September 19, 2024 • 45 mins
In the spring of 1992, twenty-four-year-old Christopher McCandless left society behind, hitchhiking 3,000 miles into the Alaskan wilderness.
Two years earlier, Chris had donated his entire life savings to Oxfam, burned his social security card, and headed west seeking life on his own terms - without telling a soul, particularly his parents.
In this episode, we delve into Into the Wild's larger cultural implications, exploring the conflict between self and society, community and solitude. Philosophers like Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, and John Locke will weigh in. As well as George Carlin and Malcolm and the Middle.
We’ll investigate the concept of “wilderness” - how Euro-American settlers viewed it versus their Native American counterparts.
And for those of us who dream of escaping the troubles of society, we’ll explore McCandless as an inspiration and cautionary tale.
If you’d like to support Human Nature Odyssey, please subscribe wherever you enjoy your podcasts, leave us a review, and visit humannatureodyssey.com.
Join us on Patreon and get exclusive access to audio extras, writings, and notes.
CITATIONS
Into the Wild [book] by Jon Krakauer (1996)
Into the Wild [film] directed by Sean Penn (2007)
George Carlin’s appearance on Late Night with Conan O’Brien (1996)
Malcolm in the Middle [sitcom] (2000-2007)
How Chris McCandless Died [article] by Jon Krakauer (2016)
Myths of Wilderness in Contemporary Narrative [book] by Kylie Crane (2012)
Music: Celestial Soda Pop
By: Ray Lynch
From the album: Deep Breakfast
Courtesy Ray Lynch Productions © Ⓟ 1984/BMI
All rights reserved.
1. Amazon: Celestial Soda Pop
https://amazon.com/music/player/albums/B000QQXURI
2. iTunes:
https://music.apple.com/us/album/celestial-soda-pop/3242445?i=3242425
3. Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/track/2THDVIVytLuGX7S7UghuC1?si=20ea63807bba401f
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:08):
Oh. I
think you should really makea radical change in your lifestyle
and begin to boldly do thingswhich you may previously
never have thought of themor been too hesitant to attempt.
So many people livewithin unhappy circumstances,
(00:30):
and yet will not take the initiativeto change their situation
because they are conditionedto a life of security, conformity
and conservatism, all of which may appearto give one peace of mind.
But in reality, nothing is more damaging
to the adventurous spiritthan a secure future.
The joy of life comes from our encounterswith new experiences and hence there's
(00:54):
no greater joy than to have an endlesslychanging horizon for each day.
To have a new and different sun.
Days after writing that letter.
Christopher McCandless.
At the age of 24, went out on the road,stuck out his thumb,
(01:14):
and hitchhiked 3000miles all the way to Alaska.
He carried with
him few belongings a 10 pound bag of rice,a field guide to the region's
edible plants,a 22 caliber rifle, a camera,
a dozen of his favorite books
and ventured alone into a frozen landscapeof windswept tundra,
(01:39):
towering mountain peaksand endless stands of snow
covered spruce.
After a few days of hiking,
Chris came to an abandoned bus.
The bus had been emptied outand equipped with a cot, bed and stove.
He carved a celebratory messageonto a piece of plywood.
(02:01):
His new found home.
Two years he walks the earth.
No phone, no pool, no pets, no cigarets.
Ultimate freedom.
An extremist.
An esthetic voyagerwhose home is the road.
And now, after two rambling years
(02:21):
comes the final and greatest adventure.
The climactic battle to kill, the falsebeing within
and victoriousconclude the spiritual pilgrimage.
No longer to be poisoned by civilization,
he flees and walks alone upon the land
to become lost
in the wild.
(02:51):
Welcome the Human Nature Odyssey,
a podcast exploring what it's like to be
stuck in a soul, stifling society,and whether it might be possible
to escape.
I'm Alex Lewis.
(03:21):
In the first season of HumanNature Odyssey,
we traverse the ideas in Ishmael,a novel by Daniel Quinn.
It was our deep dive into a telepathicgorilla's
views on humanity, civilization,and the fate of the world.
Ishmael believesthat we're destroying the world
not because we're evilor inherently flawed,
(03:44):
but because we are captivesof a self-destructive society.
I don't feel like a captive.
Then how would you leave if you wanted to?
How would you drop out?
Get a nice little farmand live off the grid somewhere?
Well,you'd have to purchase a deed to the land.
And to do that, you'd have to make moneyby participating in the economy somehow.
(04:05):
Okay, fine. Scrap the farm.
You don't need to grow your food.
You'll just live off theland as a hunter gatherer.
Well, you'll find that
most governments aren't too friendlywith people trying to do that.
When societystarts to feel like one big cage,
a sensible responsemight be to try and escape.
(04:25):
That's what Christopher McCandless did.
And that'swhy today we're following his footsteps,
to see his path as both an inspirationand cautionary tale.
And if you stick around,I'll tell you what all this has to do
with the 2008 sitcom Malcolm in the.
(04:54):
One night.
Long ago,a DVD was rented at a blockbuster
just outside Philadelphia by my parents.
Left on the TV cabinetand found by a 15 year old me.
It was the cover that got me.
There was this young guysitting up on the roof of what looked like
(05:14):
an abandoned green bus, surroundedonly by trees and a big empty sky.
What's that? Into the wild.
My parents told me I might like it.
So after dinner,I descended into the basement,
slid the disc into the DVD player,
and within a minute paused it.
(05:35):
Realized this wasn'tgoing to be just another movie,
but an important sacred event.
So I got offthe couch, turned off all the lights,
and sat cross-legged on the floor.
That was how
I first encounteredthe legend of Christopher McCandless,
who fled society, renamed himselfAlexander Supertramp,
(05:59):
and journeyed into the Alaskan wilderness.
As I watched,I felt my life, what I expected from it.
The limits that had been laid before mecompletely opened up.
It felt like a lightshining into a dark room,
illuminating a whole worldI didn't know existed.
Society sure felt like a cage to me then.
(06:21):
I mean, what else was schoolif not one big cage were kept inside
all day, rushed from room to room,given tests
and quizzes,busywork, schoolwork, homework,
all to prepare usfor the prestigious collegiate level
of tests and quizzes,busywork, schoolwork, homework.
And then we'll find a job.
(06:43):
If we're lucky, we'll be given a new placeto stay inside all day
and rather than grades,will receive a salary.
And we will work this jobif we're lucky until we are old.
And I.
Up until that point,
I truly didn't knowit was possible to do anything else.
But someone did.
(07:04):
Someone like me.
This was profoundly inspiring.
I wanted to learn everything I couldabout Chris,
but I'd never get to know him
because in that very bus in Alaska,
at the age of 24,Christopher McCandless died.
His body was found by a couple moosehunters
just two weeks later.
(07:31):
Jon Krakauer,
then a young writer for outside magazinebased in Fairbanks, Alaska,
was given the assignmentto investigate this mysterious young man
who died alone in an abandoned busin the wilderness.
All we're able to know about Chris'stravels and demise is from
what Krakauer was able to piece togetherin his investigation.
(07:52):
He collected storiesfrom people who spent time with Chris,
the fragments of his journals,his notes in the margins of books
he brought with him, and the letters hesent to the friends he made along the way.
It's the day
of graduation from Emory University.
(08:12):
Chris's parents couldn't be prouder.
Chris had always given them a lotto be proud of.
Growing up just outside Washington, D.C.
in Annandale, Virginia.
Chris had always been a star athleteand captain of the cross country team
all throughout high school, andhe had always been a brilliant student,
so it was no surprise when he was invitedto join Phi Beta Kappa.
(08:35):
What was surprisingwas when, for some reason,
Chris declinedjoining the prestigious honor society.
That never made sense to his parents.
Chris, however, saw graduationcompletely differently.
For four years,he had put up with the stuffy,
meaningless exercise of following rulesand paths that others laid out for him.
(08:57):
And now Chris is free and no one canstop him from following his own path.
But this was a secret.
His parents and younger sistermade him to celebrate.
They go out to lunch at a local restaurantin Atlanta.
As Chris's dad greets him,he tells him, congratulations, son.
This is a big step.
(09:17):
From one perspective, this was a kindacknowledgment by a proud father.
From another, it was a reminderthat this is just one step on a long path.
Chris didn't want to go down.
His parentstell him that as a graduation present,
they're going to buy him a new car
so he won't have to drive his old beat upDotson anymore.
To many,this would have been an awesome gift.
