The Stranger In The Woods: The Extraordinary Story Of The Last True Hermit

1After spending time with Christopher Knight, Finkel becomes curious as to what length of time everyday individuals have spent without human interaction. How did Finkel define this absence of human interaction? How long was the typical amount of time as reported by respondents? How does this length of time compare to you personally?

2.Relate the following quote by Christopher Knight from Finkel’s book to the components of self-concept as we have discussed them: “”Solitude increased my perception. But here’s the tricky thing: when I applied my increased perception to myself, I lost my identity. There was no audience, no one to perform for. There was no need to define myself. I became irrelevant".

3.Read the following article related to Christopher Knight entitled “Lessons of the Hermit” by Nathaniel Rich: (Cut and paste in into your browser as needed.)

After doing so, compare what the author says about the effects of social media to Sherry Turkle’s message in her Ted Talk that you previously viewed: (Cut and paste as needed.)

4. What is your overall reaction to Finkel’s message as related to interpersonal communication? What can you most relate to in Finkel’s book?  

Living without any human interaction

Finkel was curious to know how a person can spend their life without any human interaction. To understand this process and the consequences Finkel tried to spend time without any human interaction. In the words of Finkel it can be seen that secrecy is the condition of fragile state and to protect the secrecy, one had to be very careful.  Christopher Knight was a hermit, who generally avoid human interaction and spend their life in solitude. The time Christopher Knight has spent in the wood highly affected his lifestyle and his thinking power. The hermit lives in the woods and waits until midnight to move from his habitation (Kolling et al., 9-26). Knight avoid slicks of mud and central Maine, and he runs like a ghost in the woods. According to Finkle, hermit generally like dark but hunger was the situation where hermit cannot control it and they await for new moon to show some light. He moves in this fashion for an hour without leaving any trail and footprints.

According to the respondents, the hermit can avoid the usual tactics of the police for fifty years. They were not able to identify the name of the hermit using their intermittent investigations and foot researches. Their general methods were not sufficient enough to catch the hermit. The hermit was able to avoid the sensors and other equipment, thus successfully preventing the interaction with humans for a long time (Kong, Jia, and Fu, 1775-1788).

Twenty seven years is a long time to avoid any human interaction for many people in the world. The hermit did not leave any footprints so that he can be identified. He visits the empty camps in search of foods and other supplies.  Comparing the time, I think that it is impossible for anyone to go without any human interaction for this longer period.

The component of the self-concept is considered to be physical, emotional, social as well as intellectual (Sirgy, 350-354). The quote of Christopher Knight provides the view that loneliness or the solitude is the primary reason which increased his awareness for everything. This is the mere concept of intellectual where the people gain knowledge of becoming more aware regarding their situation and their condition in the circumstances. This is one of the most suitable and the crucial thing for people as this makes them aware of various thing and condition that occur within their surroundings. In the term of Christopher Knight the trickiest thing in being loneliness and to increase the awareness is that, with the increased awareness within Knight, he generally lose his identity (Parker et al., 172-191). This is the essential self-concept of emotional as well as social where the people get connected with the social world with their emotion. When the person increases their level of awareness, this proves that the person is lacking social activity and also very much disturbed due to the emotional concept. The quote provides the view of Christopher Knight that as there was no person and no one to perform or to show his talent, he slowly lost in the wood and this lost indicates the loss of mental peace and the inner talent (Finkel). The self-concept of Christopher Knight was profoundly disturbed as he was solitude and for that, he performed to increase the awareness regarding every small thing within the world. He did not want to define his self-concept to anyone as there was no one to listen or to give company Christopher Knight in his loneliness time.

