Pretend you are a European on a voyage of discovery before the time of Columbus. Your ship has been destroyed by a violent storm. You are the lone survivor. Miraculously, the piece of the ship’s debris to which you have been clinging since the ship went down washes ashore onto an uninhabited tropical island.
The lush island is full of fruits nuts, and berries, an abundance of wildlife, and plenty of fresh water. There are caves to protect you from storms and animals. Physical survival poses no problem.
There is only one hitch. Not only are you the island’s sole inhabitant, but no one knows that you are there. You are presumed to have been lost at sea. There is no reason whatsoever to assume that another ship will ever pass your way before you die, since Europeans have not yet discovered America and such voyages are rare. It is highly unlikely that you will ever see another human being for the rest of your life.
With the human condition – separation, meaninglessness, powerlessness, and death – staring you in the face, what would you do? Would you build a hut, plant a garden, have a panic attack, or turn to God?
Clearly you are separated from your family, your friends, your loved ones, and everyone else whom you have ever known. Could you ever find meaning alone on the island? Or is the message from the island that life is truly absurd? Life has no meaning on the island or elsewhere.
Obviously, you have few degrees of freedom with which to influence your own destiny. You are virtually powerless. Like everyone else, you too are going to die. But you are going to die alone, and you will have lots of time in which to contemplate your death. Could you survive such an ordeal? What would be your options?
In an attempt to numb the pain and suffering associated with separation, meaninglessness, powerlessness, and fear of death could you find meaning through having? For those into having, life on the island may seem like a libertarian’s dream of paradise. You can truly have it all on the island. Everything there belongs to you. You alone are the captain of your ship and the master of your soul.
There are no ciphers on the island to tell you what to believe, how to live, how to work, or how to die. There are no rules, no laws, no taxes, no law enforcement officials, no Homeland Security investigators, and no military. There is no Patriot Act, or Military Commissions Act. Homelessness, substance abuse, child abuse, crime, violence, and terrorism are conspicuously absent. Affluenza, technomania, e-mania, megalomania, robotism, globalization, and imperialism are completely unknown.
Alternatively, your quest might take the form of being. Being involves loving, caring, sharing, creating, cooperating, and participating in communities, in contrast to owning, manipulating, possessing, and controlling. Through being, meaning can be achieved from your creations, your love relationships, your community, and your stand towards pain, suffering, and death.
Although personal relationships are not an option on the island, you could form relationships with animals, nature, and the environment. Artistically, you could sculpt, paint pictures on the walls of caves, compose music or poetry, or make baskets and pottery. But if you are the sole beneficiary of these creations, could your work ever be truly meaningful? Other options might include prayer, meditation, and yoga.
For how many years could you survive alone? What would prevent you from going mad and succumbing to the urge to rid yourself of the pain and loneliness of the island through suicide?
But maybe there is another option to having, being, and suicide – rebellion. Although suicide represents the ultimate form of rebellion, it is thoroughly grounded I nihilism. If you are not yet ready to concede that life has no meaning whatsoever, you could always spend several hours each day sending smoke signals on the off chance that another ship might pass your way, and you would be rescued. This would represent a kind of soft rebellion.
But eventually wouldn’t you have to build a boat? Wouldn’t that be your only real chance of ever being reunited with your family, your friends, and your loved ones – your only chance of ever finding meaning. Doesn’t it finally come down to rebél – build a boat – or die?
Rebellion against life on the island may provide you with the faith to claw meaning out of meaninglessness, the energy to reach out to those from whom you are separated, the power to overcome your powerlessness, and the strength to confront the risk of death rather than deny it. With rebellion there is always risk, but possibly a hint of hope.
In the movie Cast Away, a contemporary version of the story of the island, actor Tom Hanks is the lone survivor of the crash of a FedEx DC-10 in the Pacific Ocean. He, too, washes ashore onto a deserted island and opts to build a makeshift boat. After surviving a perilous typhoon, he is rescued by a Japanese freighter.
The rebel, said Albert Camus, “confronts an order of things which oppresses him with the insistence on a kind of right not to be oppressed beyond the limit he can tolerate.”
But isn’t the ubiquitous island a metaphor for life on our own island, the planet earth? Even though no cosmic source of meaning has been revealed to us, we find ourselves drawn to the idea that the purpose of life is to die happy and that no one could die happy alone on the island.
Whether your deserted island is your college dorm room, a transnational megacorporation, an apartment in a big city, your automobile, a wide-bodied jet, your television set, your personal computer, or an Internet blog, there is but one fundamental question: “How can I die happy?” Your answer will determine how you live and whether or not your life has meaning.
Rebél
Thomas H. Naylor
March 1, 2008
_________________________
Adapted from a fable which appeared in the book by Thomas H. Naylor, William H. Willimon, and Magdalena R. Naylor, The Search for Meaning (1994).