Survivor

I have only seen a few bits and pieces of the pop­u­lar sur­vival “real­ity” shows. I find the con­cept inter­est­ing and have read many nov­els over the years that address it. It is inter­est­ing because it is such a cen­tral theme of life itself. Even under the best cir­cum­stances, there are irra­tional ele­ments that can sud­denly end your exis­tence here (every­thing from crim­i­nals to viruses). Life itself is a sur­vival pro­gram. We each have dif­fer­ent tac­tics. Most peo­ple even have a strat­egy for escape from this life into a secure and per­ma­nent one, by means of some reli­gious approach.

It dawns on us through child­hood and early adult­hood that we are up against all sorts of odds. Var­i­ous indus­tries cash in on our inse­cu­ri­ties. That is part of the “Sur­vivor” game too. You have lim­ited means; you have lim­ited time; you are cast with char­ac­ters that do not always have your best inter­ests in mind; you com­pete for lim­ited resources; sooner or later you get “voted off” the island of phys­i­cal life. I would be lying if I said I did not have a strat­egy. The truth is: I have been work­ing on my sur­vival skills since the fourth grade. Behind me is a trail of unfin­ished degrees, dropped careers, bro­ken rela­tion­ships, and health risks I have had to take to stay in the game of life. In the words of an old Elton John song, “I’m still stand­ing after all these years…”

This is not to brag. It is just a moment’s reflec­tion on the close calls I have had in life. I could write a book on this. One key chap­ter would have to do with sur­viv­ing apoc­a­lyp­tic events (and there have been sev­eral 9/11 type events in my life). I am not a para­noid sur­vival­ist. I have no weapons and no desire to go hide in the remote moun­tains of the New Mex­ico Gila Wilder­ness, as some have done. No, I am going to stay right in the mid­dle of the risky game itself. My ulti­mate strat­egy is inter­nal. Like “Rocky” I want to go the dis­tance. Like the “Ter­mi­na­tor” I have a task to do here and must stay focused. I even catch myself hum­ming the Donna Sum­mers song “I Will Survive.”