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Which is more tragic? A young person who gets out of school, travels around the world, and dies at age 25 doing something they love, or someone who works their entire life to pay off a student loan, car loan, home loan, only to die a year before their retirement? I say the person who died a year before their retirement. At least the young person got to experience the world, before they died. Not just spending their entire life working.
More baloney. You're making quite a fat sandwich with it today. Plenty of working "slaves" see the world before they die. Some even see the world because of their work. Some select their profession and pursue it no matter what. There might even be a smidgen of altruism in there somewhere. That's a less selfish kind of love. As the old saw goes, "if you love what you do you won't work a day in your life."
FWIW I doubt very much he "loved" those last few weeks/months. He had paralyzed himself with self-doubt, fear, malnutrition, exposure, delirium, and probably shame. Not how I wish to leave the earth regardless how old I happen to be.
Last edited by Parnassia; 07-28-2019 at 03:44 PM..
I don't think anyone here or anyone else has the right to judge what someone else does with their life - assuming that what they do doesn't directly harm others. Hurting family members'
feelings doesn't count.
We are all going to die, just a matter of time. The person who dies at 25 vs the person born at the same time who dies at 100 - in 101 years from their births it makes zero difference to either of them what they did or didn't accomplish. Live your own life, save your judgments of others is my opinion.
I don't think anyone here or anyone else has the right to judge what someone else does with their life - assuming that what they do doesn't directly harm others. Hurting family members'
feelings doesn't count.
We are all going to die, just a matter of time. The person who dies at 25 vs the person born at the same time who dies at 100 - in 101 years from their births it makes zero difference to either of them what they did or didn't accomplish. Live your own life, save your judgments of others is my opinion.
Agreed. Why are people so angry at this dude? So, he messed up and got himself killed. So do plenty of other people.
So what? We die when we die. We could always have plenty more adventures had we lived longer. People die at that age range all the time. They die of cancer. They die in car accidents. Life is not guaranteed. It's interesting how people like you focus on the fact that he died and ignore how much beautiful LIFE he experienced in his years.
Of course, people do die in car accidents. But when I get in a car I put the seat belt on and drive it as instructed. I don't purposely drive it off a cliff to see if will somehow land without cracking into pieces.
You can have both an independent spirit like Chris McCandless AND not be ill-prepared/careless at the same time.
Agreed. Why are people so angry at this dude? So, he messed up and got himself killed. So do plenty of other people.
His story touches a nerve of today's empty modern world existance. There are many who can relate to and many who scorn his attitude and actions. I'm one of the former, but either way to him it makes no difference what my or anyone elses's opinion is. He's dead.
From everything I've read he seems like a pretty cool guy.
rip.
None of which indicates "mental illness", however. Poor judgment is not a mental illness....yet.
Exactly although it's already begun.
Famous dude cheats on wife = sex rehab. "Poor him/her- they SUFFER from some "issues".
Get caught doing anything = rehab/vacation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheShadow
Yeah, he became known alright. Known as an idiot who died a senseless death because he didn't know how much he didn't know. And then he thinks he's smarter than all the locals who tried to tell him he was unprepared and ill-equipped. No amount of rationalizing and romanticizing his death by calling it fate or destiny is going to change the fact that he died of ignorance and hubris. People keep saying he lived life on his own terms as if that's some kind of explanation why someone would just run blind and naked into the wilderness (metaphorically speaking).
I completely get that not everyone is cut out for the corporate world, so they find other more fulfilling ways to support themselves. You can earn a living as a craftsman, a musician, a volunteer or missionary with an organization helping the poor in other countries. You can join some sort of a collective or commune, live off the land on a homestead and farm or raise animals to feed yourself. I watch Mountain Men all the time, Eustace and Tom, these are people who are successfully living lives that they've created in the wilderness. They inspire me because they are self-reliant and they are just packed full of the knowledge, skill, and fortitude to live that lifestyle. And it's not easy. Just bumming around the country hitchhiking and getting yourself lost and killed is nothing to be admired or inspired by.
Amen.
Quote:
Originally Posted by duke944
Sounds like his parents were the type of a-hole parents that push their children to do what they think is best. It was his life to screw up, and he lived it on his terms and I respect that.
Chris's story should have been a tiny story in the newspaper and been forgotten. If not for Krakauer's best selling book Into Thin Air giving him a ton of attention, and then him catching this little story in the paper then deciding to write a book about it, it would have been. Such a personal journey that he went on that ended up being made into a movie and talked about endlessly on the interwebs. It's hard not to feel like this attention and analysis to be an invasion of his privacy in a way. As far as his breaking into cabins, that's speculation and not proven.
Him and millions of others.
It was a "poor me/look at me!" nonsense "journey".
Status:
"I don't understand. But I don't care, so it works out."
(set 3 days ago)
35,609 posts, read 17,940,183 times
Reputation: 50634
Why is most of this thread about a young man who set off to live in the wilderness, and made a really good run of it for a long time until he became ill - and even botanists now agree the plant he was eating DID appear to be the edible variety - and not a woman who was basically grief porning and jumped into an uncrossable river and drowned?
Famous dude cheats on wife = sex rehab. "Poor him/her- they SUFFER from some "issues".
Get caught doing anything = rehab/vacation.
Amen.
Him and millions of others.
It was a "poor me/look at me!" nonsense "journey".
I don't think so. He was gone way too long, he meant business dissasociating with his parents, he was committed to this journey. He gave away $24k and ditched his car, your take on this is way off if you think he was looking for attention or sympathy. (HUGE eye roll).
If my son did this I would hope he was happy. His parents were the ones only thinking of themselves, "woe is me my son has gone!" Many parents think their children owe them as adults, not true.
Agreed. Why are people so angry at this dude? So, he messed up and got himself killed. So do plenty of other people.
Internet. I don't agree with some of the excessive vitriol here, but at the same time he didn't set an example that should be followed. Things can go wrong even for the well-prepared in risky endeavors, but when you fail to seek out basic knowledge and fail to take basic precautions as a matter of every day practice, it comes across poorly. And it shouldn't come across any other way. Most people don't want to die, I don't think he wanted to die, and glossing over easily preventable mistakes will get more people killed. But there's no reason to excoriate him endlessly.
Why is most of this thread about a young man who set off to live in the wilderness, and made a really good run of it for a long time until he became ill - and even botanists now agree the plant he was eating DID appear to be the edible variety - and not a woman who was basically grief porning and jumped into an uncrossable river and drowned?
What on earth do you mean by "a woman who was basically grief porning"? She and her husband were trying to visit the bus; it's not like they were related to McCandless. The bus is basically a tourist attraction, abeit a dangerous one, at this point. She had NO business jumping into a high-running swollen river when she could just as well have either (a) waited for the river to subside or (b) taken the longer way to the bus by crossing the bridge. Either alternative would have saved her life. Now her husband has to "grief porn".
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