Supertramp

Ever since my trip to Williamsburg/VA Beach, I’ve been hooked on the Into the Wild soundtrack and especially hooked on the song I shared with you all on Monday, “Society.”  The song comes from the soundtrack of a top-notch movie (Into the Wild), which is based on a classic wilderness book.  

Click play to see the movie trailer.  Warning: you'll probably have to go to Best Buy, or some other store, to purchase the movie after watching this:

For those of you who are unfamiliar with John Krakauer’s Into the Wild, here’s a short summary, which I found on Amazon.com:

In April 1992 a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. His name was Christopher Johnson McCandless. He had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself. Four months later, his decomposed body was found by a moose hunter.  How McCandless came to die is the unforgettable story of Into the Wild.

Immediately after graduating from college in 1991, McCandless had roamed through the West and Southwest on a vision quest like those made by his heroes Jack London and John Muir.  In the Mojave Desert he abandoned his car, stripped it of its license plates, and burned all of his cash.  He would give himself a new name, Alexander Supertramp, and, unencumbered by money and belongings, he would be free to wallow in the raw, unfiltered experiences that nature presented.  Craving a blank spot on the map, McCandless simply threw the maps away.  Leaving behind his desperate parents and sister, he vanished into the wild.

A lot of people in the hiking community don’t sympathize with McCandless because of his reckless abandonment and the level to which he underestimated the power of Mother Nature.  I purposefully avoided the term wrath, has too many negative connotations.  Power sounds much better.

Though I would never throw away my map, I can sympathize with McCandless’s desire to find a blank spot.  Sometimes, I will take drives by myself into the countryside with the sole purpose of getting lost.  It’s an adrenaline rush.  Hiking is an adrenaline rush, too.  I am never happier than when I am out in the middle of nowhere with Brad and Rex.  It makes me feel so alive.  Makes me want to live off the grid, too—grow a garden, filter water from a lake or river close-by.  Be a more reserved supertramp with a small family and a mountain chalet.  As you may already know, I don't give a shit about keeping up with the Joneses, but I have respect for those that do.  To each their own, right?  I'm sure there's plenty of people who'll think I'm absolutely nuts after reading this, and I'm okay with that.

I guess it makes me anti-social because it’s still a mystery to me.  We have a greed with which we have agreed.  You think you have to want more than you need.  Until you have it all, you won’t be free.  And to people like McCandless (I am one of those people), our goal isn’t to have the nicest car or the biggest house.  At least, that’s not freedom to people like us--nature hippies as some may say.  Freedom, instead, is sleeping under the stars, celebrating the rain, and basking in the big, hard sun.

McCandless hiked Old Rag, and I did, too.  Here's a pic of the big, hard sun taken on the trek down after reaching the beautiful but cold and windy summit.