Was it D. H. Lawrence who wrote the classic short story "The Man Who Loved Islands"?
The islander wanted "an island all of his own: not necessarily to be alone on it, but to make it a world of his own." Maybe at some point, seeing his life stretching out before him, and seeking a happiness he thought would elude the rest, the islander missed seeing the fact that a world of his own meant a world with nothing that was not his own. Trapped in a body, in a reality, to continue to exist meant accepting things not of himself, with things that were not his own, with people that were not his own. Maybe he didn't see that a world of his own was a world alone, and a very lonely world.