Solitude: Seeking Wisdom in Extremes: A Year Alone in the Patagonia Wilderness

by Robert Kull

Years after losing his lower right leg in a motorcycle crash, Robert Kull traveled to a remote island in Patagonia’s coastal wilderness with equipment and supplies to live alone for a year. He sought to explore the effects of deep solitude on the body and mind and to find the spiritual answers he’d been seeking all his life. With only a cat and his thoughts as companions, he wrestled with inner storms while the wild forces of nature raged around him. The physical challenges were immense, but the struggles of mind and spirit pushed him even further.

Seeking Wisdom in Extremes is the diary of Kull’s tumultuous year. Chronicling a life distilled to its essence, Solitude is also a philosophical meditation on the tensions between nature and technology, isolation and society. With humor and brutal honesty, Kull explores the pain and longing we typically avoid in our frantically busy lives as well as the peace and wonder that arise once we strip away our distractions. He describes the enormous Patagonia wilderness with poetic attention, transporting the reader directly into both his inner and outer experiences.

Genres: Travel, Nonfiction, Memoir, Philosophy, Biography, Adventure, Nature

384 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2008

Reviews

[James · Rating 1 out of 5]

while the author did not kill himself after being alone for a year, I thought about it while reading this book...

[Leslie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A grad student preparing his dissertation on the effects of extreme solitude on a person, Bob heads off to Patagonia to be alone for a year. This book is a collection of his journals primarily as well as some inserted sections where he talks about spiritual growth, technology etc. It is an interesting read and, after thinking about it, I really felt like I was there with him, rather than just reading about it. It is part nature writing as he experiences the elements, observes/studies birds, limpets etc., part challenge (as he tackles the realities of surviving out there, and part inner-journey where he discusses all of the things going through his head. It is a well-balanced book as well as being realistic. I have never spent the amount of time in the wilderness but I can relate to the expectation that time in the wilderness/nature is "supposed" to produce some sort of spiritual enlightenment. His is an honest journey and I was able to relate much of it to my own journey.

[Dovofthegalilee · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's always important to remember that a person who writes a book such as this is sharing his personal story. It's not something he or she set out to contrive to get people to get deep into the characters, they are the character. Over the past twenty years I've amassed a small collection of books like this one and each and everyone is different and yet they all have something in common. The commonness I've seen is that with so much alone time a person is going to gravitate towards certain ideas or themes. Some go on for page after page of flowers or animal behavior and while some of that is here he hones in on religion\philosophy. For me I began to feel saturated with his lengthy heady ideas, perhaps person to person it would have been more enjoyable but in this format I just wanted to finish the book. I did find the author more honest perhaps a little too honest about some of the things going on in his mind but perhaps that should be chalked up to bravery. One small detail in this book that is so uncommon in it's peers is the detailed list of provisions he brought which was nicely done as well as a full disclosure of books brought with him. That;s a question I always ask in these sort of books and it is rarely answered so two thumbs up for that. Something else that was a first for me was the online web site to see pictures of this venture, There's none in the book but on the web there are many that would never make the cutting room floor if it did include a selection.

[Ed · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well if you don't have a year to spend alone on a small bare island in southern Chilean Patagonia, this is the next best thing. I loved this book which is really a day by day journal of the year the author spent alone without any human contact but for a monthly satellite phone 'I am OK' message and one visit from the navy. It is also probably the most ruthlessly honest account of someone's own failings. There is no final enlightenment but a slow accumulation of a different take on life. And the author managed to take me to the island and live the year with him in a way few authors have ever done in other travel books. The book is a combination of wilderness survival and inner journey and he has the balance almost perfect. And just as the experience changed the author, I guess I feel it changed me and gave me a new take on life. Having been on a boat trip through Chilean Patagonia, I can still feel the place and this book refreshed the memories of one of the great places on earth.

[ebradley127 · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book, but in the end it was a slog to finish. So much pretension and self-absorbtion I wanted to slap him 85% of the time. And enough abuse heaped on the poor goddamn cat. He took what could have clearly been a wonderous and wonderful experience and painstakingly picked it apart to misery. He'll never find the joy and enlightenment he seeks because he chooses to always be in a ruffled up state of existential crisis. This was not the book for me.

[Legacy Dad · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had high hopes for this book yet 120 pages in; I’m infuriated with the author. All he does is complain about his aches and pains and how he needs to deal with it naturally, yet then succumbs to taking painkillers and sleeping?

