into the wild.

i saw this movie last weekend and it still haunts me. something about it resonates with me, saddens me, yet inspires me, but most importantly, stays with me. mccandless' journey approximates the extreme form of my quest for soul-searching. frankly, i just don't have what it takes to give up all comforts i've ever known and to relinquish my life to the great unknown. plus, i don't think i'd like the taste of squirrels, porcupines, and woodpeckers.

McCandless represents the human urge to push the limits of experience, to live a life untouched by the trappings of culture and civilization.

His name was Chris McCandless, a 24-year-old honors graduate, star athlete, and beloved brother and son from a wealthy but dysfunctional East Coast family. With a head full of Jack London and Thoreau, McCandless rechristened himself "Alexander Supertramp," cut all ties with his family, gave his trust fund to charity, and embarked on a two-year odyssey that brought him to Alaska, that mystic repository of American notions of wilderness, a blank spot on the map where he could test the limits of his wits and endurance. Setting off with little more than a .22 caliber rifle and a 10-pound bag of rice, McCandless hoped to find his true self by renouncing society and living off the land. But, as Craig Medred would note in the Anchorage Daily News, "the Alaska wilderness is a good place to test yourself. The Alaska wilderness is a bad place to find yourself." No one ever saw McCandless alive again. Fifteen years later his story continues to resonate as a quintessentially American tale, and its hero has assumed near mythic status, blurring the lines between living memory and the creation of a legend.

From almost the moment he was found, the meaning of Chris McCandless's life and lonely death has been fiercely argued. The debate falls into two camps: Krakauer's visionary seeker, the tragic hero who dared to live the unmediated life he had dreamed of and died trying; or, as many Alaskans see it, the unprepared fool, a greenhorn who had fundamentally misjudged the wilderness he'd wanted so desperately to commune with.

I prefer the romantic view.

RIP CM.