Robinson Crusoe - Daniel Defoe

The self-reliant castaway was more than a brave hero for me: he was more or less what I wanted to be.
 
As a boy, I used to have a recurring dream of being the only person in a vast, deserted city. Far from being afraid or lonely, I was intrigued and excited to have a world without end to myself to explore and discover. I was quite a loner, so maybe the dream sought a way of turning childhood solitude into a power  — or maybe I just wanted a portal to freedom and adventure. Something you can spend a whole life looking for before realizing you had it all along.

Crusoe represented the same principle in the natural setting of an island. I felt somehow vindicated by the championing of a solitary man’s resilience and the message that you could win out by going it alone.
 
It was TV again that brought home the lonely, thrilling enchantment with stark and simple storylines of one man’s resourcefulness and the most haunting theme tune ever composed.