Into the Wild by Rob Dufour

As I was driving to the movie theatre to watch Into the Wild with my friend, I remember him telling me to be prepared for when we walk out of the theatre because I’m going to want to leave it all behind after watching the movie. I figured this movie would be very moving because I have skimmed through the book and was aware of McCandless’ history and of his passion for the wild, but I had no idea it would invoke such emotion in the viewer to just GO. I remember feeling very similar to McCandless because I too have spent a good part of my life preparing for graduate school, but as it draws near I find myself wondering if that’s really how I want to spend the rest of my life. I would much rather break free from the social norms of having a job and relying on a pay check every other week. Living off the land like he did, seeing the world, forming relationships – now that’s living. If I decided to do this I would learn from his mistake and bring along companions so we could experience this wondrous life together, and I remember actually thinking this as I am walking to my car, and thinking about who would go with me. Then I eventually got brought back to earth, so to speak, and I started thinking about the logistics of this plan. Most importantly I started to access the money issue. I remember McCandless saying in the movie that money makes you cautious, which I completely agree with – I would love to be able to live without being a slave to money. However I thought about how integral money is to our society and how impossible it would be to live solely off the land today. We are not raised to be able to live off the land anymore. Of course there are still cultures out there that do live without money but they have been doing it for thousands of year and their heritage and history of the land around them is what allows them to continue to survive. We are not raised to know how to live like that. I thought about McCandless’ bag of rice as it slowly descends towards emptiness, and how that bag of rice was something that was previously bought with money. In our culture we are unfortunately and truly enslaved to money. We have no real bartering system to exchange items either; money is what we trade and that’s pretty much it. It’s kind of a shame as I begin to realize how idealistic and extreme it is to have a desire to leave it behind and GO. But ohh well, I’ll just have to settle with leaving it all behind for just a few weeks out of the year. That’s not so bad I guess.