The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit

by Michael Finkel

Socrates may have concluded that his most valuable possession was his leisure. “Beware the barrenness of a busy life” is a quote commonly attributed to him.

One becomes free, Socrates seems to have taught, not by fulfilling all desires but by eliminating desire.

It’s possible that Knight believed he was one of the few sane people left. He was confounded by the idea that passing the prime of your life in a cubicle, spending hours a day at a computer, in exchange for money, was considered acceptable, but relaxing in a tent in the woods was disturbed.

What did Knight do for a living? He lived for a living.

“Suffering is such a deep part of living,” wrote Robert Kull, who lived alone on an island in Patagonia for a year, in 2001, “that if we try too hard to avoid it, we end up avoiding life entirely.”