"My shadow runs with me - underneath the big wide sun
My shadow comes with me - as we leave it all, we leave it all far behind ... Subtle voices in the wind - hear the truth they're telling
A world begins where the road ends - watch me leave it all behind."- Eddie Vedder, "Far Behind" (on sidebar mp3)
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It’s been more than 10 years since I thought of Chris McCandless – but like many others, I’ve been dwelling on his story quite a bit lately.
McCandless is the subject of
Into the Wild, a movie based on Jon Krakauer’s book of the same name. The film (not exactly a documentary, but very true to events per multiple reports) chronicles the life and untimely – some would add foolish or misguided – death of a very enigmatic young man.
(The movie also features a remarkably touching soundtrack by Eddie Vedder – two tracks of which are embedded in this page. Think of it as a buy one, get one free mp3 day at R&R - except in this case, the first one is also free. That's just the way I'm rolling today.)
Shortly after graduating with honors from college, McCandless abandoned his life of privilege, gave away all of his belongings, and wandered the country in search of adventure.
His ultimate destination was Alaska, where his emaciated body was found several months later by a group of hunters. What happened between his departure and his demise was pieced together by Krakauer for his 1996 book.
Our collective knowledge of McCandless’s wanderings comes primarily from a handwritten journal he kept along the way, whose sporadic entries are alternately profound and rambling, lighthearted and terrifying. The single unifying sentiment throughout the book is McCandless’s fierce self-reliance, even in the face of danger or despair.
When I first read the book over 10 years ago, I viewed McCandless with a sort of morbid admiration. Like many young adults, the idea of setting forth into the world accountable to nobody, to experience life and nature on my own terms, held a fascinating allure. I identified with the self-determination McCandless demonstrated, and wondered if I would ever make any decisions in life that were anywhere near as bold as the journey of self-discovery he undertook.
Eventually, I put the book back on the shelf, and went about my straitlaced, conservative life. I took on grad school, a career, a family, and other responsibilities that anchor most of us to our relatively mundane daily existence. Gradually, thoughts of McCandless eventually faded away, and I grew to enjoy – even depend upon – the myriad small comforts of life.
The rugged individualist in me never quite disappeared, however. In fact, you could make a case that I’ve been feeding it more and more over the past several years. It comes to the surface most frequently in the midst of my training – whether I’m 6 hours into a nine-hour trail run, or halfway through a 110-mile bike ride, or when I blow off my friends and coworkers to get an extra workout during my lunch break.
Granted, there’s a huge difference between navigating the trails of a regional park somewhere, and fending for survival in the Alaskan wilderness. But it’s only when I’m in those places – alone, willing my body onward, struggling against whatever external forces come my way – that I feel my individual actions have true purpose. And traveling a remote trail on foot, or riding a lonely rural road through the countryside, or swimming through frigid open water, are the best ways I have of communing with the natural world around me anymore. There are very few places where we become free from the influences and annoyances of modern society – so I often find myself clinging to those places and seeking them out as often as possible.
I also think that endurance athletes have a tendency – for better or worse – to believe that the more physical accomplishments they achieve, the less reliant they become on others to assist them towards their goals, or with any other aspect of their life. Either that, or once our weekly mileage gets high enough, the time that's left to spend with friends or family is sadly inadequate. Whatever the reason, many of us frequently grow more isolated from those around us when we excessively dedicate ourselves to our training or racing regimens.
In other words, many athletes continually engage in individualism, isolation, and dismissal of the support systems around us … which brings us back to Chris McCandless.
I picked up my tattered copy of
Into the Wild again last week. Flipping through the pages, I realized that the past 10 years have given me a profoundly different viewpoint of the idealistic drifter than I initially recognized. I can’t say I feel admiration anymore – instead, all I feel is a lot of sadness.
Sadness - because as a father, I know what a struggle it is to provide for your children, to help them develop a passion for something, or to give them opportunities to succeed in life on their own terms. To then have a child reject all of that, and willingly set off on a path of self-destruction, would probably be more than I could bear.
Sadness – because there were clearly many gifts bestowed upon Chris that were never used for any greater good. Escaping into the wilderness is noble in some ways, but greatly irresponsible in others. How much positive change could someone with his fortitude and strong convictions have affected working within society, instead of holding it at arm’s length? It’s the great tragedy of unrealized potential, told again and again in various forms, each one as regrettable as the last.
Sadness – because self-reliance is generally a good quality, but when it’s forged by way of isolation from everyone around us, we lose the greater benefit of friendships and connections to others. What good is it to live for an ideal, if you eliminate any possibility of ever sharing those ideals and dreams with anybody else?
This last item was the big red flag for me upon my second reading of the story. You know that stuff I wrote about six paragraphs ago, about how endurance athletes isolate themselves? Honestly, I have no idea if that’s true for anybody else – I just know it’s especially true for me. I’ve gotten myself into trouble at times, and let relationships die that I wish I had maintained, solely because of a single-minded focus on the next workout, the next race, the next Great Challenge. It’s easy to say that there should be a balance between our athletic exploits and our other interests and responsibilities; it’s an altogether more difficult task to actually maintain such an accord.
(And while we're here ... in regards to my recent hand-wringing about entering the Western States lottery, this post shouldn’t be taken as an indication of a decision being made one way or the other. It’s just a collection of thoughts that came to me when I revisited a story I thought I knew, but came away believing I had it all wrong. Trust me - if and when I enter the lottery, I won't keep it a secret.)
10 years ago, I saw aspects of myself in Chris McCandless, and it was a point of pride for me. I still see bits of myself in him today, but now I feel ashamed.
I guess I’ve traveled quite far in the past decade – and thankfully, it didn't require an epic journey into the wilderness.
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"Such is the way of the world, you can never know -
Just where to put all your faith, and how will it grow ...
Gonna rise up - Burning black holes in dark memories
Gonna rise up - Turning mistakes into gold."
- Eddie Vedder, "Rise" (click to play)
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