I am Greenland

Lately, I can't get the Donne line "no man is an island" out of my head and then it appeared as a clue in a Times puzzle this week. Weird. I haven't read it since high school, so I googled it to see if it was about what I remembered. Well, I guess it has more to do with being a part of all humankind than local isolation, but it led me to something else. I remembered that when we studied Donne, we also looked at the lyrics from Simon and Garfunkle's "I am a rock." I know I've heard the song so many times, but these lyrics stood out:

Ive built walls,
A fortress deep and mighty,
That none may penetrate.
I have no need of friendship; friendship causes pain.
Its laughter and its loving I disdain.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

I think it is possible for "man" to be an island, at least that's how I feel lately. Sometimes I really feel like I can't identify with any other person on this planet, certainly not my "friends" and of course not my family. I know that I created the separation between my friends and I, but at the same time...loneliness and isolation suck.

If I was an island, which island would I be? I obviously wouldn't be a tropical island like Hawaii or the islands in the Caribbean that are happy, warm, and full of life. No, I think I would be Greenland: a vast expanse of cold icy lifelessness where nobody wants to go, because, really, what's the point? It's depressing. Pretty sunset though :)