Admiring truth...

I watched the most amazing movie last night about a brave man, a kid really. He dared to give up all of his connections in search of truth. I can't even imagine what that must be like to release all your sources of meaning. Everything that has defined you- your relationships, your status, your education, your money, your every possession, your name. How frightening it must have been. This kid relinquished all of that and escaped toward God, toward our one doorway to the eternal- nature.

Afterward, many people said he was foolish, self-destructive, and, worse, selfish for his choice to abandon his family and friends and disappear into the wild. They said he had a death wish, because there were so many things he could have done to make his trek easier. And, that was the part that struck me the most about this movie. Life, as seen through the main character's eyes, was too easy. He wanted it to be hard, to be a challenge, to be more meaningful to him. He didn't want to swipe a card and get a meal; he wanted to hunt, prepare, and cook his food. He didn't want to drive to where he was going; he wanted to climb mountains, cross raging rivers, and hike through desserts to move forward. He didn't want to grow comfortable and lazy in his relationships; he wanted to meet new people and learn new things.

It's no wonder we are all such fakes. We all live our lives for each other- and not in a healthy way. In the end, he determines that relationships are what brings meaning to life, yet not relationships based on pleasing other people. Not even that, but based on societal expectations of what people should be. We follow. Most of us are just regurgitated xeroxes of what our childhoods created. Most of us can't even tell you who we are, let alone why we are that way. Most of us stay stagnant in the comfort of who we are. Most of us never challenge our paint-by-number lifestyle.

Christopher McCandless was not selfish. He understood something that almost no one throughout all of human history ever has. That we are here to live a life that is by definition our own, of our own making. There is no right way. And, people who find that selfish are only scared.


The Tule tree. It is 2000 to 3000 years old, and has a circumference of 160 feet.