(09:40):
But Chris wants nothing to do with it.
I don't need a new car.
I don't want a new car.
I don't want any things. These things.
Things, things.
His parents are concernedby this intense reaction.
So the topic changes.
They ask about his GPA and he tells themhis grades are good enough
for Harvard Law.
(10:01):
This is true, but Chris has no intentionof attending Harvard.
Chris based his
young adult life on his literary heroesLeo Tolstoy,
Jack London, Henry David Thoreau.
It's Thoreau who wrote while living ina small cabin he built with his own hands
the value of not just owning philosophy,
(10:22):
but living it.
To be a philosopher is not merely
to have subtle thoughts,nor even to found a school,
but so to love wisdom as to liveaccording to its dictates.
A life of simplicity, independence,
magnanimity, and trust.
It is to solvesome of the problems of life,
(10:45):
not only theoretically,but practically unquote.
Chris took this to heart.
So without telling a soul,
he donated $24,000 his entire life savings
to Oxfam with the note feedsomeone with this.
He burned his social security cardand packed his few remaining possessions
(11:07):
into his beat up old car and headed west,seeking life on his own terms.
He drove through the eastern
forests, across open grasslands,
and out into the redrock deserts of New Mexico.
(11:30):
A flash flood wrecked his car,so he abandoned it
triumphantly,burning the remaining cash in his wallet,
and hitchhiked up and down the West coastto the placid waters of Lake Mead,
the towering Sierra Nevadas,and the lush canopies of the redwoods.
When he needed money for supplies,despite now
(11:51):
having a degree from Emory,he worked on a South Dakota combine,
doing the most grueling workno one else wanted to do.
When harvest ended,he worked at McDonald's.
Even the money from these low payingjobs seemed too much for him.
He wrote to a friend he met that my dayswere more fun when I was penniless.
Along with discarding wealth,
(12:12):
renouncing authority,it was a moral obligation.
So even after a railroad security officercaught him illegally
riding freight trains and kicked his assto dissuade him from doing it again,
when the sheriff wasn't looking,Chris hopped right back on.
He paddled a kayak down the Colorado Riverall the way to the Gulf of Mexico
without a river licenseor any formal training.
(12:36):
He spent a few months living in slab City,
an off the grid quasi anarchist communein the southern California desert
and on the outskirts of a small deserttown.
He found solitude near a nudisthot springs.
He caught a ride with an elderly armyveteran
who soon became a close friend.
(12:56):
The old man so admired Chris's
warmth, discipline and integrity.
He offered to adopt him as his grandson.
Chris befriended hippies and
outcasts wherever he went,but kept them at a distance,
often leaving early in the morningbefore they woke without saying goodbye.
Perhapswary of being pulled back into the world,
(13:19):
he was trying to escape.
And at some point
in his travels out west,he started telling the friends
he made along the wayabout his great Alaskan adventure.
That was the plan.
While working the South Dakota Combines,he sought advice on hunting
and preparing his own gamewhile living in the California desert.
(13:43):
He started training his bodyphysically and finally,
when spring came, he made his way northto fulfill his ultimate dream
of living off the land in the Alaskanwilderness.
Months later,
when the news of Chris's deathspread across the country.
(14:04):
People had all sorts of judgmentsabout him.
He was woefully unprepared, cruelto his parents,
just a privileged, wealthy kidsseeking thrills.
In a sense, Chris was on trial,which was ironic
because for as much as society was judgingChris, he judged society right back.
(14:26):
What is society?
It's not just the people around you,
but the intangible things we generatewhen we're all together.
The rules, the customs, the rituals,
the taboos, the expectations.
As comedian George Carlin oncesaid, individually, I love them.
Every person I meet.
(14:46):
But when they start to group,when they get into clots, begin
to surrender the beauty of the individualfor the sake of the group.
As the group gets bigger six, eight,12, 15, 115,000, they begin to have hats,
armbands, little slogans, lists of peoplethey don't like and it gets out of hand.
To be a human being is to navigate
a contradictory relationshipwith the society we live in.
(15:10):
Society provides us so muchbut also hinders us.
It protects us but also puts us in danger.
It gives us identity and purpose,but only the ones it sets.
Society wraps its big arms around you.
But it can be hard to tellwhether it's in a loving hug
(15:31):
or a stranglehold.
This is where a classic philosophicalwork comes in.
Say with me, Malcolm in the middle.
What? What were you saying?
Yeah, yeah. Malcolm in the middle.
The indisputably greatest sitcomthat started in 2000
and ran for seven seasons,featuring hilarious antics, heartwarming
(15:52):
life lessons, and sophisticated yetsubtle commentary on society.
In this one episode, teenage Malcolm
works at the local LuckyAid supermarket with his mom.
One day, to his complete surprise.
He finds a man hiding in a crackbetween two of the aisles.
Turns out this guy has been living therefor three years.
(16:14):
You've been living in this storefor three years.
Are you crazy?
Malcolm asks.
The man responds, I don't know. I just
Malcolm.
I had this super high pressure job.
People were constantly hounding mefor answers.
Decisions, budgets, signatures.
My nerves were a total wreck.
I was wandering around herewaiting for my Xanax refill my my cell
(16:35):
phone and BlackBerryboth going off, and I saw this crack
and I decided to hide in there
just for a few minutes. And.
It was fantastic.
I didn't want to leave,and then I didn't, and no one noticed.
So I just
stayed.
(16:57):
Philosopher John Locke,who was a good philosopher,
is no Malcolm in the middle,but good philosopher
referred to our responsibility to societyas the social contract.
But it seems someone signed this contractfor us without our permission.
Long before we were ever born.
No one asked for our opinion.
But like the guyliving behind the cereal aisle,
(17:20):
Christopher McCandless, believedthe social contract could be voided.
He did his best to tear it to pieces
while gathering research for his book.
Author Jon Krakauer tracked down the guywho gave Chris a ride to the trailhead.
From where Chris began his hike.
The guy told Krakauerthat Chris, quote, said
he didn't want to see a single person.
(17:42):
No airplanes. No sign of civilization.
He wanted to prove to himselfthat he can make it on his own
without anybody else's help, unquote.
The American mythos is particularly
admiring of this desire for independence.
There's the story of peopleleaving their home to fend for themselves,
(18:02):
whether as immigrants in the New Worldor pioneers on the frontier.
Krakauer quotes Wallace Stegneron the American frontier, quote,
it should not be denied that
being footloose has always exhilarated us.
It is associated in our mindswith escape from history and oppression
and law, and irksome obligationswith absolute freedom.
(18:25):
And the road hasalways led the West, unquote.
Of course,
the Americanfrontier was already occupied,
and the people livingthere were forced out
so others could get awayfrom their own society.
But as so many headed westto escape society,
they brought society with them.
(18:46):
And after just a century of settlement,American society
existed from sea to shining sea.
So Chrisfollowed the allure of the frontier
to one of its last remaining remnants,
the Alaskan wilderness.
Where does one go to escape society?
(19:07):
They go to the wilderness.
As the naturalistJohn Muir once wrote, quote,
thousands of tired nervesshaken over civilized
people are beginning to find outthat going to the mountains is going home.
That wildness is necessity,
useful not only as fountains of timberand irrigating rivers,
(19:30):
but as fountains of life, unquote.
People seek the freedom that wildernessbrings,
land run by natural rhythmsand simple necessities
rather than artificial rulesand arbitrary customs.
The United States Wilderness Act of 1964,
which designated over 800federally designated wilderness areas,
(19:53):
stated that, quote,a wilderness in contrast with those areas
where man and his own worksdominate the landscape untrammeled by man,
where man himself is a visitorwho does not remain unquote,
according to the Wilderness Act.
And much of our culture's perceptionof nature,
(20:13):
a truewilderness must have no people in it.
But I don't know.
Maybe this kind of thinkingjust reinforces
the bars of our cage,rather than freeing us from it
by asserting that wilderness iswhere people do not belong.
We assert our separation from it.
(20:33):
But thisoverlooks the fact that not all societies
view society and wildernessas so opposed to each other.
Author Luther's StandingBear, the Oglala Lakota,
pointed out in the early 20thcentury, quote,
we did not think of the great openplains, the beautiful rolling hills
and winding streams with tangled growthas, quote unquote, wild.
(20:56):
To us, it was tame.
Earth was Bountiful,
and we were surroundedwith the blessings of the great mystery.
Only to the white man was nature a quote
unquote wilderness, unquote.