His religious hodgepodge is also hard to follow; he takes pieces of dogma from all religions and adopts it as his own, yet follows none exclusively. I great example of Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.

I am waiting in anticipation for some spiritual or intellectual breakthrough but so far it seems this book is simply an aging, hippy-baby boomers, new age drivel about why he can’t commit to relationships and why he has a hard time dealing with reality and society. Maybe what he really needed was a year in therapy instead of a year of solitude to help him deal with his numerous psychological issues?

Currently I would give this 2 stars but I am hoping it gets better.

*Update*

I finished the book and bumped it up to three stars simply because the author finally makes some breakthroughs in the last 50 pages of the book. The only question that remains is were these revelations authentic or simply conjured because he was running out of time and needed to finish a PhD dissertation?

[William Liggett · Rating 4 out of 5]

This unusual book is essentially a journal written to fulfill a PhD requirement in interdisciplinary studies at the University of British Columbia. Imagine if Thoreau had set up camp on the shore of an isolated island in Patagonia off the coast of southern Chile—hard to think of a more remote place.

Robert Kull was determined to record his inner reactions and outer efforts at survival living for a year absolutely alone (except for a cat he picked up on the way there). It sounded like a crazy idea but one that led to moments of extreme peace, self-doubt, agitation, frustration, anger, and spiritual awakening. Kull's thoughts and feelings were amplified by the total lack of distractions and the absolute aloneness. He read deep philosophical works to keep his mind active. He would occasionally skip days of writing to lose himself in savoring the moment.

I came away from reading this book with an admiration for someone who would undertake such a challenge. But I can't imagine many would be drawn to follow his example. On the other, hand I think we all have periods in our hectic lives when experiencing solitude seems like a refreshing change.

[Paige · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found the description of the animals, plants, weather, and land interesting but the author is unlikable, self-obsessed, and abusive; not only did he introduce a cat to an island population of native species, which is a huge ecological issue, but he also mistreated the cat to boot. This could have been a profound book from the pen of another adventurer but misses the mark.

[Charlotte Wenthur · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eye opening, makes me think about my own spiritual journey and urge to go into solitude. Overall I enjoyed it, although at times Bob made me roll my eyes because he was cringe.

[Rebekah H · Rating 1 out of 5]

Combine a 13 year old who thinks they're deep, someone who wants to speak to the manager, and an animal abuser with all the xenophobia of a youth group on a mission trip in the developing world, and you get the spirit of this journal. After the third time he mentions that he thought the weather in South America would be the same as Canada, I had to give up. Also, he calls his girlfriends lovers, which was almost as bad as the kitten kicking.

[Jeremy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I respect this man’s willingness to take the physical risk of living alone in such an inhospitable climate for so long and the emotional risk of laying bare his most private thoughts and feelings. I also appreciate his admission that he didn’t find any satisfying answers about life and doesn’t pretend to have become enlightened from his experience. I do feel bad for the cat who lived with him and the abuse this guy unleashed on him throughout their time together.

Author’s website: http://bobkull.org/

Selected books from the author's bibliography that might be worth a read:
- Goldstein, Joseph, and Jack Kornfield. Seeking the Heart of Wisdom. Boston: Shambhala, 1987.
- Abbey, Edward. Desert Solitaire. New York: Ballantine, 1968.
- Moore, Thomas. Care of the Soul. New York: HarperCollins, 1992.
- Watts, Alan. Nature, Man and Woman. New York: Pantheon Books, 1958.
- Wilber, Ken. Sex, Ecology, Spirituality. Boston: Shambhala, 1995.



Potent Quotables:

Perhaps I disappeared into the woods and pastures seeking peace and a place where I could be myself. I doubt, though, that I knew then why I went; I still doubt I really know why I go. I can give plausible reasons, but finally, I just feel, from time to time, a mysterious urge to leave society behind.

Since it was so nasty outside, I stayed in and used my improvised chamber pot. One hasn’t lived until one has shit in a plastic bag. Very nice.

Somehow in looking back, almost any situation seems to have been ok. The challenge is to live that acceptance in the present, not just in memory.

