"Getting away from it all: it’s a common fantasy. But for some people, fantasizing isn’t enough. For whatever reason — the desire for peace and quiet in an increasingly frenetic world, an attempt to escape the intrusiveness of technology or the need for an isolated place to recover from heartbreak — they feel compelled to act out the fantasy, seeking the kind of solitude found only in the remotest locations."
"Some people might “really need their downtime,” Dr. Aron said, and seek out “isolation that avoids all social intercourse.” Others may have developed an “avoidant attachment style” in childhood, resulting in “a need to prove to themselves that they don’t need anybody,” she said."
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"In Mr. Fahey’s case, he moved to the island full time in 1994, several years after he divorced, not because he was traumatized, he said, but because he liked the “feeling of freedom when you’re by yourself. You don’t have to answer to anybody.”
"There are a handful of other residents on the other side of the island, but Mr. Fahey prefers not to socialize with them. “I’m not a misanthropic recluse sort of guy,” he said. “I just know that I’d rather be here by myself.”
Nick Fahey
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"Part of the draw of living on the island, which is now owned by the Nature Conservancy, was that “time did not matter — sometimes I would lose track of the year,” he said. “It was so magical, millions of birds, turtles. When I’d go out with the dinghy, manta ray would escort me, dolphins.”
Still, island life took its toll. “I got attacked by loneliness,” said Mr. Lextrait, who came to depend on the company of his German shepherd mix, TouTou. He would often forgot shaving and dressing, he said, and “I started talking to myself. Sometimes I felt like an animal.”
His infrequent visitors would ask things like “What are you going to do if a coconut falls on your head?” — given that the nearest doctor was hundreds of miles away. “I said, ‘Oh my, if I think like that, I’ll never do anything.’ ”
Roger Lextrait
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“We live in a world where everything is so specialized, now people don’t know how to make anything, they don’t know how to survive,” he said, speaking by cellphone from the forest. “I’m not completely self-sufficient, but I’m learning.” Every aspect of his daily routine was essential to his survival. “I have to collect firewood, rather than do some job that I have no idea what is the point, which I hate, and from which I am completely alienated,” he said. “Everything in my life feels full of meaning.”
Edward Griffith
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“I just wanted the idea of a less stressful life,” he said. “I figured there had to be something better than this out there.”
"There is an inherent conflict between the peace of total solitude and the pleasures of companionship, he admitted."
David Glasheen
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