Krakauer's Focus on Outcasts

In Into the Wild, John Krakauer takes a break from explaining the life and motives of adventurer Chris McCandless to address the issue of outcasts, a name that many have labeled McCandless with. By leaving his family and stable life in order to live alone, many would think that McCandless was simply misunderstood because of his personal opinions. Krakauer goes on to explain why Chris's trek into the wilderness was more than copout and he also adds the accounts of others who undertook similar tasks. He takes a break from the main character and he instead focuses on several other adventurers who set out into nature for various reasons in order to contrast them with McCandless' situation.
Because Krakauer had already spent time on explaining McCandless' journey and motives expansively, the accounts of the other risk takers seem to be a bit more crazy than Chris's. Krakauer describes the lives of some saying that some came out of failure and could find no other way to find meaning than to go out into a dangerous environment. In one example in particular, a young man by the name of Everett Ruess went out into nature surviving on his own under several different names other than his own. Krakauer takes time to examine how these names depict Ruess' journey as well as McCandless'. For some reason, two of these adventurers decided that they needed to go out and rediscover nature and themselves but that they also needed a new identity to make it official.
Sometimes people grow up with difficult circumstances or bad choices that lead to awful experiences. In the end, these experiences create someone they never wanted to be; they were only an effect of what raised them. In regards to Chris McCandless, his family was never easy. He ended up leaving home because of the injustices he faced as a child through his parents. Once he found himself free and liberated on the road, Chris began calling himself Alex Supertramp. At first, this name seems rather silly but on the other hand, it shows how desperately McCandless wanted out of his old life. He wanted to start completely new, without knowing anyone beforehand and without the influence of his parents on his decisions or attitude. Alex Supertramp became his new identity which encompassed every opinion he had towards life.

Re-inventing Myself

If I were to follow in the footsteps of Chris McCandless of re-inventing myself, but not to the extreme of wandering into the Alaskan wilderness, I would tun to a similar kind of mission yet in a different area: The Appalachian Trail. When I read about McCandless' ideals and journey, I admire his bravery and conviction towards righting the things he found wrong in order to start a new life. I actually find this idea to be slightly tantalizing and I have a small urge to do the same.
Since camping and hiking through my years in Boy Scouts, I have always been a fan of the outdoors and the concept of being alone without society constantly buzzing in the background. In fact, after I went on a scout trip to the Northern end of the Appalachian trail at Mount Katahdin, I started to consider taking this interest to the next level. I had already seen thru-hikers, people hiking the entire Appalachian trail in one go, on the trail, but it wasn't until I saw the end of it that I imagined the possibility of actually taking on this challenge.
I had once been hiking for ten days straight on a scout ranch in New Mexico and when I was there, I felt a sense of calm and relaxation because of the intense connection with nature I was able to experience. Looking at the Appalachian Trail, I see a crazy opportunity to tackle a large goal that inculdes the peace of nature and the excitement of the sights. The liberation in nature and also from society is very appealling to me and is something that I feel will help me develop my own values as a human. Sometimes we all need to take some time to separate ourselves from the stresses and intricasies of society to realize the true important things in life. I feel that my faith and positive attitude would benefit greatly from this expedition as I would face many diffictulties and tough times on the trail.
To set off on a trail in the woods with the supplies needed to complete a trip over two thousand miles of hiking invigorates me. The freedom and responsibility involved in the undertaking is hard to completely grasp until I take that first step on my own. While all of this thought and discussion about the Appalachian trail has been hypothetical, I still consider taking on this challenge as an option for me further down the road. I would love to put my entire life on hold just to discover nature and the world apart from society. The growth I would experience is practically unfathomable and would be something I wouldn't trade for the world.

Reaction to Chris McCandless

As I read John Krakauer's book Into the Wild, I found that Chris McCandless' story was ridiculous. At first, it seemed like McCandless was somewhat crazy but I feel that there is more to him than the crazy and young man that his story portrays. In actuality, as Krakauer describes, McCandless had a method to his madness and explains why he decided to take on such a strange task that eventually resulted in his death.

