Who are you, really?
In my first blog post, I wrote about this painful thing that happens early in solitude (voluntary or pandemic-induced), when you confront your "shadow self," which contains all those parts of yourself you would prefer to pretend don't exist. These might be real weaknesses, or just aspects of your personality that don't match up with the person you wish you were. Maybe you're a quiet intellectual, but you idealize socially sparkling or charismatic people. Maybe you're a fantastic singer, but you feel like a fraud because you're not good at song-writing. Now, I only took my first vows as a hermit a little less than a year ago, but I feel like I actually went through this radical revision of my self-concept the first time I retired, almost 13 years ago. That's when I first found out that being a "hermit" was a thing, in our time, and I knew it was for me. It didn't go well! I was so not ready. Thank God I found my way to a Benedictine mo