People often walk into situations without thinking things through. How many times have you ever walked into a place and just know it’s not right for you to be there. As a human being we are naturally curious and we know no boundaries. As people, like McCandless, have shown us we are drawn to the unknown and the risks that come with it. As an adult with a teenagers brain, McCandless proves that teenagers have a totally different thought process than adults. In the article “Why the Teen Brain Is Drawn to Risk” by Maia Szalavitz, she claims that “teens tend to wildly overestimate certain risks”. As teenagers we tend to look into places and things that are unknown to us. As McCandless proves to us over and over again, he tends to walk into things without thinking through the end results. Leaving his parents and sister behind without so much as a goodbye is one of the first signs. Chris proves throughout the book that he loved his sister very much. His parents however were a totally different story. As the child of a man who was rather self-absorbed, Chris was very opposed to most types of authority. His father claimed to only “want what’s best for Chris”, when in reality he simply wanted Chris to follow in his footsteps. “Walt is accustomed to calling the shots.” (105) Being in control is something that, to some degree, we all crave. Our worst fear is our fear of the unknown. And we can’t control what we don’t know. Walt was accustomed to being in control, because that’s the position he’s always held. At work, at home, and any other place he’s been, Walt is a man who knows what he’s doing. “The Wild still lingered in him and the wolf in him merely slept.” (Jack London, White Fang) As a fan of Jack London, McCandless was very persuaded to follow in his footsteps. As a child and even as teenagers, we all have a role model. Personally, (as a singer) my inspiration was always Demi Lovato, Selena Gomez, and other powerhouse singers of that liking. When we idolize someone we strive to shadow them as much as possible. After reading Jack London, Chris got this crazy idea in his head. “If London can do it, I can do it.” That’s usually the type of thinking that gets a person killed. “He was mastered by the sheer surging of life, the tidal wave of being, the perfect joy of each separate muscle, joint, and sinew in that it was everything that was not death, that it was aglow and rampant, expressing itself in movement, flying exultantly under the stars.” (Jack London, The Call of the Wild) In order to truly connect with nature, we must become one with it.
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We can not surround ourselves with people and phones and other materialistic things to achieve peace and to become one with nature. For McCandless, the best way to do that was to pack his things and whirlwind up into Alaska. Along the way he encountered some people that maybe (just maybe) he should’ve taken their advice. Meet Franz. An elderly gentleman who has more sense in one bone than Chris had in his whole body. Chris was an adventurer of the most extreme. He was reckless and ignorant to the problems
We can not surround ourselves with people and phones and other materialistic things to achieve peace and to become one with nature. For McCandless, the best way to do that was to pack his things and whirlwind up into Alaska. Along the way he encountered some people that maybe (just maybe) he should’ve taken their advice. Meet Franz. An elderly gentleman who has more sense in one bone than Chris had in his whole body. Chris was an adventurer of the most extreme. He was reckless and ignorant to the problems