But for those of us living in a societyseparated from nature,
always trying to restrict and control,exploit and manage its wild, it
(21:19):
can make sense to assume that humanity'sinherent role in nature is as a foe.
And Chrisdidn't want to restrict or control nature
any more than he wantedto be restricted or controlled himself.
Chris's old friend from high school
told Jon Krakauer that Chris quote
was born into the wrong century.
(21:40):
He was looking for more adventureand freedom
than today's societygives people, unquote.
In the 1998Jim Carrey film The Truman Show,
a young Truman stands upin front of his class and proudly
declares, I'd like to be an explorerlike the Great Magellan.
His elderly teacher dutifully informs him,oh, you're too late.
(22:02):
There's really nothing left to explore.
More than ever before, we live
in a world that has been fully mapped out.
In fact, there's probably a map
of the whole world in your pocketright now.
Pick any spot on the entire globe
and you can see the topography, terrain,
(22:23):
satellite view, street view,and detailed directions
on exactly how to get thereand where we can't go directly.
We can still examine in great detail.
We can see the bird's eyeview of remote Pacific islands.
We can inspect the snow coveredpeaks of Antarctica.
We can hover over the moons of Jupiter.
(22:44):
Maybe that's why so many peopleincreasingly
think we're living in a simulation.
After all, we're spending our liveslooking more at these simulations
than we are at the actual world.
But as the saying goes,
these maps are not the territory.
Just because the worldhas been mapped out,
(23:05):
does that mean it's actually truly known?
What have you discovered for yourself?
What have you seen with your own eyes?
What have you felt with your own hands?
Traveled to with your own feet?
How much direct contact with lifedo we really have?
Chris wanted direct contact,
(23:25):
but even the supposed Alaskan wildernessChris ventured into
was only 20 miles or so from townand had been fully mapped out.
So Chris had a creative solution.
He just wouldn't bring a map
for Chris.
It wouldn't have been a real test withouthaving to survive entirely on his own.
(23:47):
Now, many don't have to leave societyto experience this.
For them, living in societyis struggling to survive in and of itself.
But born to a wealthy familywith all the privileges he had.
Survival was somethingChris could only truly experience
outside of a societydesigned for his protection.
(24:08):
I could imagine someone arguingthat sacrificing your comfort
to experiencesurvival is foolish, almost disrespectful,
to the people who have no choicebut to just survive.
But I don't know.
I can see the value in someonefrom affluence
renouncing their statusto experience struggles.
Others are forced to.
(24:29):
Of course, the risk of hitchhiking
across the country, going into remoterural areas alone would have been
even greater had Chris's raceor gender been different.
The fault,however, does not lie with Chris,
but with a society that determinesthe conditions of our confinement
based on our social status.
Because for Chris,
(24:50):
this wasn't just idealism or romanticizing
other lifestyles,it required real physical risk.
But he wasn't just a daredevil.
His risks were taken to servephilosophical pursuits
and live life on his own terms.
But while Chris was having
(25:11):
the adventure of a lifetime,his parents lives were falling.
The pieces.
For almost two years now,they had no idea where he was.
When I first watched the filmas a teenager, that seemed
like a sad side note, but ultimatelyI felt Chris did what he had to do.
Revisiting the storyeven just a few years later,
(25:34):
Chris's total rejection of his parents
started to feel a lot more cruel.
For most of us, the parent and child
dynamic is a microcosm of the societyand individual,
echoing our contradictoryrelationship to society.
Our parents
(25:55):
bring us into this worldare our reason for existing.
They protect us from harm, teach us
what they know, yet they confine us.
They limit us.
They give us baggage we struggle to unloadfor the rest of our lives.
It's a precarious relationshipto be so reliant
(26:15):
on these people, so under their control.
Another high schoolfriend of Chris's told Krakauer, quote,
I think he would have been unhappywith any parents.
He had troublewith the whole idea of parents, unquote.
As a kid, I felt like
the authority of my parentswas a form of tyranny.
(26:37):
I mean, our house was not a democracy.
We were given orders.
We were given punishments.
And if we behaved,we were given an allowance.
But we were also given love,
support, protection, guidance.
Yet in my more rebellious moments,even these seemed restrictive.
(26:58):
As Krakauer put it, quote,children can be harsh judges
when it comes to their parentsdisinclined to grant clemency.
And this was especially true in Chris'scase.
Uncle.
We can't be surewhich evidence in particular
Chris would have brought to parentchild court.
Perhaps it was their judgmentsabout his lifestyle and conflicts
(27:21):
over the value of materialismand traditional careers.
Maybe it would have been his father's ragefilled episodes.
Or, Krakauer speculates,it could have been
the discovery that his parentshad lied to him and his sister
about having them out of wedlockwhile his father had a whole other family.
A secret Chris learned in collegebut never got on.
(27:43):
Perhaps he would have presented all thisas damning evidence.
Either way, his judgment was clear.
He cut off all communicationwith them, left no goodbye note,
and never talked to them ever again.
This severe sentence, as you can imagine,
left Chris's parents devastated.
(28:05):
Absolutely shattered.
They went to bed every night, heartbroken,
with no idea where he was.
Years later,Chris's dad wondered to Krakauer quote,
how is itthat a kid with so much compassion
could cause his parentsso much pain, unquote?
I can almost hearChris indignantly retort,
(28:27):
right back at you, dad.
But for Chris,
he clearly believedhe could only achieve his mission
of self-discovery and independenceby breaking away completely.
Had he told his parents of his plans,they probably would have done
everythingthey could to dissuade him and stop him.
So Chris skipped all that.
(28:49):
He just left.
In Alaska.
Chris wrote Thoughts and Reflectionsin the margins of the books he brought.
It's from these we catch a glimpseinto how he spent his time.
(29:09):
And we know that after 67 daysin the wilderness
hunting, foraging,and successfully living off the land,
he had decidedthe time had come to return to society.
On a strip of
birch bark,he made a checklist of all he had to do
patch jeans,take potatoes, organize, pack, shave.
(29:30):
But upon leaving he foundthe shallow river he initially forded.
On the way in was running so highit was now impassable.
He decidedthe best thing to do was return to the bus
and wait for the river's seasonal waterlevel to lower until it was passable.
This was when his fate changed.
(29:52):
He had passed his testof living off the land for two months.
Now he'd find out how much longerhe could make it.
Day 100 made it Chris Martin's journal.
But in weakest condition of life.
Death looms as a serious threat.
Too weak to walk out.
Have literally become trapped in the wild.
(30:15):
Chris barely had the strength to move.
What alone hunt and forage on the scalehe needed to survive?
Days passed and evidentlythings got worse.
We can only imaginethe turmoil Chris went through
as he came to gripswith the severity of the situation,
(30:36):
as he weakly got the strength to go offand forage for berries,
he left the note behindthat should anybody come to the bus
while he was away,that he was in desperate need of help.
But help did not come, and Chris's body
continued to shut down.
He had conducted
(30:56):
his spiritual pilgrimagein the Alaskan wilderness
for 112 days.
Two weeks later,
his body was found by a couple of hunters.
They reported it to the police,who recovered his remains.
Among Chris's few belongings
was a roll of undeveloped filmhe'd taken while in Alaska.
(31:19):
Once developed, one of the photosrevealed a very skinny Chris
taking a self timephotograph outside of the bus
for as terrified as he must have been.
It seems there was also
an ultimate acceptance, even peace,
in the photograph.
(31:40):
He held a final note that read
I've had a happier lifeand thank the Lord.
Goodbye and may God bless all.
When news of McCandless deathmade its way from Alaska
to the rest of the country,many were not impressed.
(32:01):
Some were vitriolic.
Krakauer shares the not so pleased mail
he received after writing the outsidearticle.
One wrote to him, quote,
personally, I see nothing positive at allabout Chris McCandless.
His lifestyle or wilderness doctrine.
Entering the wildernesspurposefully ill prepared
and surviving a near-death experiencedoes not make you a better human.
(32:22):
It makes you damn lucky, unquote.
Alaskans seem to be the most upset of all.
One local wrote, quote, over the past15 years,
I've run into several McCandless typesout in the country.
Same story.
Idealistic, energetic young guyswho overestimate themselves,
underestimated the countryand ended up in trouble.
(32:45):
McCandless was hardly unique.
There's quite a few of these guyshanging around the state,
so much alikethat they're almost a collective cliché.
