I saw that Into the Wild was one of your favorite books. What's your comment on some people's take that Christopher McCandless died because of his stupidity? I feel like he was running away from something and that the goal to get away overtook his common sense to prepare. I remember seeing comments from his sister that seem to imply something bad happened in their childhood which triggered his need to get away from it all. The chapter with the man who treated him like a son made me cry.
honestly, I think people who write him off as some stupid idiot who essentially got what he deserved (yeah, most people don’t say it, but they’re all thinking it -- there’s a sick kind of delight in the way some people talk about this case imo) are really uneducated about a lot of the specifics. I won’t deny that Alex, as he preferred to be called, did go in there woefully unprepared, and certainly there is an element of responsibility for his own death. but the people who act like he’s some entitled, idiotic city boy who died because of his arrogance? totally wrong. Alex had been living on the road for quite some time by that point, and he had clearly proven himself as capable and sincerely dedicated to his ideologies. I don’t deny that there was probably something a little loose upstairs, because people like that are rarely undamaged or what we would deem as “sane”, but what he did was born from ideology rather than an attempt to run away from anything specific. he was very into Tolstoy’s writing, very into finding the simplest and purest form of happiness. this journey was a way for him to try to find that, and if his writings before he died are to be believed, he found it.
there’s a lot of debate about his death, but I really do have to defend him here. it’s widely believed that he starved to death in the wilderness because he didn’t know what he was doing and couldn’t hunt or forage, but this has been disproven. Alex kept track of the things he foraged and the animals he hunted, and he had plenty of food. certainly enough to survive on. unfortunately for Alex, he had also ingested the seeds from the wild potato, which are poisonous. they are also only dangerous at a specific time in their life cycle, and I believe they are very similar in appearance to other, less harmful seeds. Alex basically got really, really bad luck. he ate them right when he shouldn’t have, and the effect they have on the body is, simplistically, to make the body incapable of absorbing calories. Alex could have been eating a three course dinner every night, but because of how the toxin had built up, he would have continued wasting away. interestingly, caffeine has a similar property, and I have seen this first hand. when I was homeless, I basically lived on coffee, and the same thing happened to me. I very nearly starved to death. it’s fucked up, and terrible luck -- not to mention something most people don’t know about. in fact, I only worked out what had happened to me when I read Into the Wild, and it mentioned that caffeine had the same effect.
finally, I think Alex only gets this level of shit because he died. plenty of people make trips like his, and they’re celebrated for it -- so long as they come out alive. here’s another area where I have personal experience: when I was 21 years old, I went on a three month long road trip with my best friend (who I have since married). we lived in my car, we went out into the wilderness, we didn’t have a fucking clue what we were doing, and yeah, it was dangerous and reckless and probably a bit stupid. but we had the time of our lives, and we came back fine, and everyone who finds out about it says the same thing: it was so brave, or so cool, or they wished they could do it, or it’s awesome, etc. all praise. but I have to wonder -- what if we’d died out there? what if a freak storm had frozen our asses off on a mountain, or we’d crossed a stream at the wrong place and drowned? we’d probably have been written off as idiots who didn’t know what they were doing, and alright, we were idiots who didn’t really know what we were doing, but the difference is that we were lucky and Alex was not. from what I’ve read, Alex knew a damn sight more than I did about the wilderness.
I don’t think a guy should be punished for being unlucky. from what I’ve read about him, Alex was a fiercely intelligent guy. he was just trying to work some things out, and he got unlucky. yes, he could have prepared better, but also he was doing alright. I think people just need justification to not take risks, or not go after their goals. something I hear a lot about my trip is “I wish I could do that”, but you can. you just don’t want to, because it means taking a risk and throwing everything in and leaving it all behind, and that’s scary. it’s a valid reason to not do it -- some people just aren’t cut out for that kind of thing -- but it’s not an impossible feat. I think a lot of people know this, deep down, and get insecure about it. when they hear a horror story, it comforts them. they feel justified in not doing it, because it’s dangerous and ha, look at what happened to that idiot. it’s messed up, and I don’t think Alex deserves any of the shit he gets.
