Rocked by the wild, what a fool

Rocked by the wild, what a fool.

By: Birdman Jr.

                In this corner weighing in at less than a pound we have Wild potato seeds. In the other corner we have the 24 year old Chris McCandless. The victor, Swainsonine Poisoning. How many of you would lose a fight to the death to a nonmoving object? Chris McCandless did. Chris Walked into the wild in April of 1992 and died in August of 1992. McCandless couldn’t live out his journey in the wild for a single summer. McCandless’s journey, leaving home in 1990 and never being seen from his family again after that, has become well known and has gotten both criticism and praise. In my opinion Chris McCandless was an ill prepared, ungrateful, fool who never should have ventured away from home.

                McCandless was ungrateful and had no reason to put his parents through so much pain. “McCandless had been raised in upper middle-class environs of Annandale, Virginia. His father, Walt, is an eminent aerospace engineer who designed advanced radar systems for the space shuttle.”(Krakauer 19-20) McCandless had everything money, intelligent parents and a nice home. He left all of it so he could be happy? Chris had loving parents that where going to pay for a new car and law school for him he had no reason to blow them off and not even keep in touch or tell them where he was going. He didn’t even have the decency to say good bye. He truly was ungrateful of all he had.

                Chris wasn’t very smart and didn’t plan for emergencies. “But Chris, with his idiosyncratic logic, came up with an elegant solution to this dilemma: He simply got rid of the map.”(Krakauer 174) Chris got rid of the only thing that could possibly save his life in emergencies that he owned. He practically said “nothing can touch me just try.” It is this negligence that fuels critics such as me to say that Chris doesn’t deserve all of the media and publicity. Chris may have been book smart but when it came to street smarts he was dumber than a two year old. He was completely and utterly foolish.

                Chris did not even listen to the advice of professional woodsmen. “By design McCandless came into the country with insufficient provisions, and he lacked certain pieces of equipment deemed essential b many Alaskans.”(Krakauer 180) Chris was stubborn and had to do things his way. Even if it meant not listening to people who have done this before and at least take the right supplies. Chris had never done this before and chose his fate before even setting off. He pretty much committed suicide by not taking the right supplies. Chris underestimated old man wild. He ventured off too his almost certain death. McCandless was an ill prepared fool that ultimately got what was coming to him.

                Some people claim that McCandless just made a few mistakes and that’s why he died. “For most of the sixteen weak ordeal, Nevertheless, McCandless more than held his own. Indeed, were it not for one or two seemingly insignificant blunders, he would have walked out of the woods in august 1992 as anonymously as he had walked into them in April.” (Authors note page 2) However, I say that Chris made way too many mistakes and is death was inevitable. One of his many mistakes was walking into the wild without his map or a phone or anything that could have saved his life. Another mistake was not scouting the area. A third mistake was not excepting things that could have helped him from the many people who tried to offer him some. That’s three right there off the top of my head and I can go on. I’d say he made a whole lot more than one or two mistakes.

                Chris McCandless walked out and away from a great life into almost nothing. He went into the wild with no backup plan for emergencies. Also, he didn’t even have the right supplies. It’s no shocker that Chris died to me. In my opinion he kind of did it too himself he didn’t necessarily deserve it but he did get what was coming to him. Christopher McCandless was ill prepared, negligent and a fool; he doesn’t deserve the media or the piety that he received. My advice to all of my readers is, always be prepared and have an emergency plan. Don’t be ungrateful for what you have because in the end it’ll come back and “kill” you.