No man is an island: The lasting effect of friends
John Donne wrote, centuries ago, “No man is an island.”
Sometimes I catch myself living as though I were one anyway.
If we are lucky we surround ourselves with family, friends, and acquaintances. Yet how often do we truly belong to one another? Some of us seldom leave the self-imposed exile of our personal islands long enough to share a sunset, a walk on the beach, or the sight of a kite snapping in the sea breeze.
When I stand before the mirror, the man looking back at me is no longer the little boy who once stood there. I wonder: Did the choices I made widen his world, or did they simply add another layer of sand to the shoreline of his isolation? Have I built bridges to the mainland, or have I merely reinforced the water around me?
Life has a way of answering that question when we least expect it. A note arrives, a memory surfaces, a few words on a screen remind us that Donne was right: no matter how isolated we try to become, we remain part of the main.
Years ago the connections came by letter and long phone calls. Today our islands come equipped with an umbilical cord called the internet. I can scroll through the status updates of hundreds of “friends” without ever speaking to a soul. The illusion of connection is effortless — and sometimes genuinely helpful. Not long ago a childhood friend posted a simple message wishing to right some old, perceived wrongs and wipe the slate clean. In minutes we were talking again after decades of silence.
So the technology can build bridges. But it can also keep us staring at screens instead of looking into one another’s faces. We trade handshakes for heart emojis, shared laughter for shared posts. That is a tremendous loss.
In the end, friends — real, present, flesh-and-blood friends — are what pull us off our islands and onto the continent Donne described. Their lasting effect is not measured in likes or follows. It is measured in the simple, irreplaceable moments when we stand together on the same patch of sand, watching the same kite dance against the sky.
Read more from Randall Franks in his Encouragers book series.
