Into the Wild: Thoughts on Christopher McCandless

Before Midnight Mass Christmas Eve Sparky and I watched a film called Into the Wild. It's directed by Sean Penn and based on a biography of the same name by John Krakauer about the life of Christopher McCandless. McCandless is a bright, A student who upon graduating from Emory University decides to donate the $24,000 left in his college fund to charity, ditch his car in the desert, burn his remaining cash and identification, and hitchhike across the Unites States to his final destination - the Alaskan wilderness.

I can't remember when a film had such a lasting impact; it was a bit of an emotional and spiritual time machine for me. Watching the film had the effect of zooming 33-year-old Chad back 10 years and putting on the 23-year-old Chad suit, complete with my 23-year-old worldview. It’s an odd thing to have two worldviews you’ve maintained at different times in your life meet face to face, especially since there’s obviously been a lot of water pass under the bridge between the two.

Even though I experienced some cognitive dissonance while hearing Emile Hirsch, who plays McCandless, voice opinions filed in the dusty archive of my mind, I was surprised to find myself identifying as much as I did with McCandless. In fact it brought back a lot those old feelings of exhilaration and joy that only letting go and taking off can do. That being said my identification probably has more to do with feelings of a spiritual kindred-ness rather than a shared view of the world alluded to above. The roughly 10year age difference between my current age and Chris’ in the film might account for those occasional warm feelings of embarrassment (“Oh no, that was me”) at his wide-eyed expressions of idealism.

But it’s this spiritual kindred-ness I felt towards McCandless that provoked my sentiments of defensiveness as I read reviews of both the film and the soundtrack for the film. Most reviews were by in large positive while maintaining a degree of aloofness regarding his search for meaning. This was mostly expressed with adjectives describing him as “reckless” or “naïve.” What irritates me about this is that…why can’t they just take him on his own terms without imposing their ideas of normalcy upon him? In affect they’ve reduced the spiritual dimension of his life and subordinated it to his physical preservation (the result of a materialist mindset?), which to me is what is often wrong in this age. Not that physical preservation is bad just that too often it needs to take a backseat to more ethereal matters. What’s the point in living if life is parboiled down to mere safety and preservation?

Of course it’s risky to hitchhike; of course there’s uncertainty in having no cash; of course it’s jeopardous to walk into the wilderness in the middle of winter with little experience and no map – but this is the point. It’s about facing the seeming absurdities and contradictions in life head-on and doing something about it, even if it means death. It’s the hope of peace in the answer that is the motivation.

His NASA engineer father was married to both his mother and another woman at the same time. Given this utter phoniness he grew up in - a sham of marriage disguised by bourgeois pretensions - should he have taken the safe road? Would it have been less risky for his soul to simply not ask questions, to follow well-worn paths of convention? Would it really have been more responsible had he done what his parents told him…followed their footsteps? Granted, there were other options, but would they have been better for him? Physically the answer is obviously, yes. But spiritually?

A scene towards the end of the film struck me where McCandless writes in his journal the words, “HAPPINESS ONLY REAL WHEN SHARED.” A short time after writing those words he would die of malnutrition. The deceptively simple truth of these words indicate to me that Chris’ trip into the wild, far from being a reckless and naïve pursuit, was an act of bravery that may have saved his soul. This is not a fruitless pursuit in my book.