While I admire McCandless, I believe that he should have waited before venturing to Alaska in order to gain the necessary experience to survive the harsh conditions. What I do admire about Chris, regardless of the mistakes he may or may not have made in his travels, is that he had the guts to pack all of his thing and change his name in order to leave his old life for a fresh and independent one. .
Too many people feel obligated to follow the normal path of life. Go to school, earn a degree, get a job, have a family, and retire to live your final years in some sort of peace. The fact that Chris hopped off this path toward a normal life is fascinating. He didn't believe in careers or money, he thought all of it was nonsense and madness. So much so that he was willing to express these beliefs to someone he had just met, "So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure fate" (McCandless 57). In Chris' letter to Franz, he attempts to persuade him to leave his current life and live adventurously like him. Astoundingly, the eighty-one-year-old man took the brash twenty-four-year-old vagabond's advice and bought a GMC Duravan, moved out of his apartment, and lived how McCandless had encouraged him to. While Franz happened upon this way of life through his encounters with McCandless, Christopher learned to appreciate this lifestyle due to the environment in which he was raised. .
Always being pushed by his parents to follow a strict way of life, McCandless felt he had no other way to find himself other than to leave them altogether. I believe that Chris' parents were part of the reason why he had so much hate built up inside of him, he despised their reasoning and notions on life.
