Life's a Beach
OK, it seems that events past and present, global and local have worked together to produce a situation in which I'm rather like a shipwrecked sailor. I've dragged myself out of the punishing surf, crawled up on the wet sand, got up on my hands and knees, retching and spitting out sea water, and then dragged myself to the dry sand and stood up, shaking a little.
There's a wall of thorny brush in front of me. I look up the beach—an endless highway of sand. I turn my head—the same desolation. I'm on a desert island.
No water. No food. And utterly, utterly alone. Despair closes in on me, a loathsome spider whose fangs bring oblivion.
Except for one thing—I've read Robinson Crusoe.
Written by Daniel Defoe and published in 1719, it's considered the first English novel. I read it once, when I was a kid, probably in adapted form, and it's unforgettable. Crusoe is shipwrecked, drags himself onto the beach of a desert island, and despairs. For a while. Then he gets supplies off the sinking ship (everyone else dies) and starts gettin' all resourceful wit it. He improvises clothes and shelter, he develops food and water sources, he finds a friend (well, sort of a servant too, but the relationship is at least symbiotic). He survives and thrives, and eventually goes home rich.
I'm sure the book has been roundly condemned by academics for racism, colonialism, capitalism, all that. Not my concern here. I"m concerned with how stories can encode knowledge that's vitally useful in given situations. Stories were humanity's first method of preserving and transmitting information, and they work as well as they ever did. Lots of people are wondering, what with the economy and all, how they're going to survive. Well, we've known for a while now, haven't we? First thing is to get off the floor and grin like a barroom fighter, a tough bastard who was down for a moment but by no means out. You tell the world that it can't beat you until it kills you. And you mean it.
Then you find hidden resources, you adapt and improvise, you find people to help you. Survive. Thrive. You can do it. And so can I.
We'd have sort of known that anyway, I think. But Daniel Defoe broke it down in steps for us. The story has been dwelling in our culture for nearly three centuries, and been dwelling in me since childhood. It's a good story to know.
There's a wall of thorny brush in front of me. I look up the beach—an endless highway of sand. I turn my head—the same desolation. I'm on a desert island.
No water. No food. And utterly, utterly alone. Despair closes in on me, a loathsome spider whose fangs bring oblivion.
Except for one thing—I've read Robinson Crusoe.
Written by Daniel Defoe and published in 1719, it's considered the first English novel. I read it once, when I was a kid, probably in adapted form, and it's unforgettable. Crusoe is shipwrecked, drags himself onto the beach of a desert island, and despairs. For a while. Then he gets supplies off the sinking ship (everyone else dies) and starts gettin' all resourceful wit it. He improvises clothes and shelter, he develops food and water sources, he finds a friend (well, sort of a servant too, but the relationship is at least symbiotic). He survives and thrives, and eventually goes home rich.
I'm sure the book has been roundly condemned by academics for racism, colonialism, capitalism, all that. Not my concern here. I"m concerned with how stories can encode knowledge that's vitally useful in given situations. Stories were humanity's first method of preserving and transmitting information, and they work as well as they ever did. Lots of people are wondering, what with the economy and all, how they're going to survive. Well, we've known for a while now, haven't we? First thing is to get off the floor and grin like a barroom fighter, a tough bastard who was down for a moment but by no means out. You tell the world that it can't beat you until it kills you. And you mean it.
Then you find hidden resources, you adapt and improvise, you find people to help you. Survive. Thrive. You can do it. And so can I.
We'd have sort of known that anyway, I think. But Daniel Defoe broke it down in steps for us. The story has been dwelling in our culture for nearly three centuries, and been dwelling in me since childhood. It's a good story to know.
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