Lost, shipwrecked, cast away, blah blah

Why are so many people so completely obsessed with the concept of being stranded somewhere?

This love of the lonely goes back farther than Robinson Crusoe which was published in 1719. The manifestation of this idea appears repeatedly. I could name without thinking too hard many more examples than just the three in my title (Really? yes) ok: "Three", "Swiss family Robinson" (yeah cheap one) "6 days, 7 nights", "Island of the Blue Dolphins" (oooh bet you didn't see that one coming) "Ren and Stimpy" "Mad Magazine", "Saturday Night Live", uuhh almost thinking now, Tailspin, that commercial where the monkeys live with that dude and they get a computer, ok now I'm thinking, how about nearly every cartoon, sketch comedy show, and sci fi show, has at one time or another played on the idea of people stuck in a small area and forced to live with nature and each other.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing. I don't hate the concept, it enamors me too. I'd love to be stuck on an island with some hot girl. Of course the survivor theme, oh duh, "Survivor", anyway it doesn't stop at deserted isles, oh yeah "Gilligan's Island" it also works on apocalypse themes where the actual demise of humanity takes a back seat to a couple people stuck together alone and with only their relationships keeping them alive, i.e. every zombie movie ever including Resident Evil's .Also that movie "Night of the Comet" where those girls wake up to find all of humanity vanished. It's all the same. This fixation on a few people dealing with each other mostly out of absolute necessity.

Why does this seem to be such an inate desire? To conceptualize the island. While I don't so thoroughly question most aspects of our culture, this one gets me. Simply for the fact that it NEVER HAPPENS. Aside from the one Scottish dude 300 years ago that inspired "Robinson Crusoe" and those Japanese soldiers in the Pacific Islands, nobody gets stuck on tropical islands. It isn't one of the normal aspects of human sociological development. We are forever bombarded by uncontrollable change and new characters come in all the time.

You might try to take the easy way out and suggest that it is because it never happens that we dream about it so much. Well, by that logic, there should also be thousands more stories about utopias relative to stories of dystopias. But it isn't true. We are realists. Even our fantasies hold on to our most basic social sets. Name one story about a good government and happy people, and I'll name 50 about horrible governments, and miserable people. Horrible governments and miserable people is our history, and we assume our future. Why then so fixated on a nearly impossible situation of being forced to stick with people you probably didn't know that you will come to love mutually or kill, and must work together to survive, no other option? Or that there are always the resources for you, so you can stay, until you mind decides to leave? (not counting Steven King's take, which really had nothing to do with sociology and everything to do with perserverance).

One could say it is oft repeated because it is the nature of the story ( a couple people, and no illogical complications) that makes it easy to copy. Any shitty writer can get away with a survivor story. There only needs be one story arch. There only needs be 2 to 3 character stories. There needs to be only one relationship. Easy to write. Sure, but then why do we fantasize about it too? I mean, we don't fantasize about shitty "parody" movies, yet every year we get another one. Obviously there is more to it than just the easy money.

My best guess as to why this entire society dreams of being put in a life or death situation with douchebags who will be 50/50 on trying to kill you is that we want our minds to be it. We want our relationships to be THE relationships. We want to be islands, but no man is an island. The island fantasy has nothing to do with getting away and having a bad time, it's just our comparitve visual presentation of a psychological desire to keep things to ourselves, and simultaneously be able to make others understand us. How can this person you love know how you truly feel? What you truly would do for them? Island. How can you ever believe you won't be left for another, or become obsolete at your job, or otherwise replaced? Island. How can you both go on, when everyone around you tries to break you apart? Island. How will any human get to know the real you, without all this pretense bullshit, the part of you that matters, the part that isn't about looking good or telling jokes or hurting others? Island.

Anyway. That's my guess. But if you read this maybe you have a better idea. I just wanted to test the waters, cause I know for a fact how much the island concept means to "us". I wonder how many other people actually realize it too.