In a series of commentaries on the human condition — life, truth, happiness, death — a spinster sister takes in her dead sister’s children; a man is entranced by the endless waves which roll and crash in the ocean; a carpenter wrestles with the burden of being everyone’s confidante; a dying railroad crossing watchman shares a simple but complex wisdom.

Tired of being deceived and humiliated by people that he trusted, a Swedish-American man decides to leave civilization behind and live alone on an island forever. However, his paradise quickly turns into hell, and he is forced to realize that history always repeats itself.

Lynnie is a young, working-class girl who works at the Stone House in town and wastes her days making stories about the lives of the people around her, which she tells to her friend, Isobel. But when rumors start to circulate, Isobel mysteriously moves away, and Lynnie is left wondering why.

A woman who is not content with life and fears staying in one place works as a traveling writer, recording her thoughts and interactions on tape recorders and finding different lovers in each place she visits.

A man's lonely life focused on the pursuit of reason and music leaves him questioning what more there may be in the lives of other people and of religion.

In intense discussion a group leader ponders aloud, asking why hermits hide and what defines outcasts, among other cerebral queries. A group of friends discusses the oddities they have seen and perceived in their lives leather-clad hermits and criminal astronauts among them. They debate the purpose of hermitage, the classification of outcasts, and the purpose of their own reflections.

A girl flees her home when her parents want to send her back to her abusive husband.

A Canadian schoolteacher sets up shop on a tiny, near-barren island off the coast of Labrador. Before long, what begins as a peaceful new life full of love and community becomes a cold, icy prison.

An aging electrical engineer's intensifying sensation of detachment culminates in a series of debilitating headaches. As he works through fatigue, setbacks, and pain, he finally confronts the source of his desolation.

After their only child dies during his gap year abroad, a woman reflects on her relationship with her husband and comes to understand that they deal with fear and grief in different ways.