Ideologically [Paulo Freire is] a Marxist and asserts that dialogue with Elite Oppressors is impossible. He defines social reality as grounded in struggle rather than in mutual understanding. He points out the illusion of the myths Oppressors foist on the Oppressed — one being that Reality is given and unchanging — yet in defining social reality as a struggle between concrete classes, he does the same kind of mythologizing. I’ve never met anyone who is simply an oppressor or completely oppressed. We are all a complex mix of both.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi claims that flow arises from setting a goal and focusing full attention on achieving it. For me, that kind of engagement is ego-centered; the deeper experience of surrender, choiceless awareness, and nonaction in the moment is Life-centered.

Natural science undertakes to explore, measure, and explain the physical world, the cosmos. This is valid and vital, but science sometimes makes the unwarranted claim that it can measure and grasp all that is real (the kosmos) using the methodology of physical empiricism: that is, everything really real can be measured quantitatively. But while all experience does have a physical component, purely physical explanations cannot account for all facets of experience (even though some scientists claim that eventually everything will be reduced to and explained by physical laws). This reductionist approach devalues or ignores those aspects of experience that cannot be observed with the physical senses. As a result, nonmaterial aspects of the world that cannot be measured — such as beauty, awe, and consciousness itself — lose substance and are neglected. Indeed, strict materialists deny the fundamental reality of nonmaterial consciousness; but this creates for them a nasty internal inconsistency because their own consciousness is making the claim that it, itself, is not real. This position seems seriously weird to me.

“Anyone who wants to fight his demons with his own weapons is a fool. The wisdom of the desert is that the confrontation with our own frightening nothingness forces us to surrender ourselves totally and unconditionally to the Lord Jesus Christ.” Henri Nouwen

“Silence is the home of the word. Silence gives strength and fruitfulness to the word. We can even say that words are meant to disclose the mystery of the silence from which they come.” Henri Nouwen

We have seriously confounded luxury with necessity in our culture, and can no longer differentiate between what we want in order to maintain a particular lifestyle (with its social relationships and sensual pleasures) and what we actually need for physical survival. We have confounded social identity with biological and spiritual being to the point of believing we will die if we lose our social standing, which is often based on the material wealth we have accumulated. This accelerating spiral of desires becoming necessities is driving our suicidal rush to destroy the Earth we depend on for our actual physical survival.

“People say that what we are all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive.” Joseph Campbell

I wonder how long we have lived with the sense that we don’t have enough time to do what we believe we must do. We often seem to value activity above all else, but like all beings we need to rest and recuperate. I suspect the widespread occurrence of depression in our culture is linked to our refusal to allow ourselves quiet time. Feeling the need to remain constantly busy — mentally or physically — in socially productive activity can prevent us from turning inward to simply be with ourselves. Such inward turning requires time and might lower productivity and social standing. It is not that all activity is bad, but many of us are far out of balance and our activity does not come from a place of stillness and wisdom. Many are entranced by an economic worldview in which endless growth is not only possible, but also desirable and necessary.

[Ron Christiansen · Rating 5 out of 5]

To live on one's own for year, especially in this climate, is an amazing physical and emotional feat. I can't imagine. I've done a few measly solo trips to Captitol Reef, hiking all day on my own and seeing few people yet still staying in the main campground. Even that amount of solitude has caused an emotional flood. One year--that's a long time.

And Kull doesn't just recount but reflects and connects his experience to many spiritual and scholarly theories. His bent is clearly Buddhist and it works for me. Too much to quote and explain but I will offer up some of his phrases which represent his view of life:

gentle transformation
everything is a natural manifestation of life
leaning lightly into pain
to be with life in all its manifestations
spiritual explorers
sink into the now
soften aversion and desires
spaciousness

So many of his insights parallel insights I've come to in my own life. Often exact words or phrases I'd used recently in figuring out how to let go of my desire to control things popped up in his text time and again. Some will find certain sections tedious, some will find him too eastern and meditative...for me, I found a soulmate. His ideas will continue to percolate in my gut for a long long time.

[Elizabeth · Rating 1 out of 5]

Crappy book!! I was so disappointed! First, it is written in diary form. This makes it super choppy and it doesn't flow well. I got really tired of reading basically the same entry every day. It rained a lot, the wind blew a lot, he went fishing, he watched birds, he built stuff. There you have a synopsis of all that happens. I got tired of his whining. He brought a kitten along. The kitten cried a lot. He got frustrated that the cat wouldn't submit to his will and shut up. He would hit the cat, dunk it in water, throw it and squeeze it until it cried. Then after each incident, he would ask if this made him abusive. THE ANSWER IS YES MR. KULL!!! You would answer in the affirmative then still do it. You questioned the ethics of killing mussels for a study and yet you didn't question the ethics of abusing a cat. This book could have been written in a better way and still get his story across. The whole glacier "adventure" was anti climactic. Skip this book. No excitement. No nothing. Incredibly boring. Read something better.

