Epiphany: “Into the Wild.”

There are people who get camping.  And there are people who don’t.  I never understood camping.  Stumped would probably be a better word.  I mean how can such a large part of the human population spend their free time embarking on such a savage-like experience?  What bothered me most wasn’t the fact that I didn’t like camping, it was that I just didn’t get it at all.  I’m all about seeing other people’s perspectives on things but I could not grasp this idea.

Well I recently had the rare experience to sit on my deck and stare into the stars.  Well I thought I was staring up into the sky looking at stars and birds, until I was rudely awakened that I was looking at stars and…bats.  After screaming and running inside, I was just thinking to myself “Why do I even have to leave the house?” when someone asked me, “it’s shocking that you even leave the house.”  I quickly realized, that it’s actually pretty sad that every time I see a bug nearby, I wonder if there’s a place on earth without insects.  Clearly there’s not, so I either need to live in disgust or get over it.

So I decided to get over it.  And then I did what any other go-getter would do, and watched a movie about someone living in the wilderness.  Why read, when you can get a visual?  Why go camping yourself when you can just observe someone else doing it?

Specifically, I watched “Into the Wild.”  Which, long story short follows a young college graduate in his journey across the country to eventually live in the Alaskan wilderness.  He donates his trust fund to charity, abandons his car, and other unnecessary material items, leaves his family without notice, and just goes.  With only his bare hands and feet.  And oh my God, 15 minutes into it and I was instantly mesmerized.  Suddenly this foreign concept of fun became translatable.  The world.  The grass.  The trees.  The dirt.  The sky.  Are such a gift of beauty.  Can I write a poem?  Or start reading philosophy?  I mean why do we place so much importance on material items?  Why are we so vain?  And the fact that a human being can use their strength mentally and physically and survive with only their bare hands and mind in the harsh wilderness was just amazing to me.  Why have I not realized this concept of life sooner? I mean sure I read all those Thoreau poems, they were nice, but eh I didn’t get the whole idea of secluding yourself in the wild.  I mean what about secluding yourself on an island?  You’d get a tan out of it.  But now I was just so excited to get out and experience the Earth.

Well those were my thoughts during the first half of the film.  Then he killed a moose and ripped it apart with his bare hands in hopes to eat it for sustenance.  And then I thought, eh maybe I won’t go camping.  Maybe I’ll just take a walk in a park and call it a day.

Still disgusted from that visual I witnessed over a week ago, I still consider my once closed eyes, now open.  I realized that there’s something and some form of adventure out there for everyone.  Some people like jumping out of airplanes.  Some people like climbing up ridiculously tall mountains.  And some people just like going for a walk down the street.  Don’t discount something that makes other people happy, even if it happens to be shooting a wild moose and cooking it for dinner.  You can’t judge someone else for their perception of the world, all you can do is try and understand and appreciate their perspectives.