This man though: Alex Supertramp

"HAPPINESS ONLY REAL WHEN SHARED"

A thought, worthy 'for the books.' 

This is an annotation that Chris McCandless, wrote on one of the page margins of his copy of Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak. This book was found together with his remains inside a run-down Fairbanks transit bus in the Alaskan wilderness.

1992 is one of those years in my life that I remember absolutely--nothing about. 

I was 2 but Chris McCandless had just graduated from college and was just one of those people who considered the world as their oyster. He was well-read, bright, and certainly capable of anything he set his mind to.

An article by Jon Krakauer entitled: Death of An Innocent attracted many as it tells the unfortunate tale of Christopher Johnson McCandless, whose body was found by a moose hunter inside a run-down bus situated in Alaska's stampede trail. He was 24-years-old and all alone.

I first came across this story, not by the same article but through Sean Penn's directorial debut, starring Emile Hirsch as Chris.

I found the movie quite beautiful and serene. It's the kind of movie where, it just keeps on moving. 

It was filled with highlights from Chris' journal with the beautiful North American landscapes as its backdrop. Everything he did seemed noble to me and it made me want to go to a self-actualising journey of my own. Until I found out he didn't actually survive to personally tell his tales. It's important to know that he did plan to go back home but was not able to, due to various reasons best explained by Krakauer in his book.

He went on an Alaskan Odyssey hoping to find some truth or maybe he already did. He made himself experience it, for sure.

An extensive reader of Jack London and Henry David Thoreau to the point of 'gospel,' Chris McCandless believed that to really live, you had to be one with nature absolutely; with no money in your pockets and foraging for your own food.

A usual reaction of people to all of this? It's either 'that guy has guts' or 'that guy us such a fool.' 

Why did he have to do this to himself? Why do we do certain painful and dumb things? Krakauer best explains the possible answers to these questions in his book "Into The Wild." It's because he, himself had quite a similar journey. In his youth, he attempted to climb the Devil's Thumb, also in Alaska.

Seeing photos of Chris, like the one I got here, haunts me. It's because he seems so normal, even though he might look scruffy or unhealthy. His photo here could pass as any person on vacation. In a way, he was, but not really. He was dead serious about what he wanted to achieve, pardon the expression. And yet the way his life ended, it was just, devastating to me.

"It is easy, when you are young, to believe that what you desire is no less than what you deserve, to assume that if “you want something badly enough, it is your God-given right to have it." 

- Into The Wild, Jon Krakauer

What do I make of Chris' story? Well, I would have to be one of those who feel utterly depressed about it because he was so young. 

I remember Anne Frank and how she was taken young as well, although in different circumstances. It makes me think about my youth and what to make of it. Am I even doing justice to it? Or am I just a waste of time and space? 

Harsh questions, I know, but questions that have to be asked, once in a while.

Which brings me to another way of thinking about Chris McCandless' story, an inspiring one. 

Yes, he was young and a bit naive but it doesn't mean that he wasted his life. It makes me think about being an adult in this day and age. I am a teacher and part of my job is to engage and empower young people and to do that you have to make them realise that they have their own perspective. Even though they are considered minors and they're still living under their parents' condition, it doesn't mean what they think, what they say, or whatever they are going through is not worth discussing. You know why? Because everybody goes through what they're going through. Whatever happened to Chris whether it was a phase or just his personality, it doesn't mean it was completely wrong. This just makes you think what a sacrifice he did to make people, like me, realise these things. And that, is enough for me to say that Chris McCandless a.ka. Alex Supertramp, is one sad but inspiring character He's an inspiring human being.