Imagine living one hundred and twelve days alone in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness. Try to wrap your brain around the idea of living with no human contact, little food, and no way out. If one has ever heard of Chris McCandless, they simply think he was a crazy man who let himself starve in the Alaskan wilderness. People think he was ignorant for embarking on such a radical expedition with little supplies and scarce knowledge of the land. Others thought he was just a lazy bum who could not handle the stresses of everyday life so, he decided to hide for civilization. Well, the true is he was not crazy or lazy. He was living a transcendental life. Transcendentalism is a simple way of life that helps one better understand nature. Specific examples of transcendentalism will be explained from McCandless’s life and also my personal opinions regarding transcendentalism.
At the beginning of chapter 5 of Into the Wild, McCandless got a full time job working at McDonalds. He spends
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Franz was a retired army veteran who once had a drinking problem. He becomes good friends with McCandless. The letter warns Franz that living a comfortable life is the most harmful. A man should have an endlessly changing horizon with nothing holding him back from happiness. This letter is basically tells Frank that he has many more years to live and he should make a dramatic change to his everyday life and live nomadically. This action is following the transcendental belief of the importance of self-expression and self-reliance. It is following this belief because, McCandless wants Franz to live on the move and do what he needs to do in order to be happy. This same idea is shown in, “Self-Reliance.” Ralph Waldo Emerson, the author of, “Self-Reliance,” stresses that one should always be their own person on page 394. That is what McCandless is saying in his letter to