Into the Wild

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My sister ecently got me the book, Into the Wild, and he was scary on how alike the person in the book and mysef shared some of the traits. I wrote an article on my blog ( lifeontheothersideofthewall.blogspot.com ) about the book. If you read that article I suggest you also read yesterday's entry about my "Relocation Theory" to understand what I am talking about.

I read your posts. You give me the impression of being someone very much like me. I traveled far and wide about 2-3 decades ago and have since remained isolated at home. But, now in the past few weeks, the urge to go and explore keeps increasing. I can now do it because of having a car that will take me wherever I want to go. I plan to sleep in it and travel into wilderness areas.

I completely agree with you that Christopher McCandless is an Aspie. Very few people seemed to be able to understand Chris. I'm glad you wrote about your thoughts on his book. Thank you.

I read the book some time ago and watched the movie. I wondered at the time if Christopher was an Aspie. I understood him and why he wanted to go into the wild.

I remember reading a similar book, at the age of 10, 'Never Cry Wolf'. I've noticed that the main character in that book, shared a lot of my traits and thoughts. I want to go into a used bookstore and look for it.

I actually held my breath as I posted this on here because on one hand I wanted other opinions, but on the other hand I was afraid that nobody would agree with me.

Faith, thanks for the kind words!

thesamman, I had no idea they made a movie, I'll have to check that out.

I loved the movie. This guy in my class was family friends with the Into the Wild guy.

There's also a documentary. If you search wikipedia for "Chris McCandless", you'll find a link to the documentary on that page. It's far more critical than the movie, which practically made McCandless out to be Jesus. Instead, the documentary is a clear eyed exploration of the mistakes that doomed Chris, including the fact that he had no survival experience in the Alaskan taiga and thus eventually died of "rabbit starvation". He also suffered a shoulder injury at some point, possibly from improper use of the .22 rifle he had, and thus was unable to swim or hike to safety. The .22 was a poor choice of rifle, he really should have had a 12 gauge shotgun with shot capable of taking down large animals. A .22 won't even kill a human being reliably, much less a moose, meaning that the moose he killed was a matter of luck. Also, going further back, driving into the dry wash (Detrital Wash near Lake Mead) in summer was a bad idea, and he seemed to have little understanding of desert cloudbursts and the flash floods they create. He drained the car's battery and was forced to abandon it. Without the car, he was at the mercy of people who pick up hitchhikers, and is lucky he wasn't killed by somebody who picked him up.

Oh my god, I was totally obsessed with this book a few years back. I totally want to go and live in a wasteland, I probably will at some time. I don't necessarily want to die of it, at least not yet.

That's nonsense. Getting randomly killed by strangers is so remote a possibility as to be negligible. I blame the media for making people think that psychos are everywhere.

Wait, you mean he's not diagnosed?

I could've sworn when the movie came out, I read in a review somewhere that he was autistic...

The limited research I did, outside of the book, only had assumptions on diagnosis. I have read some of the debate and reading the movie does portray him as a hero figure. I find this odd, any reason why one would consider him a hero?

I think he was if not a 'hero', at least an inspiring character. Instead of sitting on his disappointing life he went out and took chances and searched for what would make him happy. Tragically he died probably before he could go about making his insight "Happiness is only real when shared" into a life for himself.

I really enjoyed reading your blog post by the way, KansasFound.

Thanks!

I read this back years ago and thought he and I shared some traits, but wow, now I'm convinced. I always have wanted to go to Asia (either China or Japan) to see if I could simply live there.

I liked the movie. Sometimes I feel like I want to get away from civilization and wander to a place far far away. The wilds are dangerous and untamed - but that makes them exciting.

The direct link to this story is http://lifeontheothersideofthewall.blog ... -wild.html as as you would have to navigate the archive to find it. Aspiereader, how did you find this post? It's been a while since I wrote this.

I do a lot of target shooting with my family we use 10/22 rugers (.22 LR) Remington 870's (12 gauge shotgun) AR-15 (.223) and a Mini-14 (.223) there is no way they can severely hurt a shoulder. a shotgun might bruise one. He probably got weak from starvation and fell hurting his shoulder or was trying to bring in a moose or elk without quartering it first. Captives who were starved by the Japanese were doing minor things and recieved severe injuries due to starvation. A minor fall could dislocate joints no problem, You are right about him being better off with the shotgun. Shot for small game and deer slugs for moose and elk.

.22's are capable of killing people, ask the families of the .22 caliber killer here in Buffalo. Buffalo had some racist lunatic running around shooting black men with a .22. I think he killed each one of those he shot. I also went to school with a kid who was killed by a .22 riccochete shooting in his basement went through his bicep cutting the artary in his arm. There was also a kid who shot a brown bear with a .22 in Allegany county near the PA boarder he poped it with one shot while trying to scare it away.