The only difference isthat McCandless ended up dead
with the story of his dumb ass sadnesssplashed across the media, unquote.
But as Krakauer put it, quote,
it is hardly unusual for a young man
(33:07):
to be drawn to a pursuitconsidered reckless by his elders.
Engaging in riskybehavior is a rite of passage
in our culture,no less than the most others.
Danger has always held a certain allure.
That, in large part, iswhy so many teenagers drive too fast
and drink too muchand take too many drugs.
(33:27):
Why? It has always been so easy fornations to recruit young men to go to war.
It can be argued that youthful derring dois in fact evolutionarily adaptive
and behavior encoded in our genes.
McCandless, in his fashion, merely took
risk,taking to its illogical extremes, unquote.
We can criticize him for the challengeshe took on,
(33:50):
but ultimately, the level of riskChris took was his own choice.
As we get older, we tend to
look back and call these risks foolish.
They are dangerous,but I'm not sure they're foolish.
On a certain level,the young know what they're doing.
(34:10):
It's not that they are doing itbecause they didn't know it was dangerous,
but precisely because it's dangerous.
The young are testing the universe.
It's the samewhen a toddler knocks over a glass vase.
Even when they're told not to, kidsmisbehave
because they're essentially testing.
What are you going to do about it?
(34:30):
That's how we learn.
There are consequences for our actions,and we learn to accept
or to challenge them.
With a healthy balance of rebellionand respect.
To give insight into Chris's quest,
Krakauer shares that he himself,as a young man, went on a bold
and very risky solo expedition upa mountain in Alaska called Devil's Thumb.
(34:53):
Krakauer writesabout how he was up thousands
of feetin the mountain, caught in a snowstorm.
The plane he hired to drop offsupplies couldn't deliver them,
and the young Krakauer accidentally burnta hole in his tent from smoking a joint.
He admits the difference between himselfand McCandless is complete luck.
(35:14):
The fact that I survived my Alaskaadventure
and McCandless did not survive hiswas largely a matter
of chance, unquote.
If anything happened differently,Chris could have returned
and he could have become the authorreflecting on his adventures.
But he did it.
And that's what's heartbreaking.
(35:35):
Of course, Chris's deathbrought the most heartache to his parents,
who were already shatteredby his estrangement.
Krakauer spent a lot of timewith Chris's parents while researching
and writing the book.
They eventually even considered himfamily.
Describing Chris's mom's grief,Krakauer wrote, quote,
(35:55):
she breaks down from time to time,betraying a sense of loss
so huge and irreparable
that the mind box at taking its measure.
Such bereavement,witnessed at close range,
makes even the most eloquent apologia
for high risk activities ring fatuous.
(36:15):
And how
unquote.
Chris claimed to never want to speakto his parents again,
but a few things betray his love for them.
When the authorities found Chris'sabandoned
car near Lake Mead,they found a guitar in the backseat.
The same guitar Chris's dad bought his momwhen Chris was born.
(36:37):
The same guitar Chris's momused to sing lullabies for him as a baby.
And when hikers discoveredChris's body in the bus in Alaska,
it was wrapped in the sleeping bagthat his mom sewed for him.
This is the guy who earned his moneydetested possessions.
But Chris kept these itemsfrom his parents on his adventures.
(36:59):
He even trekked into Alaska.
Life is too short not to forgive
what you can and learn to lovefrom the right amount of healthy space.
But Chris didn't get the opportunity
to have that healing with his parents.
Perhaps that'sthe greatest tragedy of all.
(37:23):
Why exactly Chris died was a mystery.
After all, he had hunted and gatheredhis own food for months without a problem.
What changed?
Crack hour's investigationfor outside magazine led him to believe
that Chris confused the wild sweet peaplant for the wild potato.
Two closely related species
(37:43):
that look almost identicalbut with one major difference.
The wild potato is edible,but the sweet pea is poisonous.
This fatal error could be seen as a case
in point for Chris'sfoolishness and arrogance.
But Krakauer pointed out,even expert botanists
and indigenous people from this regionhave made this mistake.
(38:04):
But a few years after the book's release,Krakauer was not satisfied
with his assessment of Chris's deathand conducted further research
with other mean analytical servicesin Ann Arbor, Michigan.
These new findingsindicate that Chris's decline
actually had been from the potato seedshe gathered.
They were correctly identified and edible,
(38:26):
but had become moldy,which is what made him too weak
to continue to dothe things needed to survive.
It's really hardto exist when you're living off the land,
especially when you're doing so well.
For someone who loved Ishmaelas much as I did,
(38:49):
who saw the flaws in our societyand wanted to imagine
living a different way,Chris story was a natural inspiration.
Apparently I wasn't alone in this.
Daniel Quinn,the author of Ishmael, noted the impact
into the wild seemto have on many of his readers.
On his website, Ishmael Dawg,which is still up and running,
(39:09):
he wrote, quote,
I hear from so many youngsterswho, like Chris McCandless,
dream of fleeing civilization,of striking out on their own
in the wilderness,of living off the land, unquote.
But then Quinn went on to caution, quote,
humans did notevolve as rugged individualists.
(39:29):
Each taking on the task of survival on hisor her own.
Our ancestors always faced the tasktribally
and never took it on single handedly.
They knew that evenwith all their survival
wisdom garnered overcountless generations, living in the wild
is far too muchfor any isolated individual to cope with.
(39:52):
Unquote.
Just as we as
a species can't live without nature,
we as an individualcan't live without community.
But our society,
our global industrial civilization,is not all societies.
Just because our society is so restrictiveand repressive,
(40:13):
that doesn't mean communityinherently has to be so.
Chris learned this even on his travels.
He couldn't help but make friendsalong the way and be part of,
even temporarily, small communitiesthat supported each other.
When Krakauer recovered the thingsChris left behind in the bus,
he found the passage of the book DoctorZhivago, underlined by Chris's hand,
(40:36):
that read, quote, happiness only real
when shared, unquote.
Krakauer wonderedif this showed he had, quote,
changed in some significant way.
He was ready, perhaps, to shed a littleof the armor he wore around his heart.
Stop running so hard from intimacy
and become a member ofthe human community, unquote.
(41:02):
If we're going to
escape from our societal captivity,
we're going to have to do it together.
Which brings us back to Malcolm
in the middle.
So Malcolm finds
a guy living behind the cereal aisleand has to decide what to do.
(41:23):
While Malcolm is sympathetic of this guytrying to escape the pressures of society,
Malcolm's mom, Lois, is not as supportive.
When she finds the trespassershe declares righteously in her classic
no nonsense Lois way.
Attention and lucky a trespasser.
(41:44):
You do not get to do this.
You do not get to live off the grid.
If anyone on the planet was entitledto hide from all the aggravation,
it would be me,but I don't. Do you understand?
No one gets to shirktheir share of the misery.
Everyone has to be stuck in this together.
That's what's fair.
Those are the rules for Lois.
And perhaps for some who learn aboutChristopher McCandless story.
(42:06):
The real crime is that he tried to leavewhat the rest of us are trapped in.
When I first watched Into the
Wild at 15,I admired Chris's extreme idealism.
I love the purity of what Chris did.
I saw so many adults fall far
short from the idealsthey espoused at the time.
Any compromise to my ownideals seemed cowardly.
(42:30):
And I still think there's valuein that conviction.
As we get older,we may become too cautious,
too unwilling to take chances, to stand upfor what we believe to be right.
Even when it's hard.
But something I've come to value
as I've gotten older is to see one.
(42:52):
The need for balance in the life, and two.
The impurity of life.
To not get religious about what's pure
and what's sinful,but to see God in all of it.
To not be so rigid and dogmaticand see being in
society is betraying the part of methat loves to be outside of it.
(43:14):
And I'm learninghow to hold both of those perspectives.
There's value in both the
youthful spirit and the elders wisdom.
What's the healthy relationshipbetween these two forces,
and how can we, throughout our liveskeep them in conversation with each other?
We need them both.
(43:42):
We need time in society.
And we need time for solitude.
We need time in the non-human world,in the land
not entirely shaped by human hands,what we might call wilderness.
We just have to remember
that we belong there to.
Chris's story
should remind usto live life on our own terms.
(44:05):
As he wrote in that letterto a friend, quote,
to make a radical change in your lifestyleand begin to boldly do things
which you may havepreviously never have thought of them.
That, I believe, is the legacyhe left behind
to escape the constraints of societyas best we can, but
also to learn from his lesson and always
(44:28):
remember the importance of community.