Effects of solitude on Christopher Knight's lifestyle and thinking power

The world is rapidly changing with the development of technology and various social media sites to get connected with the rest of the world. The primary thing that can be understood from the article and the Sherry Turkle TED talk that people in the modern world are connected with the internet, but eventually they are alone. According to Sherry Turkle, people in the present day are "Alone together," and this is one of the basic concepts of technology in the current world. Christopher Knight spent 27 years in solitude in the woods and did not have any connection with the world, but he was eventually connected with nature (RICH). This is the mere thing which creates a huge difference in both the cases. During the time of 1990 people use to get connected with face to face conversation and also with the physical connection but in the recent world the conversation as changed into a relationship which changed the process of connectivity with people (Somerville). According to Sherry Turkle, the social media in the recent years have the huge impact on people for their along togetherness within the world. The social activity helps to get connected with the world but it also creates distance between the people, and for this, it is also hiding ourselves and getting into the wood (Turkle). No one is in the forest like Christopher Knight but people in the present year try to hide their emotion and also their physical appearance as they are not comfortable with the physical presence. This situation clearly shows that people in the recent world are just as same as Christopher Knight who also afraid to get connected with the people and the world rather than the woods.

Interpersonal communication is defined as the process by which an individual’s share their feelings, thoughts, and information regarding the non-verbal as well as verbal messages (Berger, 586-607). Interpersonal communication is one of the essential procedures by which an individuals can increases their communication skills. From the message of Finkel, it is clear that he want to reach home or a safe place before evening from the forest, but due to some circumstances, he cannot reach his destination. In the critical situation within forest Finkle had to break his journey. Finkle saw a camp in the wood, but due to lack of communication he cannot ask anyone for food or help. Therefore, it can be said that communication is essential for interacting with each other and also to share feelings and other concern. Moreover, it can be said that proper communication with another person can increase their communication skills and hence they cannot face any problem shortly.  

In the story, it was seen that the author became hungry as he does not bring food that night. In the book, it is understood that Finkel's does not use his communication skills to properly communicate with the person present in the camp and instead of it he became stole the food from the camp. Hence it was seen that absence of proper communication increases the individual problem (Walther, and Valkenburg, 415-423). The author could not adequately express his feelings, and therefore one of the members of the camp think that he was a thief (Finkel). At that time also the author cannot confess his feeling and run away from the situation. Moreover, it was concluded that the author mainly avoids human contact and thus lack proper communication skills.

References

Berger, Jonah. "Word of mouth and interpersonal communication: A review and directions for future research." Journal of Consumer Psychology 24.4 (2014): 586-607.

Finkel, Michael. The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit. Vintage, 2018. Print.

Kolling, Andreas, Philip Walker, Nilanjan Chakraborty, Katia Sycara, and Michael Lewis. "Human interaction with robot swarms: A survey." IEEE Transactions on Human-Machine Systems 46.1 (2016): 9-26.

Kong, Yu, Yunde Jia, and Yun Fu. "Interactive phrases: Semantic descriptionsfor human interaction recognition." IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis & Machine Intelligence 9 (2014): 1775-1788.

Parker, Philip D., Herbert W. Marsh, Alexandre J.S. Morin, Marjorie Seaton, and Brooke Van Zanden. "If one goes up the other must come down: Examining ipsative relationships between math and E nglish self?concept trajectories across high school." British Journal of Educational Psychology 85.2 (2015): 172-191.

RICH, NATHANIEL. "Lessons Of The Hermit". Www.Theatlantic.Com, 2017, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/04/lessons-of-the-hermit/517770/   Web 2 July 2018.

Sirgy, M. Joseph. "The self-concept in relation to product preference and purchase intention." Marketing Horizons: A 1980's Perspective. Springer, Cham, 2015. 350-354.

Somerville, Jennifer, et al. "General non-fiction [Book Review]." Good Reading Mar 2017 (2017): 54.

Turkle, Sherry. "Connected, But Alone?." Ted.com. N. p., 2018, https://www.ted.com/talks/sherry_turkle_alone_together/up-next/  Web 2 July 2018.

Walther, Joseph B., and Patti M. Valkenburg. "Merging mass and interpersonal communication via interactive communication technology: A symposium." Human Communication Research 43.4 (2017): 415-423.