ABSTRACT
As a way of concluding this book, I offer the reader five key lessons that I have learned through my anthropological study of islands over the last 15 years. These lessons reflect novel insights, awarenesses, and modes of being that have been formed by my time travelling to and thinking with islandic people, places, and things. Lesson 1 outlines how islands anchor thought, allowing the visitor time and space to establish themselves in the moment and to carefully reflect on the small-scale cycles of everyday life. Lesson 2 explores the benefit of being alone in a world oversaturated with stimuli and connectivity. Lesson 3 asks the reader to consider the value and significance of giving oneself over to the “swirl” of the unknown, or as I often tell my students before they head out into the field, to “ride the wave and get freaked out”. Lesson 4 offers a conceptual framework to consider the role of wilderness in a world obsessed with order and predictability, again asking the reader to reflect on the variable wildernesses of islands and archipelagic thinking. Lesson 5 offers a rough guide to building a toolkit of islandic thinking to help enrich the reader’s experience of everyday life at home and away, as well as on islands and mainlands. Here, I take inspiration from my decade-long experience of teaching a writing seminar at Wellesley College entitled The Magic of Everyday Life.
