Why “eremitism” is a great word
EREMITISM — [Noun] The state or practice of living as a hermit; seclusion from society, often for religious or spiritual reasons. From English 'eremite' (a hermit, from Late Latin eremita, from Greek erēmitēs, "of the desert," from erēmia, "desert, solitude") + the suffix '-ism' (denoting a practice or system). Unlike "reclusiveness," which suggests a withdrawn disposition without specific spiritual aims, or "anchoritism," which denotes the physically enclosed life of a religious hermit, eremitism is the deliberate, often devotional, architecture of solitude. It is the wind-scoured cave in a sandstone cliff, the measured poverty of a forest cell, and the single candle flame illuminating a handwritten text at dusk—a voluntary exile from the human chorus, where the soul expands to fill the vastness it has sought.