Into the Wild

Recently, according to my writing class's requirments, I am reading the book INto the Wild.

Into The Wild is an nonfiction story of a young man's journey into the Alaskan wilderness to attempt to “live off the land”, written by Jon Krakauer.

The young man in the book, named Chris McCandless, grows up in the Washington D.C. metro area and attends Emory University.

When he graduates college, he donates his money to charity and heads out West.

Sadly, this is not a story with a happy ending, and Chris dies in the Alaskan wilderness, his body is discovered by hunters four months later, and he seemingly dies of starvation.

In the book Into the Wild, McCandless doesn't follow the rules of acquisition and he wants to be completely free.

In recent society, how to acquire more has almost become our purpose in our culture.

If a person has a small house, he will determine to get a bigger house.

If a person works as a salesman, he will work hard to be a manager.

However, McCandless seems strange because he doesn't follow the ideas to acquire more, "So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity and conservation, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more dangerous to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endless changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun" (Into the Wild, Page 57). As for us students, we are always wishing that we could stop the boring study, not follow arrangements from our families and head off into the sunset, but we cannot. We’ve not prepared yet and we don’t have enough trust on ourselves to live in the wild. We are not strong enough, and we are too fearful that our lives will be shortened or we cannot live without our parents because we cannot afford our living expenses. Also, we can’t imagine that we live without television or the internet during the night. We still take comfort in our comfort and we are ashamed to admit. However, McCandless makes it totally. He has given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, and burned all the cash in his wallet. He doesn't mean to show off. He just wants nothing to do with modern technologies in order to be completely free. In general, MaCandless is worthy to be admired because of his courage and noble ideals.