[Stasia · Rating 1 out of 5]

While it's rare, especially in the lone-adventure-in-the-woods genre I'd put this book in, I just couldn't finish it. It's basically an edited version of Robert Krull's journal from a year spent living in solitude on an island off the coast of Chile, with interludes where he waxes philosophical about the meta-process of writing and trying to come to terms with solitude.

He raises some interesting points, and as someone who likes solo adventure and journal-writing, I can relate to some of it, but overall it was just too all-about-me for me. I didn't particularly sympathize with Krull, which made it hard to care too much about his daily musings and sometimes tedious activities, and a year-long journey of introspection was just too much to handle. Once I realized I didn't really care if I finished it or not, it was over. Which is saying a lot, since it was the only book I had on my recent bike trip.

A promising book that went nowhere. Oh well.

[Lynne · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a struggle for me. I was looking for more wilderness tied into personal growth and less discussion of philosophy in general. And I don't have a background in philosophy so that is especially where the struggle occurred for me. While each person has decisions to make about the level of comfort they will have on a journey, I wasn't able to connect with the author due to the use of the email/phone/computer system. And also the treatment of Cat.

[Alexander Weber · Rating 1 out of 5]

Bob Kull is insufferable. I gave up.

[Akchev · Rating 2 out of 5]

While I think spending a year in deep wilderness solitude is quite admirable, there are many things I did not like about this book. I’ll keep it short and simple.

Not a fan of:
1) A large portion of his book was quotes from other books and his tedious and dull philosophical take on each quote/book.
2) He spent a lot of time talking about pain and suffering and to me that just made him sound whiney.
3) He mistreated and downright abused the poor cat.

Liked:
1) His descriptions of the natural world.
2) The book was make from 100% postconsumer-waste recycled paper.

[Tim Brown · Rating 1 out of 5]

I couldn’t finish this book and it felt unreadable. While I thought this was going to be an amazing journey of someone truly being alone and connecting with nature and themselves, it felt so forced for deadlines. While this is basically someone’s personal diary that they transcribed into a book, it’s beyond dreadful. I can understand that this experience was difficult, but the constant complaining was insane. I’ve heard the ending makes up for everything, but it was too much to fight through.

[Melbvic · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a difficult book to review: so much to admire in the author’s bravery and ingenuity while living alone on a remote island for a year. However I was constantly distracted and then dreading his descriptions of the mistreatment of Cat. While the author endlessly discussed his love of nature and animals he abused the cat who was with him in a way that spoke of lack of insight. Exactly what he was seeking. This could have been so much more but I imagine many readers would be as repulsed as I was by the author’s pseudo macho disdain for his only companion on the adventure.

[Juan Duarte · Rating 4 out of 5]

A worth while read for those seeking answers.

[Joe Teibel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Plenty of interesting moments in this book that were interesting and/or very much relatable.

[Tami · Rating 5 out of 5]

In 2001, Robert Kull spent an entire year on a deserted island in not far from the Andes Mountains. He did so purposefully, as part of his Ph.D. research and in hopes of spiritual enlightenment. Solitude includes diary entries during that twelve month period with interludes written after the fact to give perspective on what was happening at the time.

It’s an absolutely fascinating work. I can’t remember how many times I’ve gotten frustrated at my chaotic life and thought that if only I were alone I could meditate and really get to the bare bones of why I am here and what I’m suppose to learn.

Solitude shows that enlightenment doesn’t follow our schedule. We can’t pencil it in on Monday evening at ten and expect to suddenly be there. It happens when we are willing to let go of control, be mindful, and willing to go out of our comfort zone. Even in the middle of nowhere with no one to judge us (except ourselves, of course), no chaotic daily schedule, and no one else to take care of we’ll still find things to fixate about so that we retain the illusion of control.

[Deb Weina · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book took forever to read. I disliked his treatment of the cat he took with him in this "so-called" solitude journey. The guy lives in his head and projects his negative energy on the world outside of himself and the poor creature stuck with him on the island. He chose the perfect environment for his isolation. The climate suited him just right, unpredictable and angry. Got a couple of llines to think about from the entire book but nothing more. I found it to be a huge disappointment and literally forced myself to finish the book to find out what happened to the poor cat. It's really heady book if your into this type of literature and if your a person who can't get below your neckline to really get intouch with your inner thoughts and feelings. Think I'll stick with the women's adventures!

