Welcome to another edition of Time Suck Short Sucks. I'm Dan Cummins, and today we will be diving into the exciting world of castaways, people who wash up or are marooned on desert or tropical uninhabited islands and have to use their wits to survive. It's such a thrilling genre of story, right? The castaway washes up on some remote shore, half dead and

delirious, only to realize that somehow, miraculously, they've survived a shipwreck. But now they have to come

to terms with being abandoned at sea. They have to figure out how to survive until rescue comes,

if rescue will ever come. One of the texts that some historians consider to be the first English-language novel

deals with being stranded on an island, Robinson Crusoe, written by Daniel Defoe and published

in 1719.

Robinson Crusoe would set the main themes for many subsequent versions of the castaway narrative.

Rather than starving or dying of exposure,

going slowly insane from being alone all the time, Crusoe actually becomes a better person,

a more hardworking, self-sufficient, and curious version of the man who washed up on the island.

He hunts animals, grows barley and rice, dries grapes to make raisins, learns to make

pottery, traps and raises goats, and thanks God for helping him realize how much he has to be

grateful for despite being so alone. Many of the themes of Robinson Crusoe have been brought up

again and again in other castaway narratives like Tom Hanks' castaway,

fictional shows like Lost and reality TV like the massively successful Survivor franchise.

But would the actual experience be as enlightening?

Would we actually be able to make a shelter, gather food, raise livestock,

form our own little version of society,

or would we spend a lot more time huddling, scared,

and cold in a damp cave, dreaming of being at home, or just wanting to die? Would we fall prey to exposure, starvation, disease, any number of things that could kill us when we're deprived of the

materials we rely on to live? Could we become a real life, Robinson Crusoe? Or is he based in

nothing more than fantasy? He is not based in nothing more than fantasy. He's thought to be based on

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