Isolation: The Islay Way

We can all take lessons from life on the remote island of Islay. We live in a world that is ever growing and becoming ever more connected, and yet, ever more humanly disconnected. Indeed it is plain to see what was once face-to-face has become screen-to-screen. The bedtime story has been replaced with the iPad, the kick-around in the park exchanged for a gamepad and a headset. Even the very nature of social networks designed to increase humanity’s connections, have left many feeling isolated and alone.

- Or so it seemed until a few months ago. Today that world seems somewhat distant.  As the world continues to face a common struggle and as many people around the world still live in lockdown, the world seems determined to make human connections in isolation, as contradictory as that may sound. 

Human connection in isolation has made Island life possible for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. On a remote island like Islay, life is stripped of the ‘non-essential’, - a phrase we have all heard throughout the last few months. And while many of us have seen this as restrictive, many of us have come to realise, just like islanders, that true importance lies not with the tangible ‘things’ we have come to rely on, but with what can be experienced, together. Just like us right now, it is through shared experience that Islanders have found their solace as well as their escape. There is a reason that throughout the remote Hebridean Islands of Scotland we find a rich tapestry of music and fantastical tales, and even whisky, purely for the fact that all these things can be shared and enjoyed together, and are an essential means of escape and human connection, in an environment that makes such things difficult.

Just like Islay, the modern world that seemed so vast and complicated a few months ago. Now, it seems smaller and more simple. Through shared difficulty many of us have come to see what is truly ‘essential’, and it’s not tangible. We have fought to preserve the moments we have missed due to lockdown. Not the things. After all, what is it that most of us truly miss? Is it the ‘thing’ or what that ‘thing’ facilitated? Is it the pub? Or is it catching up with a friend, the laughs and the good times? When lockdown finally ends, and the non-essential and essential become less polarised, let’s remember what is essential. Pick up a bottle, throw the cork away, and share in the good times once again!