At twenty the idea of wandering intrigued me. That was the year Into the Wild came out in theaters and that I read John Krakaur's book. That summer I worked at a camp in Alaska, probably to feel what it was like to get away, which is what Chris McCandless did. Scenes of golden skies in South Dakota and Montana, the red dirt of New Mexico, and the vastness of Alaska lured me in. I was hooked and felt reinforced that the conclusion of my life would not be an image of me at twenty-five and married with a child on the way; rather, it would be that I would keep discovering places and the people those places held. That notion is scattered all over the early parts of this blog. I'd be a fool not to point it out.
When you're 20 and a Romantic (unknowingly) a film like Into the Wild reinforces your ideals. It did for me. I saw beauty in vast open lands. Beauty in truth. Beauty in raging waters and de-cinching yourself from society, which McCandless proclaims is evil. Set in 1990 with a soundtrack from Pearl Jam's lead singer Eddie Vedder, the story intrigued me. Grunge corresponded with teenage angst and rebellion. I wished to embody those ideals. For many Christian Reformed folks, it would be a sin to revere these people. But I agreed with McCandless. I wanted not to be bothered by bills or by my need to be noticed or by hating inadequacies in people who were supposed to teach you well in life and to provide a little wisdom. Like McCandless, I wanted to be free of the rat race, the failing economy Americans so readily believe is their foundation.
But I think I lied to myself a little. McCandless renames himself to Alexander Supertramp to strip himself of all connections. He burns his money and leaves his car in the desert and intends to cut ties with his parents forever and to cut ties with his beloved sister. He may have had reasons for leaving society - fine - but to leave his sister, that is very sad to me.
Maybe I can say it is sad now because after my travels to Alaska and New Mexico and after seeing life on my own terms, I moved in with my sister and her husband for a spring and a summer. Kearsen and I laughed about our kid stories, and Josh became a friend who understood my kind of humor and had a humor of his own. We took their dogs out on walks together, we cooked, we garage saled, we sat out on their deck, all of us adults and able to talk about the past and our perceptions of it. By the time I left them I had just turned twenty-three, and my whole family chipped in and bought me a bookshelf. I thanked them all, but probably not as well as I should have.
There is a world of difference in two years for some people. Twenty might as well be twelve, and twenty-three might as well be eighty (well maybe for some...not for others). My point is, I knew I wanted to keep travelling, but I could never - ever - say goodbye for good to people I really loved. That would be callous.
The love Kearsen and Josh showed me, though they may not know it, changed me. One other event cemented this notion. That summer, my family lost our cousin Brandon to a storm in the Tetons. I don't deserve to recount his memory because others knew him more intricately than I, but I'll never forget Uncle Bob telling us in his own way not to disconnect, to "tell [our] parents [we] love the Lord." To see his family mourn and to see them comfort another of our families after their son Josh passed away, that makes a McCandless-type decision unfathomable.
I am embedded in a culture of young people, many of whom glorify getting away. I see high school students question authority because it is their time to do so, only to realize adulthood a few short years later. The point is that they will get to realize it, because they have chosen to let their lives continue and to cope with more simple answers to some of life's hardest questions. They will become another version of generations before them, which is not something to dismay, I keep reminding myself.
I once considered McCandless brave to become a "leather tramp" because he proclaimed that "Jack London is king." He quoted authors that most high school peers and 90% of college peers wouldn't care to consider. For me there is so much appeal in that, in investing time into the lives of people who have felt more deeply and who have the intellect and education to communicate what they're feeling. There is appeal in taking their words as your own because these authors want you to, but that is another post for another day.
McCandless thoughtfulness appeals to me, but I do not wish to separate myself. Christ already suffered the greatest loneliness one could ever feel. Choosing that loneliness it is not even something I would request. And I can't believe McCandless did. Or maybe he didn't. He fantasized it, but wasn't truly persuaded, and by testing the limits he ended up in a place he didn't really intend to be. He died out in the wild.
His story reveals two conclusions. One, that societal immersion is inevitable but comes with unrecognized evil. Two, that definite departure might also be evil. McCandless was so distraught by the workaholic lives of his parents that he sought another extreme.
I love this story because it has led me to this: my life is not my own. I belong body and soul, in life and in death, to my faithful savior Jesus Christ. And secondly I belong to my neighbor. Either way, I am not my own.
To read the 1992 article from People magazine, follow this link: http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20108737,00.html
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