Survival Training

I finished up Elizabeth Gilbert's The Last American Man. The main character, Eustace Conway, is this magnetic personality in buckskin and beard and muscle. He has gradually purchased over 1000 acres of pristine Appalachian forest and turned it into Turtle Island - a primitive working farm and learning environment for folks of all ages. About 90% of the people who apply for apprenticeships or intern-stints drop out. About 10% hang in there. The reason for the crazy percentages? Eustace Conway. For all of his mythic masculine stature, he's also a task-master in the truest sense of the word. There is usually one way to do things and it's Eustace's way. His justification? He's earned the right to authority - his wisdom and relationship to the land has been hard-won. And he doesn't expect anything from his workers that he doesn't expect from himself. The only problem is Eustace Conway is this archetypal man; they don't make very many like him.

One of his 10%-hang-in-there, star pupils was a kid named Christian Kaltrider. How did this kid survive? I'll let him speak:
"It was my intention to learn, and that was all. Eustace would teach me something, and I'd go off and do it. I didn't spend any time talking - just listening and watching and doing what I was told. Of course, he had control over me all the time, but I didn't let that frustrate me. I told myself, 'I am letting him have this control for the purpose of my education. And he is in control only of my education, not of my identity.' That's a subtle distinction. Are you giving yourself to Eustace, or are you letting him take you? I made the decision to give myself over as a student, and that's why my experience was so different from the experiences of many others who come here...not mindless obedience, but mindful obedience."

Did you catch that "subtle" distinction? Eustace was in control of Christian's education, but not his identity. The book's a good read, but that paragraph alone is worth the price on the cover. Letting or allowing someone to have control over you for a purpose; however, that purpose is not connected in the least to identity. About 90% of the other teens, college kids, and young adults dropped out of Eustace's program because they let him define their identity. He told most of them they sucked, they started crying, and they quickly caught the next bus home.

Identity. Hold that tightly within yourself and you can submit yourself to horrendous indignities - dumpster diving for food or picking up roadkill for dinner (such you would experience at Eustace's place). But you can keep your "self" intact. But if you hold your identity out there for someone else to define? Well, life may be nothing more than continually catching the next bus to the next place for the next person to say, "You suck." Of course, they could say, "You're the best thing since sliced bread." But the chances are just as great they'll tell you, "You suck." If you want to roll those dice thru life, go ahead. But in that game, the house usually wins. Better to nail that identity thing down. You'll be in the top 10% of the class.