Attempts to Detach from Suffering

Ben Givens’s attempts to detach from suffering are not a settled philosophy or a reliable escape from pain. They are practices he reaches for when his body is strained and death feels near: he tries to stand apart from physical distress, considers surrender as an alternative to effort, and remembers rejecting a similar surrender during wartime. Across these moments, detachment offers a way to understand suffering, but it does not remove its force. Ben Givens keeps moving because responsibility and the impulse to live reassert themselves, even when he cannot find relief in the effort.

The temptation to stop

During the pursuit of the hounds, Ben Givens recognizes that his anxiety about his dogs conflicts with his expectation that he will soon die. He reasons that their fate might no longer matter to him in another world, and that there is no duty to recover them. This is more than fatigue: for a moment, his impending death makes continued effort seem pointless, and he considers allowing events to take their course.

Yet he continues, driven less by the dogs themselves than by his sense of conscience. He wants to remain a doctor who attends to every detail and a person faithful to his obligations. The distinction matters: even in the shadow of death, he cannot simply discard the habits that have defined his conduct. When he falls and must pause, the break does not become an acceptance of surrender. Hearing the hounds again, he gets back to his feet and presses on; later, he calls for Tristan and Rex, worried that they have not answered and distrustful of the wolfhounds around them. His concern and his physical limitations persist together, while duty gives him a reason to act despite the temptation to withdraw.

Detachment as a bodily practice

The desert trek with Rex makes the limits of detachment more explicit. Ben Givens estimates a route toward a road or canal and then onward to George, but understands that the journey will be difficult in his condition, especially with the dog to carry. He uses a blanket as a sling, drinks his last water, and sets out with Rex over his shoulder. The load strains him; rain approaches from the west, and the cold weather and repeated need to rest turn progress into a test of endurance.

Ben Givens draws on two forms of experience—climbing and infantry service—to try to manage that test. The method is to step back mentally from the body and observe his labored progress rather than experience it only as pain. But age and exhaustion undermine the technique. He stops, eases Rex onto the sand, and collapses beside him, defeated. The failed attempt is important: detachment is not presented as a power to master the body at will. It is an effort made under physical pressure, with results limited by the very exhaustion it is supposed to help him withstand.

Making a way forward

After resting, Ben Givens changes the practical problem rather than pretending it has disappeared. Using his folding saw, he cuts two willow poles, smooths them, and joins them into a V-shaped frame. He attaches Rex’s blanket sling, then connects a loop and Ben's lucky carabiner to fashion a makeshift harness. The improvised travois allows him to pull Rex across the desert instead of carrying the dog on his shoulder. Its lashings hold, while the carabiner and the ring-angle piton bob as the frame scores the sand.

The construction does not make the journey easy. Ben Givens still pushes through cold rain, stopping often to catch his breath; his soaked clothes leave him chilled when he pauses. His thoughts move between panic and renewed efforts to cultivate detachment, and the intervals of rest grow longer. At one point he lies on his back so long that he must resist the urge to remain there permanently before starting again. The sequence turns detachment from an abstract idea into a repeated, unstable act: he tries to quiet his response to hardship, falters, adapts his equipment, and resumes the work. The travois offers practical assistance, but the effort and the danger of giving up remain.

A wartime return of the same choice

A remembered episode from Ben Givens’s military service gives the pattern an earlier form. After he and his companions are captured in a night ambush, they face cold, exposure, and a difficult march through a snowy pass. On the open slope, Ben Givens understands that remaining still could let him escape the suffering of the previous days by freezing to death. He pauses to consider this passive surrender, then rejects it and struggles onward with renewed resolve.

The wartime moment echoes the desert journey without making the two situations identical. In both, stopping appears to offer release, and continuing requires an act of resolve. The snow passage makes the choice stark: survival requires movement, which Ben Givens experiences as an active struggle against the pull of becoming still. His remembered conclusion, that life demands an inner fire lest he turn to ice, gives the image of freezing a psychological as well as physical weight. The desert trek later tests that conviction through exhaustion, rain, and responsibility for Rex.

Meaning and limits

Across these episodes, detachment is neither simple indifference nor a cure for pain. Ben Givens can question whether effort matters, or try to observe his suffering from a distance, but his body continues to set the terms of what he can do. His obligations—to recover his dogs, care for Rex, and remain faithful to the habits of a doctor and a soldier—draw him back into action. The resulting tension is central: he seeks distance from suffering, yet repeatedly acts in response to the lives and duties immediately before him.

The narrative also distinguishes reflection from escape. During the hound pursuit, thoughts of death challenge his sense of duty; in the desert, a practiced mental technique fails to provide relief; in the snow, the attraction of passive surrender is acknowledged and then refused. None of these moments establishes that effort conquers suffering. Instead, each shows Ben Givens negotiating whether to continue, and how. Detachment remains an attempt—sometimes a discipline, sometimes a temptation—not a final answer.