
This Man Moved to a Desert Island to Disappear. Here's What Happened - tokenadult
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/114549/dave-glasheen-lost-boy-restoration-island
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teach
This is an interesting story but the writing style is so poor I can't make it
through. Prose this disjointed would probably make a decent screenplay but
it's a bad fit for an essay.

~~~
jessaustin
The style of writing is suited to its purpose. This isn't a news report; it
isn't vital to impart maximum information in minimum space. Rather, the writer
was conveying the feeling of the situation in which he found himself. "Dave"
is ridiculous and disjointed, so it is fitting that prose devoted to him would
be as well.

~~~
cpncrunch
Perhaps the problem is that hackers don't do much reading apart from man
pages. Literature...does not compute.

~~~
andolanra
But the article submitted is in no way literature. It'd be one thing if the
disjointed, rambling style served the content... but in this context, such a
writing style is unnecessary at best and distracting at worst. Rhyming
couplets in dactylic hexameter are similarly beautiful and 'literary', but
that doesn't make them an appropriate vehicle for long-form essays, as well.

And frankly, the style isn't very good to begin with. It feels inflated and
cloying, like a freshman essay in strong need of an editor. But even if it
were an exemplar of its style, I'd still hold it to be unnecessary here.

~~~
cpncrunch
I'm confused as to why you think a "disjointed, rambling style" is out of
context when that is precisely how Dave's personality would be described.

~~~
andolanra
The subheading of the article tells us, "This Man Moved to a Desert Island in
Order to Vanish. Here's What Happened." Assuming that the point of the article
is to _tell us_ what happened, then the writing style is extraneous,
regardless of whether the man in question acts similarly. If the article said,
"Here's what it's like to talk to Dave," then the writing style would be more
appropriate. As it is, it gets in the way of finding out "what happened." Note
that, say, A Beautiful Mind was not written in the form of a schizophrenic's
paranoid ramblings, no matter how much that would reflect John Nash's
personality during segments of the book.

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miles
He hardly disappeared:

 _Dave did not cultivate this garden. Normally, about a dozen backpackers
would arrive throughout the year as part of the Willing Workers on Organic
Farms WWOOF program._

Based on the title, I thought the article was about Tom Neale, who was the
real deal:
[http://www.janesoceania.com/suvarov_tom_neale/](http://www.janesoceania.com/suvarov_tom_neale/)

~~~
contingencies
Right, anywhere with a WWOOF host is not very remote!

For people unfamiliar with WWOOF, it's basically accommodation around the
world on organic farm oriented properties for a few hours of work per day. You
supposedly get to learn lots about different types of farming, meet people,
and explore for less than it would otherwise cost. A friend of mine from
California went through New Zealand WWOOFing a couple of years back.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WWOOF](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WWOOF)

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scott_s
I found this NY Times article from a few years ago, "Embracing a Life of
Solitude"
([http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/15/garden/15alone.html](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/15/garden/15alone.html)),
a better read on the same theme.

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jacquesm
" A marketer by trade, he’d tried to dabble in mineral exploration in Papua
New Guinea. He lost all of his wealth, about $10 million, when his private
venture went tits up. He thought the episode absurd—on paper he’s worth big
bickies, then suddenly he’s not"

There is a lesson about diversification and eggs in one basket in there
somewhere.

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hrish2006
How many of you read the whole thing? I dropped after " the kind often found
in sinewy men of a certain age and outlook." It does not hold your interest.

~~~
wambotron
I read far too much of it, but not the entirety. It was a chore to read as far
as I did, and I probably should've stopped sooner.

~~~
jrn
The ending is good, imo.

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contingencies
_[Robinson Crusoe was] our first realistic portrayal of the radical
individualist_

I'd say the Taoist ideal that emerged in China ~2000 years earlier would
better fit that bill.

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jessaustin
Living like this requires chutzpah more than hard work, wisdom, or skill,
especially on a pension. It's too bad there aren't enough beautiful developed
locations for _everyone_ to live out his decades slowly dilapidating through
misuse and neglect. Perhaps after the robots replace us, our last descendants
will live like this. They too might babble constantly in cargo-cult theories
about a world their previously-tenuous understanding of which has at last
escaped them completely. Until then, however, good grief.

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alphadevx
If you are interested in dessert island life, this is a wonderful read: "An
Island to Oneself" [http://www.amazon.com/An-Island-Oneself-Tom-
Neale/dp/0918024...](http://www.amazon.com/An-Island-Oneself-Tom-
Neale/dp/0918024765/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1378413119&sr=8-1&keywords=island+to+oneself)

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superqd
The writing is so confusing to follow, I gave up after the first paragraph.
I'm assuming there was a guy who wanted to get away from it all, so he went to
an island to be alone?

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Syeo86
The style reminds me of Hemingway's Old Man and the Sea.

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croisillon
Why do this title reminds me Magnotta

[http://digitaljournal.com/blog/2957](http://digitaljournal.com/blog/2957)

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carrja99
While articles like this are interesting, what in the world does it have to do
with Hacker News?

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contingencies
McDonalds charman, dude.

Russel Crowe, dude.

"The Google Guys", dude.

It's like, totally West Coast.

~~~
AznHisoka
Brogrammer!!!!

~~~
AznHisoka
Lemme repeat this: BROGRAMMER!

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chris_mahan
Two eyes shined greenly.

Muhahahaha