Thanks for listening.
It's up to each of us to navigate
our own path between societyand wilderness.
Community in solitude.
Until next time, I hope you'll consider
what that right balance is for you.
(44:48):
What constraints are worth escaping?
Where can you find solitude?
Where can you find community?
How can you live life on your own terms?
And if you're looking for community,I know one place to look.
The human nature Odyssey Patreon.
There you'll find folksasking the same big questions
(45:09):
and sharing their own answers.
You can send me a direct message orleave a comment and join the conversation.
As part of the Human Nature OdysseyPatreon, you'll have access
to bonus episodes, transcriptsof episodes, and audiobook readings.
Your support makes this podcast possible.
Thank you to Jesse,
(45:29):
Alexis, and Michael for your feedbackand notes on this episode.
And as always.
Our theme music is Celestial Soda Pop.
By Ray Lynch.
You can find the link in our show notes.
Talk with you soon.
Oh. I
think you should really makea radical change in your lifestyle
and begin to boldly do thingswhich you may previously
never have thought of themor been too hesitant to attempt.
So many people livewithin unhappy circumstances,
(00:30):
and yet will not take the initiativeto change their situation
because they are conditionedto a life of security, conformity
and conservatism, all of which may appearto give one peace of mind.
But in reality, nothing is more damaging
to the adventurous spiritthan a secure future.
The joy of life comes from our encounterswith new experiences and hence there's
(00:54):
no greater joy than to have an endlesslychanging horizon for each day.
To have a new and different sun.
Days after writing that letter.
Christopher McCandless.
At the age of 24, went out on the road,stuck out his thumb,
(01:14):
and hitchhiked 3000miles all the way to Alaska.
He carried with
him few belongings a 10 pound bag of rice,a field guide to the region's
edible plants,a 22 caliber rifle, a camera,
a dozen of his favorite books
and ventured alone into a frozen landscapeof windswept tundra,
(01:39):
towering mountain peaksand endless stands of snow
covered spruce.
After a few days of hiking,
Chris came to an abandoned bus.
The bus had been emptied outand equipped with a cot, bed and stove.
He carved a celebratory messageonto a piece of plywood.
(02:01):
His new found home.
Two years he walks the earth.
No phone, no pool, no pets, no cigarets.
Ultimate freedom.
An extremist.
An esthetic voyagerwhose home is the road.
And now, after two rambling years
(02:21):
comes the final and greatest adventure.
The climactic battle to kill, the falsebeing within
and victoriousconclude the spiritual pilgrimage.
No longer to be poisoned by civilization,
he flees and walks alone upon the land
to become lost
in the wild.
(02:51):
Welcome the Human Nature Odyssey,
a podcast exploring what it's like to be
stuck in a soul, stifling society,and whether it might be possible
to escape.
I'm Alex Lewis.
(03:21):
In the first season of HumanNature Odyssey,
we traverse the ideas in Ishmael,a novel by Daniel Quinn.
It was our deep dive into a telepathicgorilla's
views on humanity, civilization,and the fate of the world.
Ishmael believesthat we're destroying the world
not because we're evilor inherently flawed,
(03:44):
but because we are captivesof a self-destructive society.
I don't feel like a captive.
Then how would you leave if you wanted to?
How would you drop out?
Get a nice little farmand live off the grid somewhere?
Well,you'd have to purchase a deed to the land.
And to do that, you'd have to make moneyby participating in the economy somehow.
(04:05):
Okay, fine. Scrap the farm.
You don't need to grow your food.
You'll just live off theland as a hunter gatherer.
Well, you'll find that
most governments aren't too friendlywith people trying to do that.
When societystarts to feel like one big cage,
a sensible responsemight be to try and escape.
(04:25):
That's what Christopher McCandless did.
And that'swhy today we're following his footsteps,
to see his path as both an inspirationand cautionary tale.
And if you stick around,I'll tell you what all this has to do
with the 2008 sitcom Malcolm in the.
(04:54):
One night.
Long ago,a DVD was rented at a blockbuster
just outside Philadelphia by my parents.
Left on the TV cabinetand found by a 15 year old me.
It was the cover that got me.
There was this young guysitting up on the roof of what looked like
(05:14):
an abandoned green bus, surroundedonly by trees and a big empty sky.
What's that? Into the wild.
My parents told me I might like it.
So after dinner,I descended into the basement,
slid the disc into the DVD player,
and within a minute paused it.
(05:35):
Realized this wasn'tgoing to be just another movie,
but an important sacred event.
So I got offthe couch, turned off all the lights,
and sat cross-legged on the floor.
That was how
I first encounteredthe legend of Christopher McCandless,
who fled society, renamed himselfAlexander Supertramp,
(05:59):
and journeyed into the Alaskan wilderness.
As I watched,I felt my life, what I expected from it.
The limits that had been laid before mecompletely opened up.
It felt like a lightshining into a dark room,
illuminating a whole worldI didn't know existed.
Society sure felt like a cage to me then.
(06:21):
I mean, what else was schoolif not one big cage were kept inside
all day, rushed from room to room,given tests
and quizzes,busywork, schoolwork, homework,
all to prepare usfor the prestigious collegiate level
of tests and quizzes,busywork, schoolwork, homework.
And then we'll find a job.
(06:43):
If we're lucky, we'll be given a new placeto stay inside all day
and rather than grades,will receive a salary.
And we will work this jobif we're lucky until we are old.
And I.
Up until that point,
I truly didn't knowit was possible to do anything else.
But someone did.
(07:04):
Someone like me.
This was profoundly inspiring.
I wanted to learn everything I couldabout Chris,
but I'd never get to know him
because in that very bus in Alaska,
at the age of 24,Christopher McCandless died.
His body was found by a couple moosehunters
just two weeks later.
(07:31):
Jon Krakauer,
then a young writer for outside magazinebased in Fairbanks, Alaska,
was given the assignmentto investigate this mysterious young man
who died alone in an abandoned busin the wilderness.
All we're able to know about Chris'stravels and demise is from
what Krakauer was able to piece togetherin his investigation.
(07:52):
He collected storiesfrom people who spent time with Chris,
the fragments of his journals,his notes in the margins of books
he brought with him, and the letters hesent to the friends he made along the way.
It's the day
of graduation from Emory University.
(08:12):
Chris's parents couldn't be prouder.
Chris had always given them a lotto be proud of.
Growing up just outside Washington, D.C.
in Annandale, Virginia.
Chris had always been a star athleteand captain of the cross country team
all throughout high school, andhe had always been a brilliant student,
so it was no surprise when he was invitedto join Phi Beta Kappa.
(08:35):
What was surprisingwas when, for some reason,
Chris declinedjoining the prestigious honor society.
That never made sense to his parents.
Chris, however, saw graduationcompletely differently.
For four years,he had put up with the stuffy,
meaningless exercise of following rulesand paths that others laid out for him.
(08:57):
And now Chris is free and no one canstop him from following his own path.
But this was a secret.
His parents and younger sistermade him to celebrate.
They go out to lunch at a local restaurantin Atlanta.
As Chris's dad greets him,he tells him, congratulations, son.
This is a big step.
(09:17):
From one perspective, this was a kindacknowledgment by a proud father.
From another, it was a reminderthat this is just one step on a long path.
Chris didn't want to go down.
His parentstell him that as a graduation present,
they're going to buy him a new car
so he won't have to drive his old beat upDotson anymore.
To many,this would have been an awesome gift.
(09:40):
But Chris wants nothing to do with it.
I don't need a new car.
I don't want a new car.
I don't want any things. These things.
Things, things.
His parents are concernedby this intense reaction.
So the topic changes.
They ask about his GPA and he tells themhis grades are good enough
for Harvard Law.
(10:01):
This is true, but Chris has no intentionof attending Harvard.
Chris based his
young adult life on his literary heroesLeo Tolstoy,
Jack London, Henry David Thoreau.
It's Thoreau who wrote while living ina small cabin he built with his own hands
the value of not just owning philosophy,
(10:22):
but living it.
To be a philosopher is not merely
to have subtle thoughts,nor even to found a school,
but so to love wisdom as to liveaccording to its dictates.
A life of simplicity, independence,
magnanimity, and trust.
It is to solvesome of the problems of life,
(10:45):
not only theoretically,but practically unquote.
Chris took this to heart.
So without telling a soul,
he donated $24,000 his entire life savings
to Oxfam with the note feedsomeone with this.
