Stylites: giving zero f~~~s since the 5th century

[LionOnTheLooseParticipant 1315]

What’s a Stylite, I hear you ask? Good question. It is a particularly extreme form of MGTOW, an ancient practice started in the 5th century AD and all but died out now. I thought you guys might be interested, whatever your religious beliefs, because it shows the degree of isolation which men who have gone before us have sought to attain.

The Stylite (from Greek stylitēs: pillar dweller) was an extreme form of hermit who decided to live out their days on the top of a pillar. Yes, you read that correctly. As Eastern Christians, they believed that this retreat from society and ascetic existence brought them closer to God.

The first recorded Stylite was Saint Simeon Stylites the Elder (?390-459). Having entered a monastery at the age of 16, he apparently had a taste for such severe austerity that his brothers deemed him unsuitable even for monastic life, and he embarked on living in solitude as a hermit in a hut on the side of a mountain. But people kept visiting him, and his desired a more extreme escape from society.

To that end, he found a pillar among some ruins in what is now Taladah in Syria, and determined to live out his life on the platform. Boys climbed up the pillar to bring him parcels of flat bread and goats’ milk, and he may also have used a pulled to pull up foods in a bucket.

He appears to have changed pillars a number of times, the first being nine feet high and the last more than 50 feet. Subsequently, other holy men followed in his footsteps and found their own pillars.

Although the practice has almost completely died out now, there is a monk in Georgia, Maxime Qavtaradze, who has revived the practice and been a Stylite for over 20 years, although there is a small hut at the top of his pillar (which is a rocky outcrop), and is therefore probably rather bigger than Simeon’s, which was believed to be about one square metre.

I can see much which is appealing about such isolation.

Further reading
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stylite
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2384040/Maxime-Meet-monk-lives-life-virtual-solitude-131ft-pillar.html

There aren't holes in your pockets. It's called marriage.

[ViciouscunningtreacherousParticipant 823]

Kind of a metaphor of us mgtow. We strive to reside on our own pillars of sanity and peace. And yet it is still sad to me that men have had to do such things to achieve tranquility throughout the ages. Interesting and thoughtful post.

For in much wisdom is much grief, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.

[LionOnTheLooseParticipant 1315]

Viciouscunningtreacherous wrote:

Kind of a metaphor of us mgtow. We strive to reside on our own pillars of sanity and peace. And yet it is still sad to me that men have had to do such things to achieve tranquility throughout the ages. Interesting and thoughtful post.

Many thanks, Vicious: I appreciate your kind words!

There aren't holes in your pockets. It's called marriage.

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