Into the Wild

Over the last few days I sat down to watch Into the Wild. I'd read the book years ago, and coming on the heels of some things this week, the film got me thinking and I wrote some things down, Here they are, for what it's worth.
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This past week I watched the film Into the Wild (dir. Sean Penn, 2007). If you are unfamiliar, it’s taken from Jon Krakauer’s book which tells the true story of the young Chris McCandless. After college, Christ renounces his life, renames himself Alexander Supertramp, and journeys into the wilderness (in all senses) and an eventual, tragic death at 24. I got into a discussion at work about it, with comments of “how selfish, what a waste, senseless” etc. Yes and no. Even if we allow that it’s a selfish waste, I can still admire the struggle, still sense the challenge it presents to our own lives and world. In Alex’s case, I can’t help but think that his struggle was just off-course enough to mean an endless beating against the wind, a tack into its teeth. Sure, the art of elimination knifes off all the stuff and junk that clutter and cloud our inner worlds – call it society, people, money and materialism, idols, desires, careers, what have you. But when everything is stripped away in the name of truth, what’s left?

In the end, truth can be as merciless a tyrant as any other, leaving you weak, pale, pitiful, and cold. It, too, demands your death, but it remains to be seen whether your death will bring any life. Or will it be just the final, too-familiar flameout of a once-brilliant torch? Closer to the heart of things, I think that the very part of us that has to be better, be right, be moral, alone be strong, alone be true – that part has to die as well. If it doesn’t, it becomes another petty god, a sham-idol in the jam-packed temple of humanity. And idols don’t give life.

It’s not the wild that kills the devil in me – but I think Alex/Chris knew that. It might reveal it, make me face it, but merely being in extremis doesn’t bring liberation. The real liberation comes when all our strivings only further tighten the cords further and we realize that we have to die in order to live. The truth is, someone has died for me and that alone gives me the power to die to myself and live for others. Without love, truth – however piercing, however beautiful – is only so much noise. Someone far wiser than I wrote that truth is not known unless it is loved. I think of some of Alex’/Chris’ final words: “in God’s name someone help me please …” In God’s name, someone has helped us, someone has loved us – and showed us the fullest extent of that love. God help us all.

(cross-posted at Facebook)