Idealism, Hypocrisy & Heroes
I’m an idealist in moderation. I say that because I’m reading Into the Wild, about Christopher Johnson McCandless (or Alexander Supertramp, as he renamed himself), a young man who decided to live and die by his ideals.
He was inspired by Thoreau, Tolstoy, and London, was widely read, and was an upper middle-class man educated at Emory. He loved Mark Twain. He hated things. (Me, too, but I need my computer, my phone, and my Kindle. 
And my cats, which adds a whole host of “things” needed.
He trekked around the country with barely nothing but a backpack for years, finally going on an “Alaskan Odyssey” into the Alaskan wilderness. He was under-prepared and, in the end, died. What scared me was how much I had in common with him and how much I agreed with him, oftentimes.
So I spent a fair amount of the book going, “But I’m not that crazy!”
I think that’s what great heroes are, in both life and books: idealists to an extreme. Ideals are funny things. Any ideal lived perfectly usually fails; in fact, they are usually both the strength and Achilles’ heel of a hero.
This is handy in fiction, because it gives you conflict, inspiration, tragedy, and—because you’re writing fiction and can write the end—triumph.
In real life, Christopher McCandless continues to inspire. People often call young men of that age and temperament, “young and stupid and idealistic,” but I think that’s an amazing age to be. In times past, a lot of good has come to the world from men that age who changed the world, or at least had a huge impact on their culture. That period of life is to be treasured and respected, in my mind.
I’ll leave you with an excerpt of a letter he wrote to a friend, which reads almost like a Manifesto of Living:
“I think you should make a radical change in your lifestyle and begin to boldly do things which you may previously never have thought of doing, or been too hesitant to attempt. So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to bring 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 sun. If you want to get more out of life, Ron, you must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style that will at first appear to you to be crazy. But once you become accustomed to such a life you will see its full meaning and incredible beauty.
“…Ron, I really hope that as soon as you can you will get out of Salton City, put a little camper on the back of your pickup, and start seeing some of the great work that God has done here in the American West. You will see things and meet people and there is much to learn from them. And you must do it economy style, no motels, do your own cooking, as a general rule spend as little as possible and you will enjoy it much more immensely…. Just get out and do it. Just get out and do it. You will be very, very glad that you did.”
Ron, an eighty-one-year-old man, did. Which is cool.
On the other hand, can you see what I mean? I agree with everything he says… with moderation. But we need our heroes.
In real life, if you spout an ideal but do not live it completely, you are called a hypocrite, and the ideal is—in the mind of the name-caller, at least—proven to have failed. If he’d been less reckless, he would have been labeled a “hypocrite,” and he wouldn’t have inspired others. He would have lived, and he probably would have sunk into obscurity. It’s sort of a Catch-22, in a way.
I highly recommend reading Into the Wild. It’s both inspired my life and my writing. I will probably read it several more times this year, to be honest, and I don’t think I’m done thinking about the book or considering his ideals.
What think you?
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Natasha Fondren is a writer traveling the U.S. in a camper with her four cats. She is currently enjoying the lizards and desert heat in Arizona.
What can I say? Most of us never try anything remotely adventurous and in the end we all die anyway. And even knowing that most of us can never bring ourselves to break out of the mold. At least fate shook me out of the horror of going in to the office every day so I’ve been lucky, timid as I am. You, however, are in fact, out there in your camper! Bravo!!
That’s quite a mold to break out of, Eric! In the end, I don’t think it matters whether you jumped out or whether you were forced out. You are out there, too!
I read it years ago. While on one hand he lived his adventure, on the other he was, I think, borderline nutcase. It was a good book and it made me think for a long time after I read it.
BTW, if you do read it again, it DOES NOT COUNT on your book-a-day quest! lol…
I also saw a movie along a somewhat similar vein last night that I liked: Never Cry Wolf. this guy gets dumped in the arctic wilderness to study wolves and he is woefully unprepared for life up there.