He burned his social security cardand packed his few remaining possessions
(11:07):
into his beat up old car and headed west,seeking life on his own terms.
He drove through the eastern
forests, across open grasslands,
and out into the redrock deserts of New Mexico.
(11:30):
A flash flood wrecked his car,so he abandoned it
triumphantly,burning the remaining cash in his wallet,
and hitchhiked up and down the West coastto the placid waters of Lake Mead,
the towering Sierra Nevadas,and the lush canopies of the redwoods.
When he needed money for supplies,despite now
(11:51):
having a degree from Emory,he worked on a South Dakota combine,
doing the most grueling workno one else wanted to do.
When harvest ended,he worked at McDonald's.
Even the money from these low payingjobs seemed too much for him.
He wrote to a friend he met that my dayswere more fun when I was penniless.
Along with discarding wealth,
(12:12):
renouncing authority,it was a moral obligation.
So even after a railroad security officercaught him illegally
riding freight trains and kicked his assto dissuade him from doing it again,
when the sheriff wasn't looking,Chris hopped right back on.
He paddled a kayak down the Colorado Riverall the way to the Gulf of Mexico
without a river licenseor any formal training.
(12:36):
He spent a few months living in slab City,
an off the grid quasi anarchist communein the southern California desert
and on the outskirts of a small deserttown.
He found solitude near a nudisthot springs.
He caught a ride with an elderly armyveteran
who soon became a close friend.
(12:56):
The old man so admired Chris's
warmth, discipline and integrity.
He offered to adopt him as his grandson.
Chris befriended hippies and
outcasts wherever he went,but kept them at a distance,
often leaving early in the morningbefore they woke without saying goodbye.
Perhapswary of being pulled back into the world,
(13:19):
he was trying to escape.
And at some point
in his travels out west,he started telling the friends
he made along the wayabout his great Alaskan adventure.
That was the plan.
While working the South Dakota Combines,he sought advice on hunting
and preparing his own gamewhile living in the California desert.
(13:43):
He started training his bodyphysically and finally,
when spring came, he made his way northto fulfill his ultimate dream
of living off the land in the Alaskanwilderness.
Months later,
when the news of Chris's deathspread across the country.
(14:04):
People had all sorts of judgmentsabout him.
He was woefully unprepared, cruelto his parents,
just a privileged, wealthy kidsseeking thrills.
In a sense, Chris was on trial,which was ironic
because for as much as society was judgingChris, he judged society right back.
(14:26):
What is society?
It's not just the people around you,
but the intangible things we generatewhen we're all together.
The rules, the customs, the rituals,
the taboos, the expectations.
As comedian George Carlin oncesaid, individually, I love them.
Every person I meet.
(14:46):
But when they start to group,when they get into clots, begin
to surrender the beauty of the individualfor the sake of the group.
As the group gets bigger six, eight,12, 15, 115,000, they begin to have hats,
armbands, little slogans, lists of peoplethey don't like and it gets out of hand.
To be a human being is to navigate
a contradictory relationshipwith the society we live in.
(15:10):
Society provides us so muchbut also hinders us.
It protects us but also puts us in danger.
It gives us identity and purpose,but only the ones it sets.
Society wraps its big arms around you.
But it can be hard to tellwhether it's in a loving hug
(15:31):
or a stranglehold.
This is where a classic philosophicalwork comes in.
Say with me, Malcolm in the middle.
What? What were you saying?
Yeah, yeah. Malcolm in the middle.
The indisputably greatest sitcomthat started in 2000
and ran for seven seasons,featuring hilarious antics, heartwarming
(15:52):
life lessons, and sophisticated yetsubtle commentary on society.
In this one episode, teenage Malcolm
works at the local LuckyAid supermarket with his mom.
One day, to his complete surprise.
He finds a man hiding in a crackbetween two of the aisles.
Turns out this guy has been living therefor three years.
(16:14):
You've been living in this storefor three years.
Are you crazy?
Malcolm asks.
The man responds, I don't know. I just
Malcolm.
I had this super high pressure job.
People were constantly hounding mefor answers.
Decisions, budgets, signatures.
My nerves were a total wreck.
I was wandering around herewaiting for my Xanax refill my my cell
(16:35):
phone and BlackBerryboth going off, and I saw this crack
and I decided to hide in there
just for a few minutes. And.
It was fantastic.
I didn't want to leave,and then I didn't, and no one noticed.
So I just
stayed.
(16:57):
Philosopher John Locke,who was a good philosopher,
is no Malcolm in the middle,but good philosopher
referred to our responsibility to societyas the social contract.
But it seems someone signed this contractfor us without our permission.
Long before we were ever born.
No one asked for our opinion.
But like the guyliving behind the cereal aisle,
(17:20):
Christopher McCandless, believedthe social contract could be voided.
He did his best to tear it to pieces
while gathering research for his book.
Author Jon Krakauer tracked down the guywho gave Chris a ride to the trailhead.
From where Chris began his hike.
The guy told Krakauerthat Chris, quote, said
he didn't want to see a single person.
(17:42):
No airplanes. No sign of civilization.
He wanted to prove to himselfthat he can make it on his own
without anybody else's help, unquote.
The American mythos is particularly
admiring of this desire for independence.
There's the story of peopleleaving their home to fend for themselves,
(18:02):
whether as immigrants in the New Worldor pioneers on the frontier.
Krakauer quotes Wallace Stegneron the American frontier, quote,
it should not be denied that
being footloose has always exhilarated us.
It is associated in our mindswith escape from history and oppression
and law, and irksome obligationswith absolute freedom.
(18:25):
And the road hasalways led the West, unquote.
Of course,
the Americanfrontier was already occupied,
and the people livingthere were forced out
so others could get awayfrom their own society.
But as so many headed westto escape society,
they brought society with them.
(18:46):
And after just a century of settlement,American society
existed from sea to shining sea.
So Chrisfollowed the allure of the frontier
to one of its last remaining remnants,
the Alaskan wilderness.
Where does one go to escape society?
(19:07):
They go to the wilderness.
As the naturalistJohn Muir once wrote, quote,
thousands of tired nervesshaken over civilized
people are beginning to find outthat going to the mountains is going home.
That wildness is necessity,
useful not only as fountains of timberand irrigating rivers,
(19:30):
but as fountains of life, unquote.
People seek the freedom that wildernessbrings,
land run by natural rhythmsand simple necessities
rather than artificial rulesand arbitrary customs.
The United States Wilderness Act of 1964,
which designated over 800federally designated wilderness areas,
(19:53):
stated that, quote,a wilderness in contrast with those areas
where man and his own worksdominate the landscape untrammeled by man,
where man himself is a visitorwho does not remain unquote,
according to the Wilderness Act.
And much of our culture's perceptionof nature,
(20:13):
a truewilderness must have no people in it.
But I don't know.
Maybe this kind of thinkingjust reinforces
the bars of our cage,rather than freeing us from it
by asserting that wilderness iswhere people do not belong.
We assert our separation from it.
(20:33):
But thisoverlooks the fact that not all societies
view society and wildernessas so opposed to each other.
Author Luther's StandingBear, the Oglala Lakota,
pointed out in the early 20thcentury, quote,
we did not think of the great openplains, the beautiful rolling hills
and winding streams with tangled growthas, quote unquote, wild.
(20:56):
To us, it was tame.
Earth was Bountiful,
and we were surroundedwith the blessings of the great mystery.
Only to the white man was nature a quote
unquote wilderness, unquote.
But for those of us living in a societyseparated from nature,
always trying to restrict and control,exploit and manage its wild, it
(21:19):
can make sense to assume that humanity'sinherent role in nature is as a foe.
And Chrisdidn't want to restrict or control nature
any more than he wantedto be restricted or controlled himself.
Chris's old friend from high school
told Jon Krakauer that Chris quote
was born into the wrong century.
(21:40):
He was looking for more adventureand freedom
than today's societygives people, unquote.
In the 1998Jim Carrey film The Truman Show,
a young Truman stands upin front of his class and proudly
declares, I'd like to be an explorerlike the Great Magellan.
His elderly teacher dutifully informs him,oh, you're too late.
(22:02):
There's really nothing left to explore.
More than ever before, we live
in a world that has been fully mapped out.
In fact, there's probably a map
of the whole world in your pocketright now.
Pick any spot on the entire globe
and you can see the topography, terrain,
(22:23):
satellite view, street view,and detailed directions
on exactly how to get thereand where we can't go directly.
