Last night I watched the movie "Into the Wild".
Actually I watched it for the second time. The first time I watched it I also got the book and did some internet research, it touched me so.
It's a true story about Christopher McCandless AKA Alexander Supertramp who upon graduation throws establishment to the wind and embarks on the road to freedom.
He's smart, enterprising, and surprisingly sociable for a guy who just wants to get away from it all, but I guess that the bottom line is what he was getting away from was his family, rules, regulations and constraint that he found restrictive, fraudulent, hypocritical, impractical and oppressive – an assault on beauty and the true things in life.
Most of us grin and bear it. Absorb it, take it on, complain about, let it over come us… eventually become us.. and never do anything to follow our own path.
FRESH OUT OF THE GATE
Maybe he hit a nerve for me because I can identify.
My family home was overbearing, emotionally abusive with little support or nurture. I've come to accept and even understand it, but it took me many, many years – certainly not when I was young and fresh out of the gate – which was at the first possible moment when I was out of school and had earned some money to live on.
When I was about 21, I bought 25 acres borrowing money from my grandparents and working a waitressing job to pay for it, about 15km out of the small northern town I had moved to.
I put a mobile home on it, it's all that I could afford – with no amneties – including as I later found out, insulation in the walls. Believe me, uninsulated trailers are for Florida!
6 MONTHS NO HYDRO, 1 YEAR NO RUNNING WATER
I spent 6 months with no hydro, a year with no running water and the first winter literally slept with my winter coat on as it was heated with a franklin stove in the livingroom – for those of you who know anything about wood stoves, which I didn't – it didn't cut it, not even close. It heated about 3 feet diameter around the stove and went out completely about 1am.
I experienced the isolation, the loneliness, being afraid, not knowing. And the euphoria of nature, of doing it for myself, of making it on next to nothing.
I live just north of Muskoka, it regularly goes below -40 at night, and for a few cold snaps throughout the year during the day. It was cold.
I ended up closing up the back part with a curtain. Upon peering in one day I found an ice rink.
Somehow the roof had leaked in the hall, maybe heat had collected up there, it wasn't far from the wood stove, I don't remember exactly how it happened, but the water had frozen on the floor.
Anyway, I know what Chris was searching for, as I found it here.
PEACE AND FREEDOM CAN BE HARD TO COME BY
As uncomfortable as it sounds, I found peace and freedom, the same peace and freedom that Christopher searched for, and found – be it in a much larger and extreme way.
Those years where some of the best of my life.
Chris is quoted as saying
"I read somewhere how important it is in life, not necessarily to be strong, but to feel strong. To measure yourself at least once".
This really sums it up. When I need a shot of intestinal fortitude, I only need to remember those years and remember that yes, I am as strong as I need to be, given any situation.
True grit. I know it's here somewhere.
OR MAYBE IT'S BECAUSE…
Or maybe his story strikes me because I have a son just out of high school, a few years younger than Chris when he embarked on his adventure. Maybe I look at Christopher and find it easy to imagine myself as his mother and the feeling the unfathomable guilt and loss.
And thank God that my biggest issues with my son is keeping his old truck going and getting him up on time for work.
Or maybe it's because he died a slow and lonely death. Too high a price to pay for following your own path to peace and freedom.
Such a horrible and sad waste.
EVERYONE SHOULD WATCH
As I watched the movie I thought, this is a movie that everyone should watch.
Everyone who finds themselves tied to too much stuff. Chris found it easy to let go of everything.
Everyone who finds it hard to appreciate what they have. Chris found out too late.
Everyone who wants a little boost of freedom. To see that life is what you make it.
Chris lost his life, but in the meantime, he made it exactly what he wanted it to be with sheer strength of will and even audacity.
TAKE TIME TO LIVE
And somehow from a distance looking in… his withering death and life of little compromise tells us one thing loud and clear…
Take time to live.
There has been a lot of controversy concerning his motives, his sanity and his actions.
What's your take?