Does he live, Elizabeth?
It doesn’t? I hope it does! I seem to be on a re-reading frenzy! It’s crazy!
Yes, he lives. It was good!
Elizabeth, I haven’t decided whether or not I think he’s crazy. I don’t know. He’s not normal, but does that make him crazy? LOL!
I should read the book. I couldn’t watch the movie because I knew the ending. I think I can handle the book, but I might skip the last chapter or two.
Edie, it’s not told in chronological order. Well, it is kinda, but… I’m not sure what order it’s told in, but his life is examined in view of his death, so there is no surprise.
Well . . . here’s my thing.
For me, very few of us get to live in a total vacuum. We have people we love, and like Spider Man (LOL!) with great power comes great responsibility. There is no GREATER power than love. If someone thinks otherwise, look at men like Ghandi, Buddha, Christ, or Martin Luther King, Jr. I think we are all, in a Buddhist sense, connected to one another and while tromping into the wilderness, ill prepared while speaking a radical philosophy may be inspiring, people LOVED him. And he chose to be ill-prepared and die and caused them to grieve.
There are often things I would like to do, but I choose to help care for my aging parents and I chose to have children, and even if I didn’t have those things, I choose to love people . . . and that means responsibilities. I found him less admirable, I suppose. Just as I know there are people who adore certain books about authors going off to ashrams or doing x or y (Buddha or Bust; Eat, Pray, Love; A Year by the Sea). I tend to see those sorts of books in a more selfish light. You (not “you,” Natasha, but You author or reader) want to find yourself . . . go work in a foodbank or help bathe a homeless person. In the faces of humanity, my guess is your “lost” nature will be found. Your own problems will dim. You will feel a connection to something greater. So just my half a cent on this guy. I didn’t think he was as inspiring.
I agree with you somewhat, Erica. Just to present the opposite side, in this case, he was ill-prepared, but he’d been living ill-prepared in the wilderness for two or three years before he went to Alaska.
And all those people who loved him? Aside from his parents, he would never have met any of them had he not been reckless enough to go tramping around the country. And would they have loved him at all, if he wasn’t so curious about them, about their beliefs, about helping, about the world?
I totally get what you’re saying, and it’s hard not to view things through my own lens, but not everyone has family like you do. You have a close family and you got to have children… he didn’t have the first and was too young for the second. The sort of big circle you have is not simply available by the wanting of it. He DID go out and find people to love, but if he had stopped at the first person he met to be responsible to them, then he wouldn’t have loved and touched and helped all the other people he met out there.
There is peace in nature, though, just as you describe in volunteering. I think we humans seek to dim our own problems in connection to something great through service, nature, and spirituality. Service is probably the noblest.
I watched the movie but will probably read the book at some point. It was certainly an intersting story, and he’s right about pushing your limits.
I want to see the movie, Charles! I’m interested to see how they compare.
I agree with Erica. There’s pushing the envelope and then there’s being irresponsible. And it seems he was irresponsible with his own life. I’m not saying you can’t tramp around and discover life and your surroundings anew every day. I’m saying that there’s a difference between living life and being reckless.
I think we need his kind of recklessness to remind us to ease out of our comfort zones a bit and live life. His extremes push us to small steps. So maybe his life had meaning for the masses.
Sometimes I’m tempted to quit work and live off my retirement savings and sometimes I come to my senses and realize I can’t drop out of life like that. Not only do I have mouths to feed and shelter, I have an obligation to myself to not check out no matter how flowery I dress the idea up.
It’s hard to say, Sarah. It’s not like he didn’t go in with both eyes open. And if it weren’t for two little things, he would have been fine. Hindsight is twenty-twenty, LOL.
Humans have to be of use, I think. Even when retiring, most need to find some “job” to keep occupied, although the choice makes it easier. It may as well pay, LOL!
