Virtus 👊 #033: The Island I've Built (And Why I Can't Leave)

The last few years did something to me. Maybe they did something to all of us, but I can only speak for myself. I became a vault. Every thought, every struggle -I kept it all locked inside.

My father mentioned it again last week when I told him about my relationship. "No man is an island," he said, like he'd discovered some profound truth I'd somehow missed in my forty-something years of existence.

I've heard this phrase countless times. Hell, I've probably nodded along to it, maybe even quoted it myself when dispensing wisdom to younger guys who looked as lost as I feel now. But sitting there, listening to my dad repeat John Donne's famous words, I realized something unsettling: I have absolutely no idea what this means anymore.

The Pandemic Changed Everything (And Nothing)

The last few years did something to me. Maybe they did something to all of us, but I can only speak for myself. I became a vault. Every thought, every struggle, every small victory—I kept it all locked inside. Not out of some noble stoicism, but because somewhere along the way, sharing felt... unnecessary.

Now I look around and realize I don't have friends. Not real ones. I have people I follow on social media. I have coworkers I exchange pleasantries with. I have a phone full of contacts from college and high school—guys I once knew everything about, who knew everything about me.

But that person they knew? He doesn't exist anymore.

The Stranger in the Mirror

I'm not talking about some dramatic personality overhaul. I didn't find religion or move to a commune. But the man I am today feels fundamentally different from the guy who graduated college, who stayed up all night talking about life with his roommates, who thought he had everything figured out.

Those old friends? They've changed too. We're all different people wearing the same names. The question that haunts me is: Does twenty years of shared history matter if we're essentially strangers now?

Maybe it does. Maybe that's exactly what "no man is an island" means—that those connections, however faded, still tether us to something larger than ourselves.

Or maybe it doesn't. Maybe I'm holding onto ghosts.

The Purpose Question

A couple weeks ago, I couldn't sleep because I kept asking myself: "What's the purpose of all this?" (I wrote about this at that time).

It's a question that can drive you crazy if you let it. I've read the books, listened to the podcasts, absorbed all the content promising to help me "find my why." But here's what I've landed on after weeks of reflection:

There might not be a purpose. At least not in the way we've been taught to think about it.

What if we're already living it? What if this—right now, this moment of uncertainty, this feeling of being disconnected—what if this IS the experience we're supposed to be having? Can we live it with love? Can we love it?

It sounds almost rebellious to say it, but I think I've stopped looking for some grand cosmic reason for my existence. I'm not trying to make anyone proud—not God, not my parents, not society. I'm just trying to figure out what it means to be alive, right here, right now.

Finding My People

This realization has led me somewhere unexpected. I think I need new friends. Not because my old ones were bad people, but because I need people who are asking the same questions I'm asking. People who've also stopped being NPCs (non-player characters) in their own lives.

I want to surround myself with guys who aren't frantically checking boxes on some predetermined life list. Who aren't desperately seeking approval or rushing toward some finish line that doesn't exist. Men who've realized that maybe the point isn't to figure it all out, but to be present for the not-figuring-it-out.

The Island Metaphor Falls Apart

So am I still an island? Maybe. But here's the thing about islands—they exist in relation to other land masses. They're connected underwater, part of the same earth, just rising from different points.

Maybe I haven't been isolated. Maybe I've just been exploring parts of myself that my old social circles never knew existed. Maybe this island I've built isn't a prison—it's a foundation.

And maybe, just maybe, there are other guys out there who've built their own islands nearby. Guys who've done the work, asked the hard questions, and come out the other side not with answers, but with a better relationship to not having answers.

The Truth About Connection

My father was right about one thing: no man is an island. But I think he was wrong about what that means. It doesn't mean we have to maintain every connection from our past. It doesn't mean we can't change or grow or become unrecognizable to our former selves.

It means we're designed for connection, but we get to choose what that looks like. We get to decide who deserves access to this newer, more complicated version of ourselves.

The pandemic taught me I could survive alone. But surviving isn't the same as thriving. And thriving, I'm learning, requires other people—the right people. People who understand that sometimes the most honest thing you can say is "I don't know."

Maybe that's where I start. Not with the people who knew me twenty years ago, but with the people who are willing to know me now, exactly as I am, island and all.

Because here's what I'm finally understanding: the goal isn't to stop being an island. The goal is to find the other islands and build bridges.

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