The Professor, The Island, and Motivation

This is a recent email dialog between me and one of my sons...

I'm teaching a Sunday School class, using an excellent book called, He's God and We're Not, by Ray Pritchard. Attached is a section from it that I shared with the class today that I wanted to pass along. This week's law is "what you seek, you find." P.95-96 of He's God and We're Not says this:

There is an easy test to find out what you truly seek in life. This test is absolutely fool-proof. You tell me how you spend your time and your money and I'll tell you what you are seeking.....

I read about a man who looked at his life and concluded he was just like the Professor on Gilligan's Island. "The Professor knew how to turn banana peels into diesel fuel and he could take algae and make chocolate fudge, but he never got around to fixing the hole in the boat so he could get off the island. Same as me. I spent my life learning to do amazing things that didn't matter, and I ignored the hole in my boat. And that's why I'm stuck where I am."...Most of us are as close to God as we want to be.

I like that analogy. I always wondered about the professor and why he never fixed the boat. Maybe he just chose not to fix it all along because he felt some sort of false security on the island. Meaning he thought he could get by better without the help of a structured society(God)...and even if they fixed the boat and sailed away would they find America again? Although he may have survived he was in a constant struggle to do so, whereas if they fixed the boat and left it would have meant a greater initial struggle that would have led to easier and better times.

I guess what I mean is that this metaphor could be extended to say that it is not always an ignorance to the hole in the boat that causes people not to fix it; it can also be the fear that if they fix the boat and sail blindly into the ocean what they are looking for might not really be there. They would rather arrogantly wait for help to come to them than to seek it out. Does this make sense to you or do you think I'm looking at it wrong?

I think you are absolutely on to something. The assumption the analogy makes is that the professor is blind to the fact that is in front of his face: “I’m smart. If I can do all these things, I should do what really matters and get us off the island.” The analogy assumes the professor doesn’t know what mattered and hence doesn't go it, so his life is wasted.

What I’m hearing behind your questions and statements is that there are other ways to view why the professor didn’t seek to get off the island. You’re really asking, “what motivates people to make the choices they do?” You implied at least two motivators, false security and arrogance.

False security. Some things that could have driven him to this:

1) The Cool Guy. There is where the Professor says to himself, “Wow. There are two hot girls here! I can make alcohol out of bamboos shoots! I like being on the island. Back in society I was just a geeky professor, but now here on the island, everyone looks up to me. I’m needed, and I have a chance with two hot girls that wouldn’t have given me the time of day back in the real world.”

The motivator here is “feeling wanted; being somebody”. Now he is somebody instead of just a geeky nobody. Maybe he even secretly sabotages attempts to get off the island to keep them there.

2) Staying is easier than going. As you said, “would they ever find America again? This is where the professor says to himself, “It’s a big ocean, we have food and water here, I have enough abilities to maintain things, and if we leave here on our own, we might never make it back. Besides the weather is always perfect and there are two hot girls here.”

The motivator here is “fear, and rationalizing yourself into complacency”. Not being sure that you can make it “out there”. This is similar to what motivates people from small towns, ghettos, or just their own small universes to never break out of them. “I don’t know what I’ll find out there.” “I’m just from this little old town. I could never survive out there.” “The ‘hood is good enough for me.”

3) Fear of the unknown. Similar to the above, but it’s more just plain old fear. “This is where the professor says, “I have no idea what is out there. If we leave we will surely die.”

The motivator here, as already stated is fear, a total unwillingness to risk what you don’t know, that includes a pessimism that believes, “nothing will work so we have to stay here.”

ARROGANCE. Some things that could have driven him to this are:

1) I’ll make my own way. This is where the Professor would say, “I’m a man of science. There is nothing else out there that I need. The island is no worse than anywhere else, and here I have a chance to be the ‘captain of my destiny’. I can construct the society I’ve always wanted. Besides, there are two hot girls here.”

The motivator here is, “I’m the King of the World”. In this case, the professor is not resigned to the island, he loves it, and loves that no one can tell him what to do. He is the smartest person on the island and no one can change that.

2) The island is all that there is. This is where the professor says, “nothing else really matters. The island is all we have. Forget that America ever existed…after a few years it will fade into memory. There is no one to rescue us, so here we are. At least there are two hot girls here.”

The motivation here is “fatalism”. It is similar to fear, but more a matter of resignation than fear. Life is what it is, so what?

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In all of this, the underlying truth is, in the case of guys, no matter what motivates them they will always find ways to include hot girls into the rationalization, which is why I married your mother.