Lessons From Watching Alone
I have only watched season 6 of Alone on Netflix. I heard about the show when I listened to Joe Rogan’s podcast interviewing Jordan, the winner of season 6. I highly recommend that interview (#1482). As cool as it is to see people survive, it’s amazing how many life lessons are embedded in what one would think would be thin material. I’m sure each person who watches the show takes away different things from their experience, and so, I wanted to relate to you my own.
Life Ends Quickly
I was stunned by how quickly a few of the competitors were basically dead (they didn’t actually die, just in case you didn’t know that) after only a few days. One guy broke his leg and couldn’t move = dead from exposure in a few days. Another guy ate something with a parasite = dead from dehydration and inability to care for yourself. The thing about the parasite guy, is that he knew what to be on the lookout for when cooking his meal. He prepared it carefully and cooked it thoroughly, and he still got nailed. Another guy ate some fish eggs that were no good, and he puked and retched for a bit but was able to recover. It made me realize how quickly dysentery and such ailments could cripple armies. It doesn’t take much to take down a human, our civilization gives us the impression we are a lot hardier than we actually are.
Creativity Is A Survival Skill
Several times a contestant had to invent a way out of their problem. Even though Jordan killed a moose and was eating loads of protein every day, he was succumbing to protein starvation because the only meat he had was very lean. The body cannot deal with protein alone, it needs fats and carbohydrates to survive. He was still losing a pound of weight a day even though he was eating. So, he had to figure out a way to keep going, and he did it by creating a net he could put under the ice (it was ice fishing by this time). It made me realize that problem solving is chiefly a creative skill, not always a logical one.
There were many such instances where a contestant needed to be creative to solve a problem, even if the problem was boredom. Jordan had also created an entire deck of cards out of birch bark to pass the time. The women on the show also displayed the feminine virtues of creativity by making some pretty cool accessories and clothing items. There were times when those who were trapping small animals needed to change the type of trap they were using to avoid a fox getting their catch. Needless to say, there were several moments where I audibly went “huh” as someone demonstrated a new thing, from a throwing stick, to the importance of knowing what wood you were using to make fire, to something as insignificant as licking birch sap off a tree. Sometimes we become creative after a huge upset, like the time a contestant almost caught a giant fish, only to have it escape, and after a period of anger he made a handheld net to scoop fish up in once he got them close.
Fat Is Important
No other nutrient will ever be as important as fat. In fact, it’s a good thing we are capable of getting fat quickly, because your body never knows when the next period of starvation will be here. We also take for granted our access to food, so much so, we deliberately try to starve ourselves so we look good (clearly a first-world problem). It’s amazing to me how easy it is for us to have a healthy, balanced diet. I have even read and heard that milk wasn’t a very nutritious drink, but I think any one of us would be glad to have milk if we were in a survival situation as it contains all three macros (fat, protein, carbs). Cheese is milk stored for the long term. The show Alone demonstrated quite clearly the importance of food and calories, and how our bodies will go before our minds do, as several contestants starved almost to the point of no return and had to be removed before they did some real damage to themselves.
Enjoy The Process
My wife and I could tell when someone was getting close to tapping out because of the things they were talking about. One guy brought a picture of his family with him, and in the end that picture was his reason for losing. He couldn’t get his family out of his head, he couldn’t stand the feeling that he was wasting his time out in the wild for half a million dollars instead of being with his family (and he was a hardcore family dad). It made perfect logical sense, since he was thriving physically with plenty of food and a good shelter, and he could very well be out in the Arctic for up to a year (the winner was there 87 days I think). But his mindset destroyed his will to go on. For some, their mindset of needing to win because they needed the money almost destroyed them.
Another guy we knew wasn’t going to make it when he kept talking about how good it would be to win. He kept referring to the end of the contest and seeing his wife again. He stopped focusing on the present, and you could see this deteriorate his resolve and ability to succeed. He also set himself up for disappointment when he kept “manifesting” and willing for his wife to show up during the next medical checkup (the show regularly checks on the contestants to make sure they pass medical requirements, and the winner of the show has a family member brought along with the med team). When his wife didn’t show, this guy was hugely disappointed and it messed with his game. Meanwhile, some of the other contestants at this same time (this was late in the game) were finding new ways of catching food, laughing, being funny, and talking about their survival and what they were doing, not about the money and seeing their loved ones. The winning mindset is one of playing the game, but also not taking it personally. Jordan, who won, at one point very matter-of-factly said that if he couldn’t get fat, he’d keep losing weight and then not pass the medical check and it’d be over. He wasn’t upset about it, he stated it as a fact and as a part of the game to figure out how to overcome. That meant that if it came down to it, he would tap out instead of dragging things out until he was on the cusp of organ failure like some of the others.
There was one guy we had thought tapped out a bit early, but he recognized he couldn’t get food and he couldn’t explore to hunt because he got too tired just climbing the hill to get to a new part of his territory. So, before he got close to expiring, he decided he had lost and couldn’t win, and he was right! We often push ourselves too much in one direction, out of stubbornness, not knowing when we should quit and find something else. It’s an important skill to know when you are beaten.
You Can See We Aren’t Meant To Be Alone
One minor mistake and it’s all over for you. We need the help of other people, more than we think. It’s good to be able to do a lot on your own and thrive, but eventually we can fall apart. If all ten of the contestants were together in the Arctic, they would have thrived and survived easily. Humans are meant to be a tribe, and a group of skilled adults can accomplish a lot. I could easily see them divide up and successfully hunt big game, while others built traps and shelters and boats and gathered firewood, and others fished. They would be able to keep each others’ spirits up through difficult times, and become very close to each other as they relied on each other for survival.
In modern society, we don’t see that we rely on others for survival. We see all the things people have specialized in and made as financial things. When I look in my refrigerator, I don’t think about the farmers, the pickers, the food plant workers, the truckers, and everyone else involved in where my food comes from. I don’t appreciate the butcher who saved me the trouble of cutting up a big animal and dividing up the parts into perfectly portioned meals. I don’t appreciate the long process a farmer took to grow and process wheat, and then the baker who took the milled flour and made a nice loaf of bread for me. When I see food, or anything (clothes, cars, gasoline pumps, computers, box stores, anything at all really) I need to reflect and appreciate all the human effort it took to create this level of civilization. Alone showed me the preciousness of civilization. I don’t go to bed worrying I might burn my shelter down and struggle to survive through the night. I have to choose to fast, whereas in the wild you could be fasting for weeks with no clue as to when your next meal will be (and you have to work and expend a lot of calories to do it, when I fasted for four days all I could do was sit around, any physical work burned me out very fast).
In Conclusion
I probably have more to say, but it’s time to conclude this. To sum everything up, our lives are incredibly rich and diverse. Alone is worth watching for that realization alone (sorry, couldn’t think of a better word). We easily take everything for granted. Pretty much all of our problems are first-world problems. It’s not just that we aren’t connected with nature, we aren’t connected with the basic needs of our minds and bodies. In a survival situation, fire, water, food, and shelter are king. Even then, you had better be sure your water and food is clean and safe to consume, which means you had better know how to make a fire. Your shelter is critical to not freezing to death at night, or be completely vulnerable to predators. It takes a ton of work to survive; civilization makes it so we barely have to work to thrive.
