Flights

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF AN ISLAND

According to travel psychology, the island represents our earliest, most primal state prior to socialization, when the ego has already individualized enough to attain a certain level of self-awareness, but without yet having entered into complete, fulfilling relationships with its surroundings. The island state is a state of remaining within one’s own boundaries, undisturbed by any external influence; it resembles a kind of narcissism or even autism. One satisfies all one’s needs on one’s own. Only the self seems real; the other is but a vague spectre, a Flying Dutchman just darting over a distant horizon. In fact, one can’t be altogether certain it was not a figment of one’s imagination, an adornment by an eye accustomed to a straight line that splits the field of view cleanly into an up and a down.