Just a delayed update. A little more than a month later, i got my letter back from alaska. It was the one I originally wrote, except now, on the envelope it reads, “return to sender” with a little check in a box next to the words that read “no such street number.” Google maps let me down. Oh well. Maybe I’ll try Texas or Oregon or something next time.
However, in the mean time, I;m going to take this letter, unopened, and stash it somewhere. So someday, when I’m over the hill, I look through some boxes in my attic, stumble upon the letter, open it, and read. At this point in my life, this letter has travelled farther than I ever have, so maybe by then I will have beat it. If not, my attic will have just offered me a challenge.
If theres anything I’m getting out of the first 85 pages of Into the Wild it is the philosophy of carpe diem. On top of Into the Wild, I saw the movie Yes Man last night (which, by the way, i highly suggest seeing). Its about a man (Jim Carey), who works as an accountant. He avoids every oppurtunity given to him and watches movies at home instead. Finally, an old friend convinces him to join the “YES!” program. In the program, members commit to “saying yes” to every oppurtunity given to them. It changes his life style as well as his personality for the better. Inspiring.
“So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situatin because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different son.”
This passage was written by Chris to a friend who he was trying to inspire to change his life style. Encouraged by Chris’s words, I decided I had to do something right there on the spot. I can’t drive the car i don’t own to the city or buy a plane ticket to where ever the nest departure is going, so I had to make the best of what’s around. I typed in “alaska” in the search bar on the google maps page and eventually found some random address in Alaska. I wrote it out on an envelope to “Ms. Smith” (the first name that came to mind to be the receiver of the letter) in Anchorage, Alaska. I put the return address on the top left and began writing a letter.
I swore in my letter that I am A) sane and B) not a stalker. I apologized for calling them by the name Ms. Smith which was, most likely, not theirs. I explained why I was writing, a safe amount about who I am, and what life was like in the terribly routine, suburban town of Hillsdale. I mentioned how if they were to send a letter back, I would literally be one of the happiest people on Earth.
Considering today’s X-mas, I’ll send it tomorrow. In the worst case scenario, the letter will come back home to its return address or the receiver of the letter will just tear and trash it. I’m excited!!!! :)
So the other night I was doing my usual hours of homework with a disgusting cold lingering on me for days now. Used tissues on all sides of me, I began to think; probably a little too much for my own good. I didn’t really understand why I was doing my homework. Why was I trying to pass my classes anyway? To get into college and eventually get a career? So then once I have a career I can get married, shoot a kid or two out of me, force them to go to college and then die?
I put on my coat on my shoulders, my scarf around my throat, my headphones in my ears and headed outside into the snow. This is where Into The Wild comes in. It clicked, just like that. Chris lived far away from the eternal stress called the typical American life which consists of credit card debts, alarm clocks, phone bills, mortgages, soccer games, and a beer or two after yet another day working as a middle manager for a real estate company. But Chris, Chris managed to escape it.
A snowflake became caught on my eyelash as I came to the peak of my favorite hill in the neighborhood. You can see lights in the distance coming from the Palisades. I looked down to the snow, which by morning would be brown due to the tens of tires that sliced through it. Chris, however, found a place where when you wake up in the morning, the snow is still white, where you can look up at the night and actually see stars because the orange glow of a streetlight isn’t interfering with your view, where the most your money will get you is a nice fire, and where taking life for granted isn’t an option because survival is your major priority. It is beyond a dream come true.
“Malnutrition and the road have taken their toll on his body. Over 25 pounds lost. But his spirit is soaring… It is the experiences, the memories, the great triumphant joy of living to the fullest extent in which real meaning is found. God it’s great to be alive! Thank you. Thank you.”
This passage was found in Chris’s journal which he wrote in the third person. I’m just about 50 pages in so far, and this is my favorite passage yet. Finally someone can get the words out to describe the way i feel about life most hours of the day. So far, I am in love with the book because I am in love with Chris McCandless. But from a more pessimistic point of view, I think its actually unfortunate that a story of a person abondoning society and living off the land is considered to be so rare and “crazy.”
Less than half way through the stroy, the stongest emotion I’m feeling is envy. The fact that someone actually could take the initiative to live the original life created for humans is beyond me. If i was brave enough, I’d be following in his footsteps already, but I’m basically a coward. I think that’s why Mr. McCandless has so much of my respect.
“In April 1992 a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. His name was Christopher Johnson McCandless. He had given $25.000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself. Four months later, his decomposed body was found by a moose hunter…”
So in the first paragraph of the book, the whole story of Christopher McCandless, soon to be known as Alex Supertramp, is told. Therefore, i was a little confused to where the book was going. Jon Krakauer has personally met up with all of the people who had an influence on Chris’s journey and vice versa. Their encounters and impressions of Mr.McCandless are expressed (not in chronological order) through the writings in the novel. From his temporary McDonald’s co-workers, to hippies who have offered their hospitality, most people think Chris’s good heart made up for his “maddness.”
Besides the people whom Chris personally left his legacy with, Jon Krakauer is able to tell Mr. McCandless’s story through the notebooks Chris kept throughout his odyssey.
