Atheism and monasticism?

[Rev. Rye]

Your other suggestion is probably more apropos, learn to live very simply and maybe haunt public libraries (while they still exist anyway) to do reading and research. Try to live like an actual monk.

Yeah, I strongly suspected that learning wilderness skills to the point where you become Jeremiah Johnson with a library card is a lot easier to expect from a person than to become an author whose sales are good enough that they can afford to seclude themselves comfortably. Some people might not be built for the life of a mountain man, but let's face it, with your experiences (and given that tech writing has to get obsolete rather quickly) and the fact that one of my favourite authors never sold more than 5,000 books in his lifetime, none of them going through a second printing until after his death, the J.D. Salinger route is a lot more difficult.

Maybe, if you go the Jim Bridger route, it might help to keep a blog so we don't assume that you've become the second Unabomber. Given that my backstory has an alarming amount of similarities with Ted Kaczynski (a North Shore Suburb kid with an abnormally high IQ, autism spectrum diagnosis, mental health issues not helped by school-sanctioned bullying [college in Teddy-Boy's case, grade school in mine], and strongly misanthropic tendencies), I do think it might help to keep the suspicions at bay.

At least I have the sort of self-awareness to recognise I do have problems and to try and work them out with a therapist, something that, as far as I could tell, Kaczynski never bothered with.

[ComradeMeow]

Yes and in fairness some Buddhist monks produce stuff to help support themselves. And pastors / priests do provide counseling (of varying quality) and visit the sick and housebound so it's not like they sit around all day navel-gazing (and many of them are not paid very well).

My basic point is just that there has to be a patron of some sort if you want to just sit around and think great thoughts or seek enlightenment.

My atheist monastery is going to be brewing beer like the best of em. Plenty of opportunity to think great thoughts on the side

I am setting my Patreon right now! FUND ME!

I'll make great cherry flavored beer. I won't let you down I promise.