What Chris means to me

[pezar]

I was thinking, why are Alaskans so angry about the wider world's obsession with Chris? Why do people view Chris as a hero, except in Alaska? And I thought that Chris doesn't represent losing yourself in the wilderness or even challenging the wilderness on its own terms. In my view what Chris did BEFORE he went to Alaska is more important.

Chris represents freedom.

In America, the ruling bankers get youth into deep debt before they realize what has happened to them. Then youth, who are now in deep debt for the rest of their lives, are forced to work it off in the offices of the big corporations. In short, Americans spend their entire lives doing things they don't want to do, solely to make some obscenely wealthy bankers and CEOs even wealthier. Americans talk about freedom, but like the hippie biker in Easy Rider said, it's hard to be free if you're bought and sold in the marketplace.

Chris refused to be a commodity, he saw the American nose-to-the-grindstone bullshit for what it was, and rejected it, choosing to live his life the way HE WANTED TO, not the way some banker wanted him to. The Alaskans see Chris going out into the wild with minimal preparation and starving to death, and say well he was a loser. But the Alaskan Odyssey isn't the point. The point is that Chris chose freedom over slavery. Americans are enslaved to a handful of uberwealthy bankers. Chris refused it, and lived his life on his terms. Chris's rejection of money was actually a rejection of the bankers and the evil that bankers represent. He didn't want to be tied to money, and if that meant going hungry, fine.

Americans frequently say that they can't do something, can't quit their job and start a business or travel, because they have bills to pay. I owe, I owe, so it's off to work I go. The bankers own you if 90% of your income goes towards bills, as is the case with many Americans. The bankers didn't own Chris. That's why he touches so many people so deeply. The bankers didn't own him.

[Ascetic]

The bankers didn't own him.

Here! Here!

They don't own me either. I spent $60,000 on a single year and a half in graduate school. I graduated with a 3.91 GPA. After taxes, I made about a dollar above minimum wage. If I only made the minimum payments, then I wouldn't pay the loan off until I'm 70 years old. I would have been better off never to have gone to graduate school.

That's why I'm leaving. They can't take what I don't earn. And I'm unplugging myself from this fucked up society.

See you on the road, or in the mountains.

[pezar]

Ascetic, I took out $7700 in student loans to learn how to fix computers. The greedy tech school wanted me to take out an extra $10k in loans for the MCSE certification (certified to run a network system running Microsoft Windows Server). I told them that if I couldn't get a job in PC repair, I wouldn't take the MCSE. I couldn't find a job, so when they came back for that extra $10k I told them, as nicely as I could, to fuck off. That was in 2006. I've paid four years of a ten year loan. I intend to pay it off, then get an RV and hit the road. The school never taught me how to solder (important for laptop repairs) so I'm going back to community college, taking a soldering class. My "education" had more holes than a swiss cheese. Chris was right-the education-industrial complex is a raw deal. It's all about burdening kids with debt to make them vassals of the bankers, modern day sharecroppers who can never pay off their debt to the lords. The idea that if the kids are overloaded with debt, they won't overthrow the system.

[Ascetic]

Agreed. You know, in European countries, like France for instance, college is paid for by tax dollars. People leave with their undergraduate degrees, and have absolutely zero debt.

I suppose it boils down to what kind of people we want to be in the United States. We believe that people have the right to an education, so we educate children until they're 18. Does the learning process stop at that point? Or, do we have a further responsibility to continue educating people so that they can fully actualize all their potentialities, and become productive, contributing members of society?

It's my firm belief that accredited education is a basic human right that should be exercisable any time a person wants to learn.

Incidentally, I'm not unplugging myself just because I have no hope of ever paying off my loans. The main reason is that I'm simply disillusioned by our consumerist culture. I did what everyone said I should do to find contentment: graduated high school, went to college, got a job, bought a bunch of stuff, etc. It didn't make me happy.

So it's time for a change. I wish you the best when you get on the road as a rubbertramp. Maybe we'll cross paths in our travels.

[pezar]

One thing all of us tramps should do is take along a laptop computer and use it to post to forums like this one and keep a blog. I plan to do this. New laptops can be had for $300, and used ones are cheap off Craigslist. Mooch off somebody's wifi node and keep everybody updated. I can only imagine if there had been a public internet in Chris's day. Will you take a laptop with you, Ascetic? I don't pick up hitchers now because I have a little tiny Nissan and their balloons (backpacks/bedrolls) won't fit. Once I'm in the RV and tramping FT I probably will. I hope to see you out there. Do you plan to tramp for the rest of your life, unplug permanently?

[GoNorth]

I can only imagine if there had been a public internet in Chris's day.

Well, then he would probably have been happy to get away from it by walking into the wilderness. I mean, as far as I understood the person he was, he would certainly not have written any information in the internet about his journey and where to be found, except perhaps some personal e-mails to the people who regularly got letters from him during his journey (like Wayne or Jan Burres).
I also think that internet is a great thing - and not only for disussion forums like this, but also the point you mentioned, the fact that we can access the net and write messages from any region in the world. Especially if you're travelling alone and so on.
But this is nowaday's life. And I believe it has nearly nothing in common with Chris's journey at the time.

