Prints of the Wild

 “Rippled, but not ruffled,” as Thoreau would say about watching Walden Pond (Thoreau, 1847, p. 48), describing also his serenity in the wilderness. Such an existence radiating out can be applied to Christopher McCandles in Into the Wild, as having an experience involving achieving a consciousness of expanded awareness, as awareness that is not tainted so much through the experience with the environment, but instead projects consciousness out into nature. While experiencing an intern exposure to the natural world and its elements, so much so that it would not cause a ruffle, both Thoreau and McCandless found a state of raw, intense passion from a life that was oh-so-thoroughly and Thoreauly lived, that was unique to the natural world, as men going off alone into the woods, with one of them never even returning.

Being alone in nature has defined McCandles and Thoreau setting, as men in nature facing the surrounding life before both of them. Both McCandles and Thoreau setting, as men in nature faxing the surrounding life before both of them. Both McCandles and Thoreau had experience that were unique to them, in terms of experiences as a fulfillment of passion generated with exposure to a natural setting, in the spirit of becoming more fulfilled. While still however possessing a unique experience, while capturing the intensity of being two raw witnesses of nature at its finest, both men had overlapping paths that crossed in terms of inspiration more than actual footprints, but still one followed after the other, as the latter had once been inspired by someone else.

During that scene with the trailer in Into the Wild, McCandles spoke about how he dreamed of going up to Alaska to really face nature and really live, as that was his intention. He really did want to pursue a life path that involved seeking serenity through solitude, in a place where few wandered. Thoreau wished upon similar stars, which is why he wrote, “I have, if it were, my own sun, moon, and stars, and a little world all to myself” (p. 49). This is what drove them both there, with them wanting to be lone individuals looking up at the nights sky, but like aliens in the forest, both were yet still on the planet that they both were natives to. Being out of human civilization, such a face to face with nature literally did cause a mixing and merging with the sentience of life, and therefore in turn served as a manifestation of life internalized within both McCandles and Thoreau. 

Christopher McCandles possessed what was a seemingly self-righteous ambition to leave behind his life and wander off alone to find a truth based on life experience. McCandles faced a macro-cosmical setting, but as being like a blade of grass, looking around at the manifestation of that observable reality, McCandles was. A sponge of the nature that internalized inside of him. This was made possible by being face to face with a naturalistic setting, with no exposure to the civilization of humans outside of them. In this sense, he was a micro incarnation of a macro-cosmic reality of a transcended consciousness that incarnated into him, serving as a Fibonacci sequence made possible through the hum bling nature of nature itself, and the liberation of a self-realized self, that is paradoxically made possible through achieving resonance with something much larger than oneself.

Like McCandles being similar to Thoreau, who said, “Sometimes, when I compare myself with other men, it seems as if I were more favored by the Gods than they, beyond any deserts that I am conscious of; as if I had a warrant and surety at the hands which my fellows have not, and were especially guided and guarded (p. 49). The pride that Thoreau had demonstrates wording similar to McCandles that indicates a self-righteous “narcissism” that served as a catalyst for the ambition, and therefore a receptivity towards the mysticism associated with the philosophy of transcendalism. The seekers also both had a sense of being gifted, which generated the affinity towards such a path, based on being individual that in turn allows them to feel more favored, and therefore more connected to the Source that was drawing the into the wild.

The transcending nature of spiritual experiences in nature could easily hypothesis that there must have been a sort of chemical reaction in the brain to inspire a God-like expression that manifests in the psyche through the capturing of the natural world in a physiological sense that in turn generates a heightened consciousness. Although the search for a macro-cosmic expression in a observer is seemingly self-righteous to a certain set of civilized understandings, the opportunity benefited seekers like McCandles and Thoreau as being spiritual seekers, not just as people in int it for the thrill of an adventure, after all, since humans came from nature, in order for us to become whole, to become complete within ourselves, we must go back to nature. That requires the need of knowing that nature is that which can fix one’s suffering soul, like these two seekers knew it would and then did.

The romanticism that Chris lived out through his time inAlaska was like a Humian stamp of seekers that came before him. a Humian stamp means the repeated of imprints left as stamps upon mind after mind based on an original idea. In the case of McCandles and Thoreau, this involved leaving civilization to live in the woods, because thy were inspired to do so. For McCandles, this catalyst meant nature writers like Thoreau. Thoreau had said, “Men frequently say to me, “I should think you would feel lonesome down there, and want to veneerer to folks, which we inhabit is but a point in space. How far apart, think you, dwell the two most distant inhabitants to younger star, the breadth of whose disk cannot be appreciated by our instruments? Why should I feel lonely? Is not out planet in the Milky Way?”” Although being face to face with the Universe, Thoreau and McCandles both lived as recluses in the wilderness, but again, there was not such so much a feeling of isolation, as much as a feeling of an awe-inspired connection to those that have journeyed into he wilderness already. To be alone in the woods means to have an existence that was followed the essence of those who have wandered off alone before. Experience is the fulfillment of the empowerment generated through inspiration. McCandles was not alone in the woods as much as he was following the entangled paths of people that had inspired him. This connection could be described as a high vibrational distance from a dense mundane world that put nature between a low vibrational, consumer driven existence that is prone to the solidifying nature of the material world, when transcendalism is a consciousness associated with high frequencies, like the Earth’s magnetic resonance.

McCandles possessed a deep affinity for the wringings of nature enthusiasts, which was evident in his conversations and diary. He described a similar curiosity about making his way into different settings for a life experience that he could not have in a traditional setting. McCandles may have been an exemplary student, but paddling to Mexico seemed like a better life lived - and that is what he had, as did Thoreau. By following similar foot steps to those adventurous spirits that came before him, McCandles found a sort of harmonizing with nature at its finest.

The 1990’s was a time where people were more accustomed to technological luxuries and urban living that, although may be different from an 1847 essay on solitude by Thoreau, there was still, even back then, also a lot going on in terms of urban developments, which were taking people out of nature. However, by both actively choosing to place themselves in a natural setting, and then also writing about their experience, their actions demonstrated a literary awareness which served also as activism that, without even politicizing, increased a peak of interest for other nature lovers. Both Thoreau and then McCandles became literary catalyst for adventure among even more seekers. Both individuals, despite having been inspired by other individuals, sough out an alternative to what seemed like a more cookie cutter Humian stamp. Conforming disinterested the two more than a more-rare Humian footprints out I nature, which was a literary harbinger to a trail calling them down the path, but also served as a trail of relatability to follow during their tine in solitude, as light to guide them through the woods, and company to keep in terms of literary resonance for when mind meets relatable thinking, even in the middle of the woods.

Thoreau, H. (1847). Solitude.

Penn, S. (2007). Into the Wild. Paramount Vantage, River Road Entertainment, Square One C.I.H, Linson Film.