I painted a bleak and foreboding picture of a room with chairs and marks on the floor that suggested violence or mistreatment. But the story still contained all three elements. Prison is a place where most everything important is removed from a person. But prisoners still manage to find a life for themselves, manage to form relationships, do work and activities, explore interests. Some religious people manage to isolate themselves, but they too have some relationships, have meaningful activity, and ascribe their purpose to God.
War is a wretched experience.
It isolates people from their families for prolonged periods. People are isolated, dehumanized, mistreated by the elements and sometimes as prisoners, and live under threat of death or injury every day. I remember my father speaking of World War II, going from island to island, death marches, weeks in heavy tropical jungles, taking baths in a thimble of water, filling canteens and then finding a dead body in the water, sickness, foot rot, insects and elements, snipers everywhere, injured men, men so weary of the war that they stood up and let the enemy kill them. And then seeing some of the enemy, weak and debilitated, uniforms in rags, isolated for months, nothing to eat but bags of rice. I will have to try much harder to remove purpose and meaning.