Comment by Isamu | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Isamu | Hacker News Reader

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I have empathy for McCandless, he didn't deserve to die and I wish he hadn't. But clearly he didn't know what he was getting into, didn't prepare and unwittingly contributed to his own death. It's not a judgment about his character. He wasn't a knucklehead, he was probably fairly intelligent.

He was probably just unaware, like most people, how hard it is to subsist in nature alone, and how harsh the beautiful landscape can be.

In the right context, ignorance is a kind of superpower. When you survive and it all works out, you are a genius. Many successful people start their story with: "If I had known what I was getting into, I would never have started..."

So yeah, I kind of admire this ignorance ... in other people. I am WAY too self-conscious and introspective to embark on some enterprise where I know that I know nothing.

Oh, and the poisonous seed thing - he was just eating a plant whose edibility was not established. I dunno, maybe people think nature is benevolent, and sure I can think of a bunch of edible plants in the woods near my house ... but I can think of plenty that are poisonous, or mildly toxic, or carcinogenic, or indigestible, or otherwise liable to disagree with you. He didn't know if he should or shouldn't eat it. He was rolling the dice. If you roll the dice and you live, you're a genius and in a few years you get to write your memoirs as the next Thoreau.

    "But clearly he didn't know what he was getting into
    didn't prepare and unwittingly contributed to his own
    death."

In the postcard at the very top of the article Chris says:

"If this adventure proves fatal and you don't ever hear from me again I want you to know your (sic) a great man. I now walk into the wild"

And earlier he asks his friend to return all mail to sender for the foreseeable future.

That and everything else I've ever read has made me think he was entirely aware of the potential for danger in the wilderness. He walked in & did it any-ways.

Plenty people look to test themselves in nature's crucible with minimal preparation, fully cognisant of the risks. Sometimes they lose. I think looking down upon them with the rosy vision of decades hindsight from the comfort & safety of home does them a disservice. Their lives, their choices.

I hope Chris found what he was looking for.

Alternatively, he was a clueless kid who fantasized about disappearing into the wilderness ala Hatchet or My Side of the Mountain. Cancelling your mail and talking melodramatically does not mean you intend to die, just that you intend to cut all ties.

I have a friend from high school who, at 40 years old, had an amicable divorce with his wife so he could go do something similar to Christopher's adventure, but here in the backwoods of Georgia. His philosophy is that we're all going to die sometime, so we should live the life we always wanted to live on this "ball of dirt and water hurtling around a ball of fire" as he puts it. I envy him, as I'm also an avid outdoorsman who never gets to go outdoors anymore (from the house to the car to work and back does not count as "outdoors"). My friend studied flora and fauna for years, both because he loves nature and in preparation for the rest of his life on his own.

So far he's been out there for the better part of a year, sleeping in a bivy sack, eating what nature provides, riding his mountain bike and towing his trailer with his few worldly possessions, a backwoods hobo by choice. He's documenting the entire adventure and plans to write about it. He is fully aware of successful adventurers before him, as well as those who died to soon like McCandless. Who knows how long he'll live this life, but he looks to McCandless as an inspiration, not a "clueless kid", and he's doing just fine.

Your friend spent years studying. He also had the sense to pick one of the most hospitable and temperate locales in North America. And even in a friendly environment, he acknowledges that he needs more supplies than he could easily carry. I bet he also had multiple plans for bailing out if events went really sour. Just from what little you've said, he sounds responsible, level-headed and practical. He could probably accomplish anything he sets his mind to, and I look forward to buying his book.

But other than living outdoors, your friend has little in common with McCandless.

(Nothing says you can't consider someone to be both clueless and an inspiration. I consider all of history to be an inspiration to do better, including the less-clueful half of the past.)

"But clearly he didn't know what he was getting into, didn't prepare and unwittingly contributed to his own death."

Another way to look at it is that he knew there were unknown risks of various kinds, and he decided to prepare as well as he could and go anyway.

Except he didn't prepare as well as he could.

IIRC there was a ferry or similar a few miles upstream of where he was "trapped" (because he didn't expect the river to swell as it did) and died.

Learning about seasonal weather and checking alternate routes are a basic part of wilderness survival.

But that's the whole point - he wanted to take a risk. That's why the story is a moving poetic statement. If he'd done it the sensible way there wouldn't be a book about it.

Going skydiving is taking a risk. Going skydiving without training and without checking your equipment is just being an idiot. It isn't noble or poetic it is just dumb.

The only thing sadder than McCandless pointless depth is the people whose own lives are so devoid of meaning that they seek inspiration from a fool who killed himself.

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