The Wreck Of Time Taking Our Century's Measure Analysis

Living a life of significance or making life significant may require us to make decisions and to take a path that some people do not completely understand. Can it be assumed that life is already significant, or do we need something to make life significant? Life is significant because we take action and find ways to interest ourselves and to explore the world. Jon Krakauer writes about a young Chris McCandless’s disconnect from society in Into the Wild. Annie Dillard discusses our general ignorance from everything but ourselves as human beings in “The Wreck of Time: Taking Our Century’s Measure.” Alain de Botton introduces the concept of the travelers’ mindset and becoming more aware of our familiar surroundings, and disconnecting from

those familiar feelings as a result in “On Habit”, a chapter from his book Art of Travel. Daniel Gilbert focuses on the concept of artificial emotions and disconnecting of the mind as a result of the psychological immune system in “Immune to Reality”, a chapter from Stumbling on Happiness.

Detaching from society, separating from familiar ideas, and disconnecting from reality makes life significant by introducing discovery into our lives.

When we are disconnected from society, we are able to explore ourselves exclusively and find new significance in life. The concept of disconnecting from society refers to a person isolating himself from everything that happens outside the realms of his personal life. Dillard discusses the insignificance of humans in “The Wreck of Time: Taking Our Century’s Measure”, noting that mass tragedies do not affect us. In Dillard’s article, Stalin is quoted: “A single death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic,” (72). This is true because only deaths that occur to people who we personally know affect us, while the millions that die in a mass tragedy do not carry any personal significance. Thus, we regard the millions as a statistic. We are disconnected from everything but only our own lives, with the people and experiences that we know, and ourselves. In this way, our focus is centralized around our own

lives rather than with the events happening around the world. Chris McCandless exemplifies what it is like to live and think separate from society, choosing to isolate himself from what seems like a good life. Although his parents are wealthy and he is well educated, the problem is that ordinary life is stale and boring to McCandless. In addition to receiving high marks in school, he also receives a failing grade in physics only because he refuses to adhere to the required lab report format. To McCandless, conformity takes away from the significance of life. As he emotionally distances himself from society, specifically his parents, McCandless’s mother writes a letter to him stating, “You have completely dropped away from all who love and care about you. Whatever it is—whoever you’re with—do you think this is right?” (124). McCandless detaches from his family because he feels like he can live more freely and can find significance in life this way. The extent to which McCandless disconnects from society is too great, as evident by his inability to survive in the wilderness alone. In order for life to be significant, we must disconnect ourselves and show progress and advance in society. The many accomplishments that have graced civilization in the past and in the present could not have been possible without disconnecting from the outside world. New and original ideas come to fruition by separating from society. By disconnecting from everything but ourselves, we are also promoting individuality and uniqueness.
When we move away from familiar thoughts and beliefs, there is more in the world that is available to discover, making life more significant.

By living with a familiar perspective, we become ignorant to our familiar surroundings. What happens when the familiar becomes the only thing that we experience? Life becomes insignificant. In “On Habit”, Xavier de Maistre comes up with what he calls a “travelers’ mindset”, in order to look at things in a new and different perspective. In “Nocturnal Expedition around my Bedroom”, de Maistre describes as he looks up at the sky through the window: “Its beauty made him feel frustrated that such ordinary scenes were not more generally appreciated,” (de Botton 243). The travelers’ mindset involves moving away from viewing things in a familiar perspective in order to find new significance in a well-known setting. Alain de Botton, the author of “On Habit,” tries to apply the travelers’ perspective to his own life. He does this by trying to notice the little things around his city that he had simply ignored before due to it being too recognizable. It is remarkable how descriptive he is in talking about the architecture of the cities when taking this new mindset: “The power of my primary goal had drained me of the will to reflect on the layout of the park or the unusual mixture of Georgian, Victorian, and Edwardian architecture along a single block,” (de Botton 246). By disregarding the fact that he had travelled down that path

countless times, de Botton is able to find new things to do and new reasons that life is significant, even in a familiar setting. New perspective usually sparks a motivation in us, and there is new significance in life based on the new perspective. McCandless shows us how a certain motivation drives him to explore the wilderness. Krakauer explains, “Danger has always held a certain allure. That, in large part, is why so many teenagers drive too fast and drink too much and take too many drugs, why it has always been so easy for nations to recruit young men to go to war,” (182). Risk-taking is something that appeals to young people like McCandless because it is out of the ordinary; risk-taking, unlike general education, involves unexpected events and explanations. There is no definite end point or result from taking a risk or participating in dangerous things. From McCandless’s point of view, there is no significance in life because life is like a mechanical process that has a specified start and end point. He lived well off, and his parents worked hard to raise money for him to get an education at Emory. However, to McCandless, there was nothing significant about getting a job and making money like everybody else in society. The new perspective that is out of the ordinary is traveling to Alaska and living in the wild on his own. Distancing ourselves from the commonplace introduces discovery by allowing us to see and think in a new perspective, giving new significance to life.
Like how life can be more significant by being less ignorant about the world around you, the mind disconnects from reality by creating facts as a result of the psychological immune system, leaving us to believe that life is significant. The function of the psychological immune system, according to Gilbert protects us from the harshness of reality and effectively lessens the sting of negative events. The psychological immune system is also very helpful for many reasons, such as acting as a defense for trauma and stress. However, one of the more exclusive functions is the ability for the psychological immune system to cook facts. Gilbert states, “When we cook facts, we are similarly unaware of why we are doing it, and this turns out to be a good thing…” (174). Our minds cook up facts in order to make us feel a certain way. The psychological immune system allows us to disconnect from reality, so that we can believe that life is still significant. We disconnect from reality because whatever emotion we are feeling, whether it is happiness or excitement, could be artificial. Our brains work to make us feel better about bad or negative situations using means such as justification. For a majority of the time, the justification does not represent our real emotions or feelings towards anything. However, the fact that we disconnect from reality does not take away from the significance of life. As a matter of fact, the psychological immune system makes life significant by allowing us to believe that things can be discovered. We then take action by giving an effort in discovering new things. It is arguable that McCandless’s stay in Bullhead City is an example of a disconnection with reality.