Christopher Mccandless: The Life Of Chris Mccandless

Everyone has their own way of finding themselves and figuring out life, whether it is going on a hike or reading a book we all have that one place we tend to lean on when things get tough. But unlike Chris McCandless, his way of escaping everyone and everything was by leaving everything behind, vanishing into the wild and starting life on a clean slate away from his family. Chris McCandless was anything like his family, he usually found himself on the other side of the spectrum. McCandless did not care for any materialistic things, in fact he did not care for the money at all he just wanted to live a normal life in which he did not have his parents smothering him with gifts and money. Chris and his father shared the same personality, they

He wanted to get away from all the materialistic world and find himself. Chris never felt that he fit in at Emory. He was not one to brag about his family’s wealth nor did he care for it, “Chris started complaining about all the rich kids at Emory”(page 123). Even before his big Alaska trip, McCandless had taken small trips here and there, he did not know what was going to happen, but he was an advertorials guy and he just wanted to have fun while he can. He wanted to make up for the time that was lost during his teenage years because he blames his dad infidelity for making his childhood so terrible, “He later declares to Carine and others that the deception committed by Walt and Billie made his ‘entire childhood seem like a fiction’”(page 123). Chris just wanted to be happy, he wanted to find his life whether it was going into the wild or not, surviving or not, he just wanted to find himself. According to Maia Szalavitz Why the Teen Brain IS drawn to Risk, she states, “ … teens tend to wildly overestimate certain risks …”(page 1) and that is what Chris did, he had too overconfident in himself and did not think this trip thoroughly because he did not pack all the necessities not did he accept gear or tools that people would offer him along the way He knew the consequences that he would eventually face and instead of preparing for them he decided to ignore them. Maybe if he had a map,

He was not going to let anyone get in the way of it and he was going to do it on his own. His family played a huge role in his journey and in the decisions he made along the way. Who are we to say he was crazy for trying to find happiness and peace? McCandless wanted to leave his footprint on this Earth and start life on a clean slate and that is exactly what he did, he went into the wild and along the way he changed more lives than he could possibly