[TAbs · Rating 1 out of 5]

I DNFd this book HOWEVER after reading others reviews I can see my reasoning is prevalent throughout the book. The author was self obsessed and abusive to his cat. If the story had potential he lost it quickly for the repetitive congratulations to himself for having accomplished living alone (removing any empathy) and kicking, sqeezing, and hitting the cat. You're not a good person and that alone makes this book not worthy of the attention.

[John Braine · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've a particular interest int his kind of writing about nature and the great outdoors and have a passing interest in the benefits of solitude also, so might not be for everyone but I thought this was a fascinating insight into solitude in the wilderness.

[SJC · Rating 3 out of 5]

Incredible that he planned, spent, and shared his experience of living by himself on a windswept and rain-filled island in southern Chile. It was clearly a very big and impressive challenge of physical survival turned to thriving and more so a mental and spiritual challenge.

He seemed to always be grasping for recreating the magic that happened to him 25 years ago, never quite realizing that our brains and bodies change and are rewarded very differently than when we were in our young 20s. What was novel then, but is no longer as novel is less likely to be as earth shattering or mind blowing. It was also impressive to see how decisions he made on what he would bring shaped his year.

He spent so much time talking about his outboard motors and solar/wind power generators, and the dilemma of writing on his laptop and emailing back and forth with people. The decision to include these items strongly shaped his experience. Similarly, the ideas in the books he read formed the foundation of his reflections and the mirror he saw himself in- what if he brought different books, for example positive psychology?

He also brought a kitten and predictably the cat was curious and wanted to be around him and be inside rather than always exposed to the outside temperatures. And then he was angry and physically abusive to the cat and rationalized it multiple times as because of his own fear of death. What???!

It is very impressive how he had the courage to bare his soul through the journal and did not seek to hide embarrassing things or things that would look poorly on him. I also very much appreciated how he shared the oneness he felt with his surroundings- the animals he observed daily, the trees and plants around him, the sea, the tides, the skies, clouds and rocks- sensing and experiencing all of it as alive and part him, and he as part of them, all of them one. I also appreciated his view to pain as on a spectrum between the false dichotomy of control and surrender and not to always resist pain, but sometimes to normalize that pain is a condition of living and not take it personally, sink in to it, and take its power away. “ there is also suffering in our lives, but pain and suffering are not the same.… The strong sensations we generally label as pain are inherent to living, but we can work with the quality of our experience in relation to these sensations. If we resist them, our resistance actually intensifies the sensations and this creates additional pain. Another common way we intensify pain is by taking it personally and having a “why me“ attitude. If we can relax into pain as a natural part of living that everyone experiences, and let go of the self judgment that something is wrong with me, because I’m experiencing pain, we can alleviate our suffering to a large degree. Much of our suffering is caused by attachment to our sense of a separate autonomous “I” that can somehow achieve a permanent state of affairs with only pleasure and no pain. Attachment to pleasurable spiritual experiences and aversion, to other darker experiences also causes suffering.” That is made more vivid by his lived experience as an amputee of one of his feet after a motorcycle crash and the shoulder injuries he was seemingly daily managing while building a shelter and living for a year while living physically.

One of my favorite quotes: “our culture is so focused on progress that we frequently don’t experience our our own lives just as they are here now. But the world will always be exactly as it is in each moment. It’s astonishing how much time and energy we expend in trying to deny this simple fact. This doesn’t imply passivity. Our visions and ideals are also part of this moment. Everything changes, no matter how slowly, and we can act to alleviate suffering. Yet if plans for the future are not balanced with acceptance and joy in this moment, just as it is, our lives go on, lived. The challenge is to work with our lives as they are rather than imagine that things are different. If we can learn to soften our aversions and desires, our lives might become less frantic and more spacious.”

“ my relationship with the wind and rain was different and changed during the year. In the beginning, I felt the wind to be a threat and an adversary that often prevented me from doing what I wanted. Sometimes I sensed active malevolence, rather than simple, implacability, and fear filled my solitary mind. When I began to disidentify with my own desires and fears, I could engage more openly with the wind and allowed to shoot me an unexpected ways. Slowly the wind became a teacher, and instead of cursing it I bowed in respect. It is sometimes said that when the student is ready, the teacher appears. It seems more likely that we are always in the presence of teachers, and at different stages in our development we become open to their teachings. The wind taught me to surrender, and the rain taught me to love.”

