Into The Wild: Learning about yourself through others

I gain most of my insight by connecting with others’ lives and stories. What draws me to certain people tells me what I need to know about myself.

I recently watched the movie “Into The Wild” and it effected me deeply. So deeply that I sobbed harder than I have in awhile while thinking about the main character’s life. I decided that a reaction like that deserved all of my attention, so I next turned to reading the book this weekend while hiking through the forests of Georgia. I just finished it and wanted to express some thoughts and feelings about why this story effected me so deeply.

If you haven’t seen the movie yet and hate spoilers, you might not want to read further. Although the telling of this story stands strong on its own I know that some people do not like spoilers, so here is the obligatory warning.

“Into The Wild” is Jon Krakauer’s (great author) telling of a true story about a 24 year old man named Chris McCandless. In short, it is a story about his adventure away from his family and eventually into the wild of Alaska. It is difficult for many people to understand why someone who came from an affluent family, graduated with a high GPA from Emory University and had all of the wealth available to him decided to give all of his money away and wander the earth.

I am not convinced that it is as difficult to understand if you are in touch with your true desires. At least for me, it made perfect sense to me why he acted in this manner. In both the book and the movie you quickly learn that he came from a family that did not try to understand his desires but rather tried to project their own onto him. When he did not fit the mold that his father and mother expected they rejected him. They did this by trying to shame him for who he was. He made an effort for awhile to fit into their mold by going to school, getting good grades and succeeding at multiple ventures. Eventually something inside him could no longer take the lie and he fled to discover who he really was.

I think that more people have this desire more than they would like to admit. Admitting something usually means that action is just around the corner. I know that is my biggest fear in admitting my desires out loud. It means that I’m no longer ignoring the desires of the multitude of personalities in my mind and allowing them access to the wheel of my fate. I think this is why most people hide their desires and keep them in their mind or deep within the pages of a journal.

To hide from others is to kill who we are as humans. What’s even more frustrating about that is that we usually suppress our own desires because it brings to light the regret others feel about suppressing their own.

Chris surpressed his desires for 22 years. Once he was done with college he donated $22,000 in savings to a charity, burned all of his identification and hit the road. He renamed himself Alexander Supertramp and spent the next three years of his life trying to find himself. He canoed down treacherous parts of the Colorado River all the way to Mexico, hitchhiked back to The United States, met other tramps of all different walks of life (and effected each one deeply) and then set out to Alaska for his greatest adventure. This is where the story took a deep turn and one that I had to face in myself due to the outcome. Alex went into the Alaska wilderness fairly unprepared and died there from starvation.

That’s where the unconscious can be tricky. If you go against the grain of society without understanding why, then I think the programming in your brain, that your parents instilled in you, sets off a time bomb that leads to some form of self destruction. It’s programming that is your parents harshest way of saying, “I told you so.”

It’s not tragic that he died. Tragic implies that it was just a random uncontrollable act of nature. It’s extremely sad that he died because he did not have to.

I spent a lot of the movie and book feeling anger towards Alex’s parents. They set up that time bomb in him to keep him in their mold. This effects me personally because I decided to take a break from my own family a number of years ago. I know the early programming that my parents instilled in me is activated every time I do something that deeply connects to my desires and is against their own. Even though my parents are not in my life to tell me what I should and should not do, they still have a deep unconscious effect on me. Where this shows up most in my life is when new relationships are brought into my orbit. It’s an effect that I spend much of my time and money in therapy trying to counteract. I also counteract this through having conversations with myself to figure out what is true and not.

Although I feel a great amount of anger and frustration with the knowledge that I would not have to go through this effort on my own if my parents had have just dealt with their own issues before having children, I want to emphasize that it is exhilarating to achieve personal freedom through this process. Unlike Alex, I understand the necessity to continue to face the demons of my past before I throw myself into my desires.

One of my biggest desires at the moment is travel. I would like to quit my job for a year or two and explore this country (and eventually the world). I think and feel that it would be a healthy and enlightening experience. It’s one that I plan on continuing to explore with an open mind and heart. But before I set forth to make the most of this short existence, I want to make sure I defuse this bomb in the brain.

To Alex… I’m deeply sorry your parents never tried to understand you. From what I read, they still refuse to understand you to this day and are in their own personal hell because of it. I’m happy you made the effort to escape and am sad that your history caught up to you in such a cruel way.

And to those who connect to Alex like I do… Learn from Alex and defuse that bomb (and keep defusing it). After that, life is yours.

“An idiot repeats his mistakes. A smart man learns from his mistakes. But a genius learns from the mistakes of others.” -unknown

I have my own revision to this quote: “An unconscious human repeats his mistakes. An awakening human learns from his mistakes. A conscious human being learns from the mistakes of others. Each is a stage of the journey to truth. Each is important in its own right.”

Tags: alexander supertramp, extrospection, into the wild, introspection