TJ Ray

By TJ Ray

Columnist

 

“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.” 

These famous words by John Donne were not originally written as a poem — the passage is taken from the 1624 Meditation 17, from Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions and is prose. 

Consider that Donne might have spoken of a man living alone on an island, someone, say, such as Robinson Crusoe before he met Friday, or the Castaway of the recent movie by that title. 

Imagine the constraints and demands the person is subject to: securing shelter and finding food. As he is the only citizen of the island, so would he also be its ruler. Hence he can set any rules for himself that please him. 

On one day he might eat two coconuts; on another he might eat one; on a third he might eat none. When to get up and when to go to bed are his choices alone. Enough food and adequate shelter and good weather might shape a good life. But. . . . 

Someone else lands on the island, hungry and looking for a place to rest. Talk and talk and talk (and perhaps some physical exchanges) would either lead to one of the two residents dying or the two islanders striking a pact. 

They might even divide the island: Citizen One occupies one half of the space while Citizen Two inhabits the other half. Life settles down to a ritual of both eating and sleeping and amusing themselves as best they can without television or sporting events. 

In time one of them tames some wild animals. Having eaten his fill, he decides to build a rending plant to do something with the hides and hooves. Terrible, acrid smoke billows all around the island, nauseating and choking the other resident. 

In polite words at first and harsher words later, he protests to the man tending the atrocious smelling fire. Happy with his labor and the benefits he hopes to gain from it, the entrepreneur points out that it is his half of the island and what goes on in it is no one else’s business. 

A stalemate is reached. 

And things might have ended there: smelly fumes choking one person while the other fellow enjoys his labors. But as life would have it, that isn’t the end of the matter: another castaway reaches the atoll. 

Again discussion, heated words, threats and pleas result in the three distributing the land among themselves. Peace at last—until the new rending season comes around and the smoke and smell offends the newcomer also. 

Now the two “victims” join forces and set up rules which all three must obey, rules that promote the general welfare of the majority over the private profit and desires of an individual. 

The hoof cooker protests that his third of the island is still his and no one has the right to dictate to him how it is to be used. The other two insist that the cooking must stop or something will be done to the cook. 

The last settler on the island is particularly insistent because part of his third of the land has been scorched and reeks of incinerated hooves before he even set up his shelter. 

In time, the three strangers agree to some basic principles of coexistence, gaining a bit of protection from offensive land use and conceding some absolute control over their spaces. 

If John Donne had known of this epic, he might well have added a bit to his Meditation: No man is an island — nor is his land.