[Phil Greaney · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an interesting take on the 'person alone in the wilderness' genre, if it can be called that. The major difference from many others of its kind is that this seeks a quasi-academic study of solitude, with Kull as both subject and researcher, and one which - through its enlightening 'interludes' broadens the scope of this fascinating area.

(I should add that there's an excellent website at the time of writing with photos and so on, I'd highly recommend visiting while you read http://www.bobkull.org/ )

Naturally, since we go on the journey with him, there is much preamble before he begins to make more profound discoveries of (his) human nature. Some of that is dry. We learn a great deal about the practicalities of living in so remote a location. There is much mention of the weather, the wind and rain in particular. We read of his worries about his teeth, having enough firewood, how his adopted cat is (mis)behaving. It is a problem, at least for me, of this genre.

It is dry but necessary. The journey he takes begins there and in some ways ends there too, since he wonders the extent to which he's able (or even desires) to capture the experience in writing:

"The daily journal is important to me... but I also questioned the effect on my heart and mind. [Writing] has a dark side... Since description and analysis require time, I could capture and understand an experience only once it was gone.'

That it is 'easy to get lost in the words' reminds us of the tension in this book, and perhaps any others that attempt to relate the experience of isolation and adventure: that thinking and writing about the experience may well rob the subject of his or her immediate lived experience. I like to think that is not the case and Kull is able to draw a line under how far it feels it is true. We are presented with the facticity of his everyday life because he is absorbed by it. It is authentic lived experience. He questions the traditional narrative of what we might call 'finding oneself' in such 'heroic' enterprises and he is absolutely right to; there is no single complete epiphany, rather an accumulation of significant moments in which he discovers more about his essential question: who am ? - and by extension, who are we?

Similarly, there is a spiritual tension here between living in the present and becoming mindful and immersed in his new society of sunshine and seas and solitude, and a longing for something else, whether that be escape, a hot shower, or a sexual partner. Kull was influenced by Buddhist teachings. His desire to overcome his contingency and forget himself is one of the book's most moving aspects.

It seems meaningless to give it a star rating but I do so more for what it aspires to be as much as what it achieves.

[David Robertson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bought this book when it was first published because the idea of developing a better understanding of myself through introspection and solitude interests me. I started to read the book but wasn't captivated and put it down, so it's been on my shelves for years. Now that I'm retired and have more time to read, I picked it up again and read it through. I'm not sorry I read the book, but it was not as engaging or insightful as I'd hoped it would be.

Perhaps the book didn't resonate as much as I'd hoped because I am a trained scientist, rationalist and secularist, and author Bob Kull has a deeply spiritual bent I find hard to reconcile. In addition, Kull's spirituality is a complex, hand-picked mixture of Christian, Buddhist, I Ching, and transcendental philosophy. Readers who are not familiar with the concepts of these philosophies, and with the tenets of meditation, might find the book difficult; I did.

Kull decides to try to develop a deeper understanding of his psyche by isolating himself on a rain forest island in southern Chilean Patagonia for a year. He is also pursuing a doctoral degree through the process of self-examination through isolation. The climate is challenging, and the region is completely uninhabited. At the suggestion of a member of the Chilean national parks service, Kull takes a kitten ("Cat") with him to his camp. The book consists of a series of entries written in Kull's diary interspersed with more detailed "Interludes"--reflections on life and philosophy.

The book can be read as a rather straightforward, detailed account of a year spent alone in the howling wilderness. It can also be read as an account of self-examination, but on that score the book is less successful because Kull does not come to any major resolution of the issues roiling his psyche. In fact, rather than attempting to resolve his ongoing disquiet, Kull would probably have been better served by therapy rather than a year of "navel gazing."

Kull has a real love/hate relationship with Cat. At times he is shockingly abusive, and at other times warmly affectionate. I suspect that this interaction with Cat is an outward manifestation of his deep-seated personality.

[Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this book engrossing, and very close to nature due to his observations. However, it is not an extreme, super-macho, edge-of-seat survivalist book, although through his preparations, daily attentiveness to detail, and tendency toward a bit of caution, he does survive a risky environment. It is not a fast read, it can lead to much introspection while sitting on a rock in the cold, wind and rain with Robert. It is not a pretty story about a man who walks into the woods and comes back a brand new man. It is a story about a human with all his flaws, and his observations in and/or about nature, weather, pain, fear, bliss, life, death, and an outboard motor from hell.

A man working on his PhD, decides to spend a year in solitude in a remote area off the coast of Chile in the Patagonia Wilderness. He spent 3 months in solitude 25 years earlier and had experienced enlightenment-like feelings of bliss while alone in nature, and wanted to recapture that feeling and cure some of his "imperfections". A common goal of all perfectionists. His book is written in the form of log entries with 9 interludes that further explore issues related to his journey. This book is an exploration of the human condition from the viewpoint of his studies, biology and psychology, and his passion, spiritual development. All right up my alley!

Right away, I realized I would enjoy his journey because he claimed to have control issues, was a self-proclaimed perfectionist, with a history of relationship problems. He then embarked on his journey with a kitten he picked up on the way.... not a recipe for success when heading into an environment where focus and inner peace are the goal, and a cat along to override his control of anything! I knew then he would be experiencing the same hellish introspection I have encountered since bringing a cat into my life 16 years ago, and I wasn't in a survival situation in extreme weather conditions.

The author has many issues, but he seems to be aware of all of them. This is typical of those on a spiritual journey who read a lot, and look inward. (Many on a spiritual journey read a lot, but only look outward....) He is aware of his fear of judgement, and that he himself judges the authors of the books he discusses along the way. He is aware of the projection of his fear and pain on the weather. He is aware of his hostility and lack of patience with the cat, and does a lot of soul searching on the topic. At one point he nails the issue in a log entry, which I recognized because I've been there, but doesn't seem to connect the two (in writing anyhow). I actually talked to the book, "Yes, that's it! He's the same as you!" Then he moved on....not sure if he understood the parallel then, or later, but he slowly made his peace with Cat over the year. He is also aware of how he treats women, which he admits isn't good, but his awareness and desire to change score him a few points.... he does some psychological exploration on that topic in the book and is brutally honest with his feelings.

He read many interesting books and discussed some at length during his year in isolation. The reading list he offers at the end is fantastic. Below are a few of the thoughts he pondered along the way, riding out the storms in his tarp-walled "cabin":

"Often I project my pain and fear out onto the world so I can have the comforting illusion of possible escape. 'If I go to a warm dry climate, the pain will stop. If the wind dies, so will my fear.' But there will be other pain and other fear, and the need to escape will never end. My task here is to make peace with pain and fear and to realize that, finally, there is no possibility of escape because there is no real separation between the world and me." - Robert Kull

"Through their (Chilean biologists Maturana and Varela) empirical studies in neuroscience, they came to realize that human beings do not have direct access to a supposed objective reality; each of us has a particular perspective dependent on physiology, culture, and personal history. We do not live in a universe, but in a multiverse."

"Our language has wisely sensed the two sides of being alone.
It has created the word loneliness to express the pain of being alone.
And it has created the word solitude to express the glory of being alone." - Paul Tillich

"When we cling to the results of our actions as our only source of self-identification, then we become possessive and defensive and tend to look at our fellow human beings more as enemies to be kept at a distance than as friends, with whom we share the fights of life....In solitude we become aware that our worth is not the same as our usefulness." - Father Henri Nouwen

"It's as though these are separate worldviews and personalities. One loves security, my own nest, friends and lovers, peer respect, etc. When in that mode, the thought of wandering homeless and alone, with all the fears and discomforts, frightens me. Yet once I set off, I love being 'out there', and the comforts and relationships I've left behind lose importance. Then, in some vital way there isn't any 'out there'. It's all right wherever I am." - Robert Kull

"I also read books this way. At first I'm just distantly engaged with the ideas, then little by little I begin to consider how they relate to my own journey. Often, I imagine that books are supposed to be perfect. But, they are written by people just trying to make sense of their lives." - Robert Kull

[Andy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this book while traveling in Patagonia and enjoyed the earlier portions of the book describing challenges of survival and the landscape. Understanding a place in more than one season.

But eventually I found myself rooting for his demise. So much aimless navel gazing. Untethered vague spirituality discussions makes the tedious passages about ducks and limpets seem interesting. A one point he's offended by others joking that he's cheapened PHDs by obtaining one for this project and I wholeheartedly agree with them.