When Chris McCandless began his journey across the United States towards Alaska, he was trying to escape his monotonous life of living in excess and in lies. His ideals came to the forefront as he justified why he left his family and lives with little to no provisions. Although his solution to his problems was a bit extreme, McCandless exhibited a kind of view on life that exceeds the issues and stresses of life. He searches for more than thrills on his journey and instead discovers a new self-meaning in the world. McCandless bypasses the pettiness of our current society and lives in a world where he is responsible only for himself. Because McCandless identified that he disagreed with something and then ventured to separate himself from it, it shows how strong-willed he was despite any rash decisions he made in the process of liberating himself.

Nowadays, the initiative and conviction that McCandless felt towards escaping society is seldom seen. Too many times people will find an issue they disagree with, complain about it to themselves and others but they fail to do anything about it. While McCandless didn’t necessarily change the world to right its wrongs, he made a point to expel the issue from his life completely. This kind of idealism and perseverance sets McCandless apart from the other adventurers that Krakauer mentions in his book because they don’t have as much motivation as him. McCandless realized something he disagreed with and set out to make it right in his own life, an example that we can all follow, but maybe not to the same extreme, in our own lives.

 

Transcendentalism Reflection

Looking at the effects of greed in Tolstoy's short story as well as in real life, I'm not a big fan of material possessions. Let me rephrase, I don't think that posessions are the worst things are the worst but they become dangerous when they affect us and change our perspectives on the world. A lot of times people become bored with what they have which leads them to search for more, which, in their minds, means searching for hapiness. In fact, matrials don't play as huge a role as we would think. As long as we separate our personal ideas and values from the reach of possessions, we can live with them as a part of our lives.
Too often I see people spoiled by what they have. This bothers me. First off, whenever we get something, we typically fail to think about where it came from. The most common instance of this is a lack of gratitude from a small child or even an adult. While the behavior of the child is acceptable and it is not so extreme with adults, we still see traces of this imaturity towards expectation in society. A large part of this expectation is a sense of entitlement. We feel that we deserve the things we want, even if we don't need them. Here is where the corruption of possessions comes in; it starts to rule even our thinking.
Once we feel deserving of the things we have and those that we strive to receive, we begin to take other things for granted. It's very easy to see how taking things for granted could be bad in reference towards wanting more but at the same time, our obsession with possessions alters our attitudes towards our daily lives. Even if we might not feel it, there is a small sense of glory and pride that we get from the things we have and those that we plan after going through the appropriate steps.
In a way, having things makes you less likely to work towards something worthwhile other than more things. I feel that we always set our eyes on the next greatest knick-knack rather than the intagibles that we can find in experiences and other situations that don't include owning things. There is so much more beyond items that we could be exploring rather than staring at our favorite new product until it bores us. I say get out there and fix your eyes on the real world. You don't own it. You never will. Go out and see as much as you can before it gets tired of you.

Re-introducing Neal D

Since I began here at the crazy place called college, I find myself incredibly more busy than I would have expected. At first, this sounds like I'm overwhelmed and can't wait to go running back to my laxidazical ways at home but in fact, all of this invigorates me. While you expect that my classes are the main cause of my new and hectic life, I have actually found a good balance wth schoolwork and have branched out beyond it. I branched out a lot actually, maybe even too much.

Excited about all of my options on campus, once I saw that I could handle my classes, I immediately took to finding new things to do. Since these activities have consumed a lot of my time between practices, meetings, games, and performances. Still, I find enjoyment in all of these things and I even feel energized when I take on multiple tasks and activities at once just to fit them all in.

Along with these new clubs and groups to be a part of, in the end I have to turn back to the reason  am actually here: classes. Now is the time for choosing the very best of the classes for my Spring semester and I have to say, the word hectic hardly describes it. Maybe it's just me, but I have had definite decisions paired with second guesses for almost a month in preparation for this next semester. Part of my indecision with classes is also that I am starting to question my interests for my focus at college.

I came to Juniata loving languages. I am currently taking two foreign languages and am even considering taking a third. This is where the issue comes in. I'm supposed to be a joint German and Math major but at the moment, I find myself leaning towards languages so much more so than math that I'm looking for other subjects to pair my passion for language with. I hope that with ideas and support from my alumni, my professors, and my parents I will be able to find the right combination for my future.