We all are a
byproduct of our desires…of what we dream!
Dreams are a
byproduct of our imagination…
and imagination is
vivid…
It varies from
person to person..
It can make human a
butterfly,
and all that
butterflies do---
Is wander!
Alexander
Supertramp was a young American hiker and traveler who, at the age of 24,
relinquished city life to live solitary in the Alaskan woods, away from
civilization and material comforts.
Four
months later, in August 1992, he was found starved to death inside an abandoned
bus he had been using as a makeshift shelter.
There
are different kinds of people- not getting into the classification. My focus is
on the ones who are driven by wanderlust: a strong desire for or impulse to
wander or travel and explore the world. There are many lost souls who are
wandering...for inner peace, for a perspective. This perspective, this search
is not for a job, or a career but for something beyond. And beyond is vague.
I
read Into the Wild in 2009 – A non-fiction book by Jon Krakauker on the unusual
life of Alexander Supertramp, whose real name was Christopher McCandeless, The
book is an expansion of Krauker’s 9000 word article “Death of an Innocent”,
which appeared in the January 1993 issue of Outside. The book was further
adapted to a film directed by Sean Penn with Emily Hirsch playing McCandeless.
If
you think that you do not belong here, that there are places in your head, and
that you seek pleasure in an escape- Into the Wild is the book for you.
And
that is why McCandless is a very important connotation. As he said, “Careers are a 21st century invention”.
It
has been twenty-three years; since McCandless’ decomposed body was discovered
inside a rusting bus outside the northern boundary of Denali National Park,
Alaska, USA in 1992. The bus was a makeshift shelter for trappers and other
backcountry visitors. A note was recovered taped to the door of the bus on a
page torn from a novel by Nikolai Gogol:
Attention possible
visitors.
S.O.S.
I need your help. I
am injured, near death, and too weak to hike out of here. I am all alone, this
is no joke. In the name of god, please remain to save me. I am out collecting
berries close by and shall return this evening. Thank you,
Chris McCandless
August?
Had
McCandless been alive today, he would have been 46 years old.
He
was a superhero for many and hated by many.
Alaskans
hate him for being the arrogant young man that he was. They termed him as
somebody having a lack of common sense. His endeavor into a wilderness area
unaccompanied, without sufficient planning, experience, preparation, or
supplies, without notifying anyone and lacking emergency communication
equipment, was contrary to every principle of outdoor survival and, in the eyes
of many experienced outdoor enthusiasts, nearly certain to end in misfortune.
McCandeless
was trying to be a Henry David Thoreou, a Tolstoy. He was trying to decipher
life. He was finding his own answers.
How
many of us will take that risk?
How
many of us will leave our secured lives and do something different that drives
us.
How
may of us would write poetry under the stars?
How
many of us would have the courage to look at life by living it…by not becoming
mechanical.
An
excerpt from the book says…
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“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 dangerous 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.”
-----Jon Krakauker,
Into the Wild
McCandeless
did that!
He
wished and pursued something. Something that was beyond the understanding of his
parents. He did not hate relationships, but he wanted to seek the beyond. This
beyond was far ahead of his family ties and engagements, of a career.
As
he wrote in his journal “When you want
something in life, you just gotta reach out and grab it.”
McCandeless
wished for happiness.
He
wanted realization.
McCandeless
is one person. I am sure there are several others. Incidents unknown, untold,
not reported.
But
the spirit of these unheard, unsung heroes is there.
“The core of mans' spirit comes from new experiences.”
It
drives some fanatical.
It
takes those souls to places- as they say when
you plan a journey, a place calls you.
“I have lived through much, and
now I think I have found what is needed for happiness. A quiet secluded life in
the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy
to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them. And work which
one hopes may be of some use. Then rest, nature, books, music, love for one's
neighbor. Such is my idea of happiness. And then,on top of all that, you for a
mate, and children perhaps. What more can the heart of a man desire?” --- Underlined by McCandeless in the
book Family Happiness by Leo Tolstoy
And
he realized…that he needs to go back from the bus, get out and tell his
parents, people he loved that he learned in wilderness a valuable lesson…that HAPPINESS IS ONLY REAL WHEN SHARED.
Had
McCandless’s guidebook to edible plants warned that Hedysarum alpinum seeds contain a neurotoxin that can cause paralysis;
he probably would have walked out of the wild in late August with no more
difficulty than when he walked into the wild in April, and would still be with
us.
Alexander
Supertramp is a learning for many of us.
That
it is good to search and seek truth. That truth is undeniable and many a times
- harsh. But some of us learn it the hard way. We need blows to find our niche.
We
need to know, that in a total world population of 7.119 billion, we are a
speck. We are grains of sand constantly moving here and there. Finding space,
direction, lightness and the question to the eternal answer:
Why I am living?
As published in Life Beyond Numbers: http://lifebeyondnumbers.com/alexander-supertramp-driven-wanderlust-wild/
