintuitive yeah you know actually paradoxical i have hermit ish tendencies i am certainly by no

00:22:30.520 means a hermit but you know my job writing involves spending a lot of time by myself and

00:22:34.920 sometimes i even find it enjoyable and i you know i was a long-distance runner and things like

00:22:39.400 that so while i am by no means a hermit i sort of get the need to be apart from people i do need

00:22:46.040 my alone time there are hermits today now i want to say one more thing which sometimes i'm almost like

00:22:53.240 i don't know if shy is the right word like sometimes there's things that are so extraordinary that you

00:22:56.520 just don't even bother to say it because people don't believe it but i'm just going to say one

00:22:59.480 more thing i lost my mind researching hermits now i will not brag about too many things on this world

00:23:05.960 but i will tell you might never speak to anyone who knows more about hermits than i do i read more

00:23:10.440 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 0.73

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 0.66

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 1.00

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 0.55

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 0.96

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 0.84

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

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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

The Art of Manliness - November 22, 2017

#358： The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit

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