We can still examine in great detail.
We can see the bird's eyeview of remote Pacific islands.
We can inspect the snow coveredpeaks of Antarctica.
We can hover over the moons of Jupiter.
(22:44):
Maybe that's why so many peopleincreasingly
think we're living in a simulation.
After all, we're spending our liveslooking more at these simulations
than we are at the actual world.
But as the saying goes,
these maps are not the territory.
Just because the worldhas been mapped out,
(23:05):
does that mean it's actually truly known?
What have you discovered for yourself?
What have you seen with your own eyes?
What have you felt with your own hands?
Traveled to with your own feet?
How much direct contact with lifedo we really have?
Chris wanted direct contact,
(23:25):
but even the supposed Alaskan wildernessChris ventured into
was only 20 miles or so from townand had been fully mapped out.
So Chris had a creative solution.
He just wouldn't bring a map
for Chris.
It wouldn't have been a real test withouthaving to survive entirely on his own.
(23:47):
Now, many don't have to leave societyto experience this.
For them, living in societyis struggling to survive in and of itself.
But born to a wealthy familywith all the privileges he had.
Survival was somethingChris could only truly experience
outside of a societydesigned for his protection.
(24:08):
I could imagine someone arguingthat sacrificing your comfort
to experiencesurvival is foolish, almost disrespectful,
to the people who have no choicebut to just survive.
But I don't know.
I can see the value in someonefrom affluence
renouncing their statusto experience struggles.
Others are forced to.
(24:29):
Of course, the risk of hitchhiking
across the country, going into remoterural areas alone would have been
even greater had Chris's raceor gender been different.
The fault,however, does not lie with Chris,
but with a society that determinesthe conditions of our confinement
based on our social status.
Because for Chris,
(24:50):
this wasn't just idealism or romanticizing
other lifestyles,it required real physical risk.
But he wasn't just a daredevil.
His risks were taken to servephilosophical pursuits
and live life on his own terms.
But while Chris was having
(25:11):
the adventure of a lifetime,his parents lives were falling.
The pieces.
For almost two years now,they had no idea where he was.
When I first watched the filmas a teenager, that seemed
like a sad side note, but ultimatelyI felt Chris did what he had to do.
Revisiting the storyeven just a few years later,
(25:34):
Chris's total rejection of his parents
started to feel a lot more cruel.
For most of us, the parent and child
dynamic is a microcosm of the societyand individual,
echoing our contradictoryrelationship to society.
Our parents
(25:55):
bring us into this worldare our reason for existing.
They protect us from harm, teach us
what they know, yet they confine us.
They limit us.
They give us baggage we struggle to unloadfor the rest of our lives.
It's a precarious relationshipto be so reliant
(26:15):
on these people, so under their control.
Another high schoolfriend of Chris's told Krakauer, quote,
I think he would have been unhappywith any parents.
He had troublewith the whole idea of parents, unquote.
As a kid, I felt like
the authority of my parentswas a form of tyranny.
(26:37):
I mean, our house was not a democracy.
We were given orders.
We were given punishments.
And if we behaved,we were given an allowance.
But we were also given love,
support, protection, guidance.
Yet in my more rebellious moments,even these seemed restrictive.
(26:58):
As Krakauer put it, quote,children can be harsh judges
when it comes to their parentsdisinclined to grant clemency.
And this was especially true in Chris'scase.
Uncle.
We can't be surewhich evidence in particular
Chris would have brought to parentchild court.
Perhaps it was their judgmentsabout his lifestyle and conflicts
(27:21):
over the value of materialismand traditional careers.
Maybe it would have been his father's ragefilled episodes.
Or, Krakauer speculates,it could have been
the discovery that his parentshad lied to him and his sister
about having them out of wedlockwhile his father had a whole other family.
A secret Chris learned in collegebut never got on.
(27:43):
Perhaps he would have presented all thisas damning evidence.
Either way, his judgment was clear.
He cut off all communicationwith them, left no goodbye note,
and never talked to them ever again.
This severe sentence, as you can imagine,
left Chris's parents devastated.
(28:05):
Absolutely shattered.
They went to bed every night, heartbroken,
with no idea where he was.
Years later,Chris's dad wondered to Krakauer quote,
how is itthat a kid with so much compassion
could cause his parentsso much pain, unquote?
I can almost hearChris indignantly retort,
(28:27):
right back at you, dad.
But for Chris,
he clearly believedhe could only achieve his mission
of self-discovery and independenceby breaking away completely.
Had he told his parents of his plans,they probably would have done
everythingthey could to dissuade him and stop him.
So Chris skipped all that.
(28:49):
He just left.
In Alaska.
Chris wrote Thoughts and Reflectionsin the margins of the books he brought.
It's from these we catch a glimpseinto how he spent his time.
(29:09):
And we know that after 67 daysin the wilderness
hunting, foraging,and successfully living off the land,
he had decidedthe time had come to return to society.
On a strip of
birch bark,he made a checklist of all he had to do
patch jeans,take potatoes, organize, pack, shave.
(29:30):
But upon leaving he foundthe shallow river he initially forded.
On the way in was running so highit was now impassable.
He decidedthe best thing to do was return to the bus
and wait for the river's seasonal waterlevel to lower until it was passable.
This was when his fate changed.
(29:52):
He had passed his testof living off the land for two months.
Now he'd find out how much longerhe could make it.
Day 100 made it Chris Martin's journal.
But in weakest condition of life.
Death looms as a serious threat.
Too weak to walk out.
Have literally become trapped in the wild.
(30:15):
Chris barely had the strength to move.
What alone hunt and forage on the scalehe needed to survive?
Days passed and evidentlythings got worse.
We can only imaginethe turmoil Chris went through
as he came to gripswith the severity of the situation,
(30:36):
as he weakly got the strength to go offand forage for berries,
he left the note behindthat should anybody come to the bus
while he was away,that he was in desperate need of help.
But help did not come, and Chris's body
continued to shut down.
He had conducted
(30:56):
his spiritual pilgrimagein the Alaskan wilderness
for 112 days.
Two weeks later,
his body was found by a couple of hunters.
They reported it to the police,who recovered his remains.
Among Chris's few belongings
was a roll of undeveloped filmhe'd taken while in Alaska.
(31:19):
Once developed, one of the photosrevealed a very skinny Chris
taking a self timephotograph outside of the bus
for as terrified as he must have been.
It seems there was also
an ultimate acceptance, even peace,
in the photograph.
(31:40):
He held a final note that read
I've had a happier lifeand thank the Lord.
Goodbye and may God bless all.
When news of McCandless deathmade its way from Alaska
to the rest of the country,many were not impressed.
(32:01):
Some were vitriolic.
Krakauer shares the not so pleased mail
he received after writing the outsidearticle.
One wrote to him, quote,
personally, I see nothing positive at allabout Chris McCandless.
His lifestyle or wilderness doctrine.
Entering the wildernesspurposefully ill prepared
and surviving a near-death experiencedoes not make you a better human.
(32:22):
It makes you damn lucky, unquote.
Alaskans seem to be the most upset of all.
One local wrote, quote, over the past15 years,
I've run into several McCandless typesout in the country.
Same story.
Idealistic, energetic young guyswho overestimate themselves,
underestimated the countryand ended up in trouble.
(32:45):
McCandless was hardly unique.
There's quite a few of these guyshanging around the state,
so much alikethat they're almost a collective cliché.
The only difference isthat McCandless ended up dead
with the story of his dumb ass sadnesssplashed across the media, unquote.
But as Krakauer put it, quote,
it is hardly unusual for a young man
(33:07):
to be drawn to a pursuitconsidered reckless by his elders.
Engaging in riskybehavior is a rite of passage
in our culture,no less than the most others.
Danger has always held a certain allure.
That, in large part, iswhy so many teenagers drive too fast
and drink too muchand take too many drugs.
(33:27):
Why? It has always been so easy fornations to recruit young men to go to war.
It can be argued that youthful derring dois in fact evolutionarily adaptive
and behavior encoded in our genes.
McCandless, in his fashion, merely took
risk,taking to its illogical extremes, unquote.
We can criticize him for the challengeshe took on,
(33:50):
but ultimately, the level of riskChris took was his own choice.
As we get older, we tend to
look back and call these risks foolish.
They are dangerous,but I'm not sure they're foolish.
On a certain level,the young know what they're doing.
