Give me a break. The guy was most certainly not an independent thinker. Nor was he a critical thinker. Nor did he have any respect for the challenge he was taking on. He was an angst ridden teenage boy captured in an twenty something's body that never learned the difference between fantasy and reality. Most importantly, he never learned that in the real world there are consequences for stupid actions.
This. The previous comment is the reason why McCandless is such a polarizing figure. Those who prepare and go on a quest without suffering negative consequences are somehow derided for not being independent thinkers, somehow cheapened for not risking enough.
"Adventure is just bad planning." - Roald Amundsen
The good admiral has a point, but I don't think it gets to the heart of the McCandless drama.
For that, I think I'd look to Norman Maclean's _Young Men and Fire_ where he talks about smoke jumpers:
"It is very important to a lot of people to make unmistakably clear to themselves and to the universe that they love the universe but are not intimidated by it and will not be shaken by it, no matter what it has in store. Moreover, they demand something from themselves early in life that can be taken ever after as a demonstration of this abiding feeling...
"For many former Smokejumpers, then, smokejumping is not closely tied up with their [eventual] way of life, but is more something that is necessary for them to pass through and not around and, once it is unmistakably done, does not have to be done again. The 'it' is within, and is the need to settle some things with the universe and ourselves before taking on the 'business of the world,' which isn't all that special or hard but takes time. This 'it' is the something special within that demands we do something special, and 'it' could be within a lot of us."
If people here are reading this and haven't already realized some parallels between not just McCandless and smokejumpers but also entrepreneurs I'd be surprised.
Now, you can draw distinctions between McCandless and smokejumpers, too: the later train and drill and prepare, probably as well as Amundsen could be satisfied with. And their work has a practical end. But their work is still an adventure because they also operate in an area of high risk, and as a result they sometimes pay a high cost.
And they don't do this job for entirely practical reasons. They do it because they have a need for an internal narrative that settles certain things and establishes a kind of identity, they do it because they need something off the beaten track for middle class success.
McCandless was clearly looking for that. I think it's fair to ask if he'd been a little less romantic about it and a little more thoughtful whether he might have had both his survival adventure and his survival.
Then again, unless you're Batman or some other protagonist whose superpower is acute anticipation by authorial fiat, it's mitigated by the limits of the best laid plans.
Smoke jumpers are taking on a job that offers a boon to others, so I politely give them the benefit of the doubt. Thus it is an exercise in adult behavior, even if the details of their personal motives are more ambiguous.
I do recognize a degree of courage in a young man going into the wild to heal the angst and alienation plaguing his soul. Yet I bristle at the suggestion such is automatically heroic or independent thinking, and (implicitly or explicitly) the less wounded amongst us can be dismissed as "sheep", as some admirers have done in this discussion.
I am sorry, but I see no evidence that McCandless ever had a single original thought in his head. He never completed the "hero's journey" in either the literary or practical sense -- he failed to achieve enlightenment and return with his boon, to help himself and/or others. He failed. He may have had some courage to admire, but he ultimately failed when it came to the big important stuff.
McCandless was an adolescent in a man's body -- he was not proven capable of handling adult responsibilities. That is not necessarily a negative in itself -- we are where we are in life, and being honest about it and doing something about it is a fine thing. But I am not going to be patient with people lecturing genuine adults about how this adolescent has deep insights into life. Sorry, but that is just wishful thinking by people who mistake ignorance and low intellectual standards for originality.
I see what you are saying but like you said, smoke jumpers prepare. While they might jump into hazardous conditions it is not done without a risk:reward ratio well above 'adventure'.
When best laid plans fail they are forgiven because there were at least plans.
I think it's an interesting point you raise about entrepreneurs, and I think that is why I feel a connection to Chris. I certainly know that I seem to think differently from that vast majority of people. That is useful in coming up with novel ideas, but it can also make it challenging fitting into society.
I like to think of adventure as good planning combined with inherently difficult circumstances. The first treks to the poles were quite the adventure, yet they were also highly methodical and carefully planned.
> Those who prepare and go on a quest without suffering negative consequences are somehow derided for not being independent thinkers, somehow cheapened for not risking enough.
Who is "deriding them for not being independent thinkers?" Maybe others who go on quests are independent in their own way, none of the comments here are trying to say one way or the other. What the comment DOES imply though, is that there are a lot of people who don't try anything like that at all, no matter the level of preparation.
Your comment sounds like he harmed other people with his stupid actions. He was harmless to everyone but himself.
And the consequence, he paid it with his life.
The nobel part is that he actually left everything behind while most of us are drowning into urban life.
He wasnt a hero in traditional sense of 'saving, helping' other people. He is a hero who had what it takes to leave society behind while we cannot let go of smallest of things.
(in reply to emilsedgh)
Because he was trying to find meaning and purpose in his life.
What struck me most powerfully was that he did actually discover the meaning of life (or at least one aspect of it) when he says "happiness only real when shared". So it appears that he did actually figure out how to have a meaningful life, but unfortunately never actually got to put it into practice. That is the saddest part of the whole story for me.
"Humans are social creatures, so why is leaving what we need/depend upon heroic?"
He challenged that idea. Isnt that heroic? To let go of whole society. Everything and Everyone.
Please, at least agree with me that what he did was daring. So damn daring that makes him a hero to me.
Nor did he have any respect for the challenge he was taking on.
The conclusion is that he died from a specific set of circumstances that few people knew were deadly. I think that directly counters the notion that he "he had no respect for the challenge" because I believe people arrive at that conclusion backwards: he died doing it, so he must have been foolhardy.