I haven’t read the book, and only saw the movie, which probably failed to convey the humanitarian side of him. In the movie he just seemed sort of confused and kooky. I felt sad for him. And when he died, there was a sense of inevitability such that I didn’t feel sad at all.
I want to see the movie, Robin! It’ll be interesting to compare. It does seem sad and inevitable, though.
Thanks for sharing this, Natasha! I hadn’t heard of this before and while on one hand, I’d love to read his story, on the other, I’m afraid to. Every day, I am so tempted to just “chuck it all” and take my chances, that I might be too inspired to do just that without being properly prepared. You see, I did that once before and even though I thought I was prepared, life ended up showing me how wrong I was.
BUT, during that time period, I can honestly say, with no exaggeration, that I was happier and healthier than I’d ever been in my life. But then unexpected emergencies came up, I ran out of money, wasn’t making enough on the side to pay rent, feed & clothe my kid, etc. and had to go back to the dreaded day job. Now, a year later – my arthritis has worsened, my gastro complaints have worsened, and I’m miserable again. But I still have bills to pay and a kid to feed.
So, which is the more loving, responsible thing to do? Drop out again, file for bankruptcy and help drag the economy down further, not be able to put my kid through school, but be happy and healthy? (Isn’t a happy, healthy parent usually a better one?) Or should I stay miserable but meet my financial obligations and provide for my daughter?
I’m opting for something else this time. I’ve set a goal to continue working full time until I make “X” amount of money writing and painting. If I can make that monetary goal, then I’ll switch to part time and try to increase the art/writing money. If I can do that, THEN I’ll “drop out” again.
Oh, but it’s so hard waiting! That’s why I’m afraid his story would just make me want things I’m not yet prepared for. And I look at your camper days with deep longing and envy.
That sounds like a Catch-22 to me, Kate! I would do what you’re doing, honestly. It’s how I started out with my piano studio. I would never have been brave enough to leap off a cliff like I did this time, but at least I had some income and my husband’s income.
The keys to his success were that he lived off of rice and what he could hunt or pick, and spent no money. That’s an extreme that I’m pretty sure would also make us miserable. Every one has to find their own sweet spot, I think.
I hope you get to yours soon, Kate! *hugs*
I loooove this book. It got passed around my entire family over the course of one year, introduced to us by my brother. He’s the one living closest to this–right now he’s in Alaska working with AmeriCorps. We never really know where he might be a year from now. Which made reading Into the Wild (and watching the movie) all the more difficult, but also important, for me.
I’d also recommend Jon Krakauer’s other books. Into Thin Air, an account of his attempt to climb Everest, is absolutely riveting…and Under the Banner of Heaven, tracks the history of fundamentalist Latter Day Saints in conjunction with a brutal crime committed by some practicing members. Not an easy read, by any means–there were times I had to put the book down and just walk away–but a pretty in-depth examination of fundamentalist religion.
Kristy, I can only imagine how that sort of insecure lifestyle is hard on those who love him. I know my mother, when I told her of my plans, was aghast. She wants me in a 9-5 job, with a big house. Both those things utterly repulse me; I think I’d rather be dead, LOL. She just wants me safe and sound and secure.
But your family is awesome to support him and make the effort to understand him.
I want to read his other books, definitely!
My husband and I have opposite takes on the book/movie. I identify with him, as a nature lover and a bit of a wanderlust. If I’d lived in an abusive family situation (which I didn’t!) and didn’t have my husband to anchor me as a young adult, I might have done something along those lines. Probably not kayak into Mexico or lived in the Alaskan bush by myself, but disappear for awhile. He was not unlike a teenager running away, but more competent. My husband just thinks he was messed up by his family, was a little too precocious from his upper-middle class mentality that things would work out for him no matter how far he pushed the boundaries, and that he needed help. In psychological language, he had some “attachment” issues, and preferred his own company at the end of the day. Both views probably have some truth in them.