(34:10):
It's not that they are doing itbecause they didn't know it was dangerous,
but precisely because it's dangerous.
The young are testing the universe.
It's the samewhen a toddler knocks over a glass vase.
Even when they're told not to, kidsmisbehave
because they're essentially testing.
What are you going to do about it?
(34:30):
That's how we learn.
There are consequences for our actions,and we learn to accept
or to challenge them.
With a healthy balance of rebellionand respect.
To give insight into Chris's quest,
Krakauer shares that he himself,as a young man, went on a bold
and very risky solo expedition upa mountain in Alaska called Devil's Thumb.
(34:53):
Krakauer writesabout how he was up thousands
of feetin the mountain, caught in a snowstorm.
The plane he hired to drop offsupplies couldn't deliver them,
and the young Krakauer accidentally burnta hole in his tent from smoking a joint.
He admits the difference between himselfand McCandless is complete luck.
(35:14):
The fact that I survived my Alaskaadventure
and McCandless did not survive hiswas largely a matter
of chance, unquote.
If anything happened differently,Chris could have returned
and he could have become the authorreflecting on his adventures.
But he did it.
And that's what's heartbreaking.
(35:35):
Of course, Chris's deathbrought the most heartache to his parents,
who were already shatteredby his estrangement.
Krakauer spent a lot of timewith Chris's parents while researching
and writing the book.
They eventually even considered himfamily.
Describing Chris's mom's grief,Krakauer wrote, quote,
(35:55):
she breaks down from time to time,betraying a sense of loss
so huge and irreparable
that the mind box at taking its measure.
Such bereavement,witnessed at close range,
makes even the most eloquent apologia
for high risk activities ring fatuous.
(36:15):
And how
unquote.
Chris claimed to never want to speakto his parents again,
but a few things betray his love for them.
When the authorities found Chris'sabandoned
car near Lake Mead,they found a guitar in the backseat.
The same guitar Chris's dad bought his momwhen Chris was born.
(36:37):
The same guitar Chris's momused to sing lullabies for him as a baby.
And when hikers discoveredChris's body in the bus in Alaska,
it was wrapped in the sleeping bagthat his mom sewed for him.
This is the guy who earned his moneydetested possessions.
But Chris kept these itemsfrom his parents on his adventures.
(36:59):
He even trekked into Alaska.
Life is too short not to forgive
what you can and learn to lovefrom the right amount of healthy space.
But Chris didn't get the opportunity
to have that healing with his parents.
Perhaps that'sthe greatest tragedy of all.
(37:23):
Why exactly Chris died was a mystery.
After all, he had hunted and gatheredhis own food for months without a problem.
What changed?
Crack hour's investigationfor outside magazine led him to believe
that Chris confused the wild sweet peaplant for the wild potato.
Two closely related species
(37:43):
that look almost identicalbut with one major difference.
The wild potato is edible,but the sweet pea is poisonous.
This fatal error could be seen as a case
in point for Chris'sfoolishness and arrogance.
But Krakauer pointed out,even expert botanists
and indigenous people from this regionhave made this mistake.
(38:04):
But a few years after the book's release,Krakauer was not satisfied
with his assessment of Chris's deathand conducted further research
with other mean analytical servicesin Ann Arbor, Michigan.
These new findingsindicate that Chris's decline
actually had been from the potato seedshe gathered.
They were correctly identified and edible,
(38:26):
but had become moldy,which is what made him too weak
to continue to dothe things needed to survive.
It's really hardto exist when you're living off the land,
especially when you're doing so well.
For someone who loved Ishmaelas much as I did,
(38:49):
who saw the flaws in our societyand wanted to imagine
living a different way,Chris story was a natural inspiration.
Apparently I wasn't alone in this.
Daniel Quinn,the author of Ishmael, noted the impact
into the wild seemto have on many of his readers.
On his website, Ishmael Dawg,which is still up and running,
(39:09):
he wrote, quote,
I hear from so many youngsterswho, like Chris McCandless,
dream of fleeing civilization,of striking out on their own
in the wilderness,of living off the land, unquote.
But then Quinn went on to caution, quote,
humans did notevolve as rugged individualists.
(39:29):
Each taking on the task of survival on hisor her own.
Our ancestors always faced the tasktribally
and never took it on single handedly.
They knew that evenwith all their survival
wisdom garnered overcountless generations, living in the wild
is far too muchfor any isolated individual to cope with.
(39:52):
Unquote.
Just as we as
a species can't live without nature,
we as an individualcan't live without community.
But our society,
our global industrial civilization,is not all societies.
Just because our society is so restrictiveand repressive,
(40:13):
that doesn't mean communityinherently has to be so.
Chris learned this even on his travels.
He couldn't help but make friendsalong the way and be part of,
even temporarily, small communitiesthat supported each other.
When Krakauer recovered the thingsChris left behind in the bus,
he found the passage of the book DoctorZhivago, underlined by Chris's hand,
(40:36):
that read, quote, happiness only real
when shared, unquote.
Krakauer wonderedif this showed he had, quote,
changed in some significant way.
He was ready, perhaps, to shed a littleof the armor he wore around his heart.
Stop running so hard from intimacy
and become a member ofthe human community, unquote.
(41:02):
If we're going to
escape from our societal captivity,
we're going to have to do it together.
Which brings us back to Malcolm
in the middle.
So Malcolm finds
a guy living behind the cereal aisleand has to decide what to do.
(41:23):
While Malcolm is sympathetic of this guytrying to escape the pressures of society,
Malcolm's mom, Lois, is not as supportive.
When she finds the trespassershe declares righteously in her classic
no nonsense Lois way.
Attention and lucky a trespasser.
(41:44):
You do not get to do this.
You do not get to live off the grid.
If anyone on the planet was entitledto hide from all the aggravation,
it would be me,but I don't. Do you understand?
No one gets to shirktheir share of the misery.
Everyone has to be stuck in this together.
That's what's fair.
Those are the rules for Lois.
And perhaps for some who learn aboutChristopher McCandless story.
(42:06):
The real crime is that he tried to leavewhat the rest of us are trapped in.
When I first watched Into the
Wild at 15,I admired Chris's extreme idealism.
I love the purity of what Chris did.
I saw so many adults fall far
short from the idealsthey espoused at the time.
Any compromise to my ownideals seemed cowardly.
(42:30):
And I still think there's valuein that conviction.
As we get older,we may become too cautious,
too unwilling to take chances, to stand upfor what we believe to be right.
Even when it's hard.
But something I've come to value
as I've gotten older is to see one.
(42:52):
The need for balance in the life, and two.
The impurity of life.
To not get religious about what's pure
and what's sinful,but to see God in all of it.
To not be so rigid and dogmaticand see being in
society is betraying the part of methat loves to be outside of it.
(43:14):
And I'm learninghow to hold both of those perspectives.
There's value in both the
youthful spirit and the elders wisdom.
What's the healthy relationshipbetween these two forces,
and how can we, throughout our liveskeep them in conversation with each other?
We need them both.
(43:42):
We need time in society.
And we need time for solitude.
We need time in the non-human world,in the land
not entirely shaped by human hands,what we might call wilderness.
We just have to remember
that we belong there to.
Chris's story
should remind usto live life on our own terms.
(44:05):
As he wrote in that letterto a friend, quote,
to make a radical change in your lifestyleand begin to boldly do things
which you may havepreviously never have thought of them.
That, I believe, is the legacyhe left behind
to escape the constraints of societyas best we can, but
also to learn from his lesson and always
(44:28):
remember the importance of community.
Thanks for listening.
It's up to each of us to navigate
our own path between societyand wilderness.
Community in solitude.
Until next time, I hope you'll consider
what that right balance is for you.
(44:48):
What constraints are worth escaping?
Where can you find solitude?
Where can you find community?
How can you live life on your own terms?
And if you're looking for community,I know one place to look.
The human nature Odyssey Patreon.
There you'll find folksasking the same big questions
(45:09):
and sharing their own answers.
You can send me a direct message orleave a comment and join the conversation.
As part of the Human Nature OdysseyPatreon, you'll have access
to bonus episodes, transcriptsof episodes, and audiobook readings.
Your support makes this podcast possible.
Thank you to Jesse,
(45:29):
Alexis, and Michael for your feedbackand notes on this episode.
And as always.
Our theme music is Celestial Soda Pop.
By Ray Lynch.
You can find the link in our show notes.
Talk with you soon.
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