Every tarot card has its unique and valuable lesson and, for each card, there is a season. Recently, I find myself being quite drawn to The Hermit’s message.
A hermit is one who is removed from society. For the tarot’s Hermit, hermitage arises as a need to separate oneself from others in order to carve out the time and space required for genuine contemplation. I find this to be most relevant in today’s hyper modern internet age.
Many people in the industrialized world is never more than an arm’s reach away from internet access. With this access comes limitless information and not all information are accurate. But the level of accuracy is not the only problem.
An equally concerning problem is too much information. It takes contemplation for information to become knowledge and time for knowledge to become wisdom. When we are constantly flipping from one news story to the next, we simply do not give ourselves enough time to meaningfully internalize information.
I read a study about young people’s relationship to technology. The study asked a group of young people to not expose themselves to media technology for one whole day – meaning no internet or TV. More than half the participants failed to complete the task. Many reported feelings of anxiety and some even experienced suicidal thoughts.
What I gathered from that study is that we have gotten so used to being fed information that thinking for ourselves have become a frightening task. This is incredibly ironic because information is suppose to free us from ignorance. Instead, the information we consume and the way we consume it has enslaved us.
I’m not saying that we should delete all our social media accounts and end our Netflix subscription. What I am saying is that we should all unplug every once in a while. Instead of letting the media dictate our every opinion, think for ourselves. Instead of relying on shows to entertain us, discover our own creativity.
The Mechanics of Tarot 