On Survival

Drinking The Seagull - The Rumpus.net: What we need from life, then, is not what is presented to us, not even the seemingly hidden treasures that present themselves after the most cursory of hunts. If we want water, we must find it in seagull blood. If we want time, we must scrape it away from the bone of the day and use it as wisely and as expeditiously as we can. I won’t draw any complex metaphors between our relatively comfortable lives and Poon Lim’s, but I will say this: we are doing ourselves a disservice if we do not find some way to use his survival as a model for our own lives. We must be hopeful but more to the point inexhaustible, resourceful to the point of insanity, and eternally alert. If one possesses all these attributes, bravery is only second best.