Chris McCandless’s Rational Exploration: To claim that a young 22 year old boy going into the Alaskan wilderness alone is ignorant, witless, and crazy is inaccurate. This is Chris McCandless. McCandless embarked on a two year long, solo journey to break away from societal exceptions, and discover himself, along with the unknowns of the wild that was recorded in the writings of “Into The Wild” by Jon Krakauer. Shaun Callarman, a former police officer and now writer, expressed his disapproval of McCandless’ journey by attesting, “I think that Chris McCandless was bright and ignorant at the same time. He had no common sense, and he had no business going into Alaska with his romantic silliness. He made a lot of mistakes based on arrogance. I don’t …show more content…
Every individual has his or her own life experiences that make up how they interact with the world. McCandless’s motivations and experiences led him to be the contemplative, idealistic, adventurous man we all know him as. These somewhat “reckless” actions stemmed from his deep desire for freedom and real connection with the wild. "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 conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality, nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun" (Krakauer 57). This makes plain just how deeply McCandless wanted to have a full, valuable life and to him that meant exploring the country, letting go of what could hold him back, and wanting