The Three Pillars of the Modern Hermit

In an era bloated with noise and endless striving, the modern hermit stands apart—not as an escapist, but as a quiet rebel against excess. This isn’t the hermitage of distant caves; it’s a deliberate solitude within city walls, complete with high-speed internet and late-night groceries. Yet beneath the contemporary shell is an ancient quest: a life anchored by three interconnected pillars: physical health, mental mastery, and what I call irrelevant finance.

1. Physical Health: The Groundwork of Independence

“Take care of your body. It’s the only place you have to live.” —Jim Rohn

Without a resilient body, everything else teeters. The modern hermit makes the body a non-negotiable priority. Not for vanity, not even solely for longevity, but because it is the medium through which freedom is exercised

Simple, sustainable routines—daily steps, functional workouts, whole food meals—are the standard. Rest is seen as recovery, not indulgence. There is no outsourcing of responsibility here; the body becomes both a temple and a tool, honed for clarity and endurance.

Solitude strips away distractions, bringing the body’s whispers into sharp focus. In this quiet, the hermit re-learns to trust the primal: hunger, fatigue, strength, and breath. Each action is a reaffirmation of sovereignty.

The Physical Practice

The hermit’s approach to physical health is minimalist yet comprehensive:

• Movement as meditation: Walking daily, not just for exercise but as a practice of presence. The body in motion clears the mind and grounds the spirit.
• Functional strength: Simple, compound movements that build practical capability rather than aesthetic perfection. Pull-ups, push-ups, squats—movements that require little equipment but develop real-world strength.
• Nutritional simplicity: Whole foods, minimal processing, intermittent fasting. The hermit eats for clarity and energy, not entertainment or distraction.
• Deliberate recovery: Sleep is sacred, not sacrificial. The modern hermit protects rest with the same vigilance as productive time, recognizing that regeneration is the foundation of sustainable independence.

The physical pillar isn’t about achieving some idealized form but about creating a vessel resilient enough to house an independent life. When the body is strong, the mind follows; when the body is neglected, no amount of mental discipline can compensate.

2. Mental Mastery: The Inner Citadel

“You will never be free until you free yourself from the prison of your own false thoughts.” —Epictetus

Physical health lays the foundation, but mental mastery builds the structure. In isolation, the mind becomes both companion and adversary. Without training, solitude festers into despair; with mastery, it transforms into liberation.

Mental mastery is multifaceted. It’s the disciplined pursuit of knowledge, wrestling with philosophy, literature, and existential inquiry. It’s emotional regulation: allowing discomfort without panic, embracing ambiguity without paralysis. It’s spiritual grounding—a personal, often silent negotiation with meaning.

The hermit chooses depth over width. Social connections aren’t severed but refined, focusing on genuine resonance rather than the empty calories of endless networking. Meditation, journaling, study—these aren’t luxuries but essentials, sharpening perception and resilience.

This pillar is about sovereignty of mind, crafting an inner citadel that stands unshaken regardless of external turbulence.

The Mental Practice

The hermit’s approach to mental cultivation is both ancient and modern:

• Meditation as foundation: Daily sitting practice—not to achieve bliss but to observe the machinery of mind. The hermit watches thoughts arise and dissolve without attachment, developing the witness consciousness that enables true freedom.
• Strategic learning: Reading deeply rather than widely, focusing on timeless works that have survived centuries of scrutiny. The hermit builds a mental framework from first principles rather than trending opinions.
• Digital discipline: Using technology as a tool rather than a master. Information consumption is intentional, not habitual. Social media, if used at all, serves specific purposes rather than filling empty moments.
• Philosophical inquiry: Regular contemplation of fundamental questions—What constitutes a good life? What is freedom? What is worth sacrificing for? The hermit doesn’t outsource their worldview but constructs it deliberately.

Mental mastery isn’t intellectual posturing but practical wisdom—the ability to remain centered when everything around you spins, to find meaning when external validation disappears, to create purpose from within rather than importing it from without.

3. Irrelevant Finance: The Art of Not Needing

“Only the man who is truly independent of money is free.” —Albert Camus (paraphrased)

In a world hypnotized by accumulation, the modern hermit flips the script. Irrelevant finance is not poverty, nor is it reckless abandon—it’s the radical act of making money irrelevant to your sense of freedom and identity.

This doesn’t mean ignoring finances; on the contrary, it means mastering them so thoroughly that they fade into the background. It’s about minimalism of need and maximum clarity of purpose. By reducing expenses and detaching from consumerism, the hermit creates a buffer—a space where choices aren’t dictated by desperation or social pressure.

