Extreme Isolation

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For the majority of the population, spending an extensive amount of time without human contact is something that isn’t even dreamed about. However, for a select few, they had to live in this isolation for prolonged periods of time. The only way to get an idea of what it is like to live in this extreme isolation is through reading, hearing or watching the accounts of someone’s first hand experience. Some people who provide this insight for us are: Steven Callahan through his memoir, Adrift, Robert Zemeckis through the movie he directed, Cast Away, and Michael Bond’s article, “How Extreme Isolation Warps the Mind”. Through each of these works, it shows the effects that their extreme isolation makes on them. For the most part, the effects of this are negative, and ended up changing their mental state. Through the works …show more content…

In Michael Bond’s article, “How Extreme Isolation Warps the Mind”, he talks about a man, Hussain Al-Shahristani, who seemed to have maintained a stable state of mind throughout his time of isolation. For ten years Al-Shahristani was in solitary confinement. To stay sane, he took refuge “in a world of abstractions, making up mathematical problems which he then tried to solve” (Bond 4). By thinking through these complex problems, he was able to control his mental state, and keep it in a state of sanity. This did not only happen to Al-Shahristani, but also to others, including Edith Bone, who found refuge through counting her known vocabulary from six languages with a handmade abacus (Bond 4). These people were able to combat mental instability through distracting their mind from the isolation. This can cause people to believe that isolation does not warp the mind. However, this isn’t true for all because, most people don’t have the mental endurance, capability, or even the knowledge to keep themselves distracted through high intensity thinking for so

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