Barrett L.
Dorko, P.T.
Here we go again, back to the theatre to explain the nature
of my thinking and technique. This time I’m using Tom Hank’s latest movie Cast
Away as an example of what happens to us when we are in pain and how we
might be freed of that by altering the way in which we see the world around us,
as well as the world within us.
Briefly, this is the story of a Federal Express executive
who washes up on an uninhabited island in the Pacific after a plane crash. He is
unhurt but completely alone. Prior to this, the movie portrayed this character
as totally committed to his job and very much in love with his girlfriend.
Although he figures out how to crack open a coconut, he
learns that eating the indigenous crabs is going to be a problem until he
somehow builds a fire. His initial efforts to do this produce nothing more than
smoke and bleeding hands.
Soon after arriving on the island, Hanks collects a small
pile of Fed Ex packages from the plane crash and sorts through them. He opens
all except one, and that he sets aside. At the end of the movie he says, “This
package saved my life.”
I’ve asked many people why that package “saved” the
man’s life, and the vast majority tell me that it was because it gave him
something to do. They say that the unopened package, still suitable for
delivery, gave him a reason to live. To me, this is precisely the wrong
interpretation of the movie. After all, this is the story of a man who is forced
to learn that there is far more to life than delivering packages. To say that he
didn’t learn that ignores the central message entirely, and, I think, to
conclude that we are driven to fulfill our duties above all else says a lot
about what we avoid in our own lives.
Let’s return to Hank’s attempt to light a fire.
Bleeding, terribly frustrated and angry at his own failure, he picks up a
volleyball delivered in another package and hurls it. Soon after, he picks it up
and sees within the bloody imprint of his own hand the possibility of a face. He
adds a few strokes to give it some expression, dubs his creation “Wilson,”
and begins to speak to it. In the next scene, the fuel finally ignites, and he
builds a raging fire.
I want to speak for a moment about physical pain’s
ability to isolate those who suffer from it. It has been suggested that
emotional pain has the tendency to bring us together, that feelings such as
grief or sorrow are so commonly understood and felt that we can easily empathize
with anyone else feeling those things. But physical pain separates us. Its
unique qualities as felt by each of us in accordance with our own worldview and
perception leaves us very much alone though we might be surrounded by highly
trained and compassionate caregivers. The novelist and poet John Updike wrote of
pain’s ability to isolate us: …Pain… shows us what seriousness
is…And shows us too, how those around us cannot get in; they cannot share our
being. Karen Fizer,
confined to a wheelchair as the result of chronic pain says, You keep
thinking of pain as a place you could leave, walk out and slam the last heavy
door. But the pain you inhabit is a region, only your own, where your memories
happen, a room no one else can come into, however close they try to stand.
In short, people in pain are alone in some way, and, if the
pain is chronic, they might even get the sense that they have been cast
away, and cannot find help anyplace but within themselves. Ironically,
as the social commentator Ivan Illich observes, Our personal experience of
pain is now shaped by the therapeutic program designed to destroy it. If
this is true, and I believe it is, the time and conditions necessary to learn
what pain might teach us, what it might ask us to create, are rarely present in
a typical therapy setting. Not so with our friend on the island. He is alone,
and no therapist is around to distract him from his isolation and pain. He must
find the answer within, and he does.
The package Hanks sets aside is different from all the
others in that it has a pair of wings hand drawn upon it, and this catches his eye,
and, I suppose, his mind. I presume that he understands that what was in the
package was not nearly so important as what was on the package. He honors
the creativity it represents by not violating it. This is how it appears to me
anyway, though the character might have been acting on a purely unconscious
level.
I ask people, “What is the first thing this man
creates?” and most answer, “Wilson.” Of course, they’re right. The fact
that he makes Wilson out of his own blood further reinforces my point. Notice
that Wilson’s appearance and the smoke prior to the fire’s lighting are
closely associated. The poetic vision of creative processes has long been that
of a fire inside. When describing his discovery of his writing ability Pablo
Neruda’s famous line And something ignited in my soul, fever, or unremembered
wings (interesting, huh?)…and I went my
own way, deciphering that fire… comes to mind. Even better is David
Whyte’s last verse from Out On The Ocean, a poem about creative
processes: Always this energy smolders inside-If it remains unlit-The body
fills with dense smoke.
Hanks creates Wilson out of his internal fluid, begins to
speak to him, and then the fire finally lights. We would all agree that
creative activity always begins in the same way, with an internal
conversation. Without that, there is only productivity without the
unique imprint of individual human consciousness. The juxtaposition of
Wilson’s creation and the lighting of the fire are hardly coincidental, of
course. There are additional examples of creative work evident in the movie as
Hanks fills the walls of his cave with paintings of his girlfriend, all the
while speaking to Wilson, who, of course, is himself. This is how he maintains
his sanity during the four years he’s on the island.
It is my contention that it is the creative movement
that relieves our pain (see Creative
Movement for Pain Relief on barrettdorko.com), and it seems that creativity
ends our isolation as well. It gives us the opportunity to remake the world when
it had been unmade by the predominance of pain. The cast away is saved by his
willingness to create, and Simple Contact asks for that first and
foremost.
Perhaps therapists who think this movie is mainly about delivering packages should take a look at what they ask for when their patients are in pain. Beyond that, they should carefully consider whether or not there is any place or time within their departments for the internal conversations every cast away needs. Maybe when that is established, physical therapy can become the first step on the way home.