This pillar involves ruthless budgeting, conscious spending, and creating small, resilient income streams. Whether through freelance projects, investments, or digital microbusinesses, the goal is not to build empires but to build escape velocity. The measure of success is simple: can you maintain your autonomy without constant financial anxiety?

Irrelevant finance is a refusal to let money be the main character in your story. It becomes a silent partner—present, managed, but no longer a master.

The Financial Practice

The hermit’s approach to finance is neither avoidance nor obsession:

• Expense minimalism: Ruthlessly eliminating unnecessary costs, distinguishing between true needs and conditioned wants. The hermit’s budget reflects values, not social expectations.
• Income automation: Creating systems that generate resources with minimal ongoing effort—whether through investments, digital products, or specialized services that leverage unique skills.
• Strategic sufficiency: Defining “enough” and stopping there. The hermit seeks not wealth but the freedom that comes from breaking the cycle of wanting more.
• Financial sovereignty: Maintaining control over assets through self-custody, hard money principles, and independence from institutional dependencies. Bitcoin often serves as both philosophical alignment and practical tool.

Irrelevant finance isn’t about being rich or poor—it’s about making money a tool that serves freedom rather than a goal that demands sacrifice. When financial concerns recede from the foreground of consciousness, true priorities can emerge.

Why These Three?

Why not art, activism, or adventure? Because without these three—physical resilience, mental strength, and financial detachment—everything else is fragile. They are not just pillars but preconditions. All other pursuits rest on their stability.

More importantly, these pillars are interlocked. Weak physical health drags down mental sharpness. Financial strain corrodes emotional balance. A restless mind sabotages both health and wealth. Strength in one feeds the others, forming a loop of quiet power.

The Hermit ONL Framework

These three pillars can be understood through the ONL framework—Optimize, Neutralize, Liberate:

• Optimize your physical existence (Physical Health)
• Neutralize mental noise and distraction (Mental Mastery)
• Liberate yourself from financial dependency (Irrelevant Finance)

This creates a self-reinforcing cycle. Physical optimization creates the energy and clarity needed for mental mastery. Mental clarity enables the discernment required for financial liberation. And financial freedom provides the time and space to continue physical optimization.

The Modern Hermit’s Path

To live as a modern hermit is not to vanish, but to reappear on your own terms. It is to walk the city streets unnoticed yet unshaken, rooted in a deep personal architecture. The three pillars work together: health for vitality, mastery for meaning, irrelevance of finance for unshakable freedom.

Thoreau sought his clarity in the woods. Today’s hermit might seek it in a serviced apartment, where solitude is a matter of intention, not geography. As Camus might remind us, the absurdity of life is not a reason to despair, but a call to build meaning with our own hands.

The modern hermit builds—a body, a mind, a system—quietly, steadily, until freedom is no longer a goal but a lived, daily fact.

Daily Practices for the Modern Hermit

The hermit’s day is structured around practices that strengthen these pillars:

• Dawn ritual: Movement and meditation before digital engagement, setting the day’s foundation in physical presence and mental clarity.
• Deep work blocks: Periods of undistracted focus on what matters most, whether creative production, learning, or system building.
• Digital minimalism: Scheduled times for information consumption rather than constant connectivity, preserving attention for what truly matters.
• Evening reflection: Journaling or contemplative practice to integrate the day’s experiences and reset for tomorrow.

These aren’t rigid prescriptions but rhythms that support the three pillars. The specific implementation varies with individual circumstance, but the principles remain constant.

Conclusion: The Quiet Revolution

The modern hermit represents a quiet revolution against the prevailing currents of our time—the ceaseless noise, the compulsive consumption, the frantic pursuit of more. This is not a path of withdrawal but of strategic engagement, not of rejection but of careful curation.

In a world that demands constant connection, the hermit creates deliberate distance. In a culture that glorifies busyness, the hermit cultivates meaningful work. In an economy built on endless wanting, the hermit practices the radical art of enough.

The three pillars—physical health, mental mastery, and irrelevant finance—form not just a philosophy but a practical architecture for living. They are the foundation upon which a life of genuine freedom can be built, not in some distant future but in the present moment.

The modern hermit doesn’t wait for the world to change but creates a different world within the existing one—a world governed not by external metrics but by internal values, not by social approval but by personal truth.

This is the essence of the hermit’s path: to build a life so aligned with your nature that freedom becomes not an aspiration but a daily experience. Not freedom from responsibility, but freedom through responsibility. Not freedom from reality, but freedom within it.

The modern hermit builds this freedom one day at a time, one practice at a time, one choice at a time—until the three pillars stand not as goals to be achieved but as the natural expression of a life well lived.