Into the Wild is true story that recounts the adventures of Chris McCandless, a young college graduate that had grown tired of his comfortable life and decided to leave it all behind. After travelling for 2 years, he made plans to travel to explore the Alaskan wilderness and get away from from it all to fulfill his dreams and escape his old life. The author of Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer, poses the question "to recall how forcefully (they) were once buffeted by the passions and longings of youth." (Krakauer 221) To me the passions and longing of youth are the dreams and desires that every individual has when they are young. At some point in everyone lives you have a dream of doing something out of the ordinary from what your family and friends may think is appropriate for you. When you are in your youth you feel entitled or that you deserve to be able to fulfill your dreams no matter what they might be.
For McCandless, I feel that he felt suffocated by his family and didn't have a desire for friendship or intimacy. His passions and longings of life were to escape to the wilderness so that he could live in a world, all of his own, free of rules. In his journals he describes wanting "ultimate freedom", because he had felt oppressed by authority or anyone who ruled over him. In his Declaration of Independence, McCandless writes: "Two years he walks the earth, no phone, no pool, no pets, no cigarettes, ultimate freedom. An extremist, an aesthetic voyager whose home is the road. Escaped from Atlanta. Thou Shalt not return, cause the West is the best." (Krakauer 207) I feel that this passage expresses how McCandless feels about his journey so far. You can tell that he is very proud of himself and everything that he has accomplished, and extremely excited about his Alaskan great adventure which has almost been a spiritual experience for him.
I personally have a friend that, after, completing his degree and obtaining a steady job, had similar desires as McCandless.