As I grow older, those words became more relevant. You’re no longer talking to friends you used to hang out with every day — you’ve outgrown a friendship. Maybe you’re leaving a relationship because it does not feel right anymore; the sparks and feelings changed. It happens.
The other day, I read a chapter of a book by Greg Dening, “Islands and Beaches: Discourse on a Silent Land Marquesas 1774–1880”, for one of my classes. It tells the history of human occupation in Marquesas Island. I will not describe the book’s summary, as that is not the point of this writing. However, I would highly recommend anyone interested in Pacific studies to reading it: beautiful wording and a fantastic story.
Dening uses ‘islands and beaches’ as a metaphor for the different ways in which human beings construct their worlds and for the boundaries that they construct between them. However, when I read it, I was thinking of something else. Dening writes that “human beings are voyagers to islands, as any plant or any other animal. They might land naked on an empty beach, but in their minds, their languages, their relationships, they bring a world with them.” Although the author is talking about voyagers in the Pacific, I think it is also applicable in general. That we, human beings, are merely voyagers in this life.
Take a relationship for an example. We come into someone’s life and try to settle in. We familiarise ourselves with the surrounding or, in this case, your partner’s personality, stories, past, etc. It’s a new place to explore. But, like what Denning says, not only we are a new inhabitant in that place, but we also bring a new world for this person through our past, stories – whatever we can offer.
However, we may or may not settle there forever. If we feel like it is no longer the right place for us, we have to leave at some point. We continue our voyage. But if we stay, we become the inhabitant and build our lives there. Likewise, people come into our lives and try to settling in. What we have may not be what they want. At some point, they might leave and continue their voyage. We are a mere transit place.
Yet, we tend to attach to something and hold onto it very closely. We think we are the owner of it— be it an object or a person. Sometimes, I think humans are too self-centred, we think we are the only main character in this life.
But what we tend to forget is that we are just a cameo, an intermediary in someone else’s life and narrative. We cannot force someone to be a permanent inhabitant in our lives if they do not want to. We can try, but the result is beyond our control.
As human beings, we have to live our lives. Think of an explorer when they first came to the Pacific Islands. Did they know whether they will reside there forever? Maybe not. It is the same for us; how do we ever know that the person will be our last shelter place?
It is natural for people to come and go in life. After all, we are just voyagers.