[Ascetic]

I'm not sure yet whether this is going to be a permanent way of life. I'm definitely hitting the road all summer. By then, I'll have either had my fill of traveling, and be ready to settle down someplace rural, or I'll keep moving. It's up in the air.

I plan to take a laptop, so I'll be able to communicate with people I care about. I'll also post on this forum from time to time. I doubt I'll do it with much frequency, but we'll see.

[Recon888]

Good Luck Ascetic - If I see you on the road I will pick you up!
As for the original post I must say it almost sounds like modern day feudalism...

[bkohatl]

Chris had the guts to do the things that we all want to do but for which we lack the courage to do.
By any measure Chris was a real man who took risks while looking for his answers.

In my mind, Chris reminds me of James Garner. I remember a TV Guide cover which called The Rockford Files' James Garner, The Last Real Man on TV.
He created his own Production Company and didn't take crap from anyone. But he was also known as the most loyal man in Hollywood. If he liked you, you would always have a job. And Studio Execs hated him because he never gave and inch and they were never able to cheat him.

One other quote I think applies to Chris, from Cyrano de Bergerac:

I never stand as tall as when I stand alone.

[Bionic Hiker]

Hi Y'all:

Whoa....Where to even begin.....

In my younger years (preteen through mid/late teens) I had been severely bitten by the wanderlust bug. Even at a young age, it meant nothing to my parents for me to disappear for days at a time - they weren't worried about my safety - the times were so different back then as opposed to what they are today.

I had big dreams, goals, and aspirations. We (as a family unit) experienced "carbon copy vacations" year after year. The destination was ALWAYS the same: Cherokee, NC. As soon as my dad would shift the gear lever into "P", my door flew open, and I was gone in a New York minute. It wasn't that I was anti-family or anti-social. I just absolutely hated to be cooped up and having to adhere to someone else's routine and schedule.

Once, when the family decided to trek on over to Biltmore House & Gardens, I opted to remain alone in Cherokee. I had befriended a group of local Native Americans. We swam in the creek, and then headed deep into the Great Smoky Mountains. It was there that they told me of a "Great Trail that runs for hundreds, even thousands of miles from Georgia into Canada". They were speaking of the Appalachian Trail. I decided that I would one day hike this trail.

In my early 20's, I found the one person who would prove to be my stability - my balancing block, if you will. She was my absolute best friend - I could quite literally tell her anything, and she would think no more or no less of me.

We ended up becoming romantically involved, which in turn lead to a subsequent pregnancy. We married on 23 June 1990 when she was 2 months pregnant.

I settled into a mundane, routine existence for the next decade, fathering 3 more children. I had become a Paramedic, and absolutely LOVED what I did. However, that wanderlust remained very much a part of who I was.

On Memorial Day of 1998, my life was forever altered when a .12 gauge shotgun I was carrying slipped from my grasp, struck the ground, discharged, hitting me directly on my left side from the hip to the foot. My lower leg was immediately obliterated into millions of pieces. I was alone, fully well expecting to die.

As I lay there on that ground, my thoughts immediately went to the area of the "back-burner of my mind". I thought of all of the things that I'd wanted to do, yet "responsibilities" of married life and fatherhood seemingly had taken precedence over dreams. My wife found me 2 hours after the accident, I was nearly dead. Yet, still another 2 hours would pass before I would get to see a medical doctor.

During the months of my recovery, I pulled off the things that were placed on the back burner, dusted them off, and reexamined them yet again. I also began to take a firm, hard look at my fears, and thought of ways to conquer them. In my mind, I figured, "What could possibly hurt worse than being shot with a .12 gauge shotgun at point blank range, and surviving?" I could think of absolutely nothing that would equal or overtake the level of physical pain that I'd experienced.

So, I set out to begin first conquering my fears. My fear of heights topped that list, so to conquer that particular fear, I did the most irresponsible, foolish thing that a soul could do - I purchased an ultralite airplane and flew it with no prior lessons or instructions as to how to fly it. On the third (and final) flight, I nearly didn't make it down... Once on firm ground, I swore I'd never fly that death trap again, and I didn't!!!! I did, however, hook up with a pilot instructor, and eventually obtained my private pilot rating.

I did return to work for 4 more years, but that proved to be physically too much for my body to handle. One year to the day after I resigned my EMS job, I underwent the knife for one final time to re-amputate my leg to the mid-thigh (above knee) level. The damage I'd done over the previous 4 years was just too great to be overcome.

It was during that recovery phase that I decided to hike the Appalachian Trail.

Throwing caution to the wind, on 22 March 2004, I embarked on the journey of a lifetime. By the time November rolled around, I'd covered some 1,900+ miles, when I received word that my only brother had committed suicide by hanging on 6 November 2004. I came off the trail to be with my extended family, vowing to return as soon as possible to finish what I'd started so many months earlier.

I did return in August 2005, completing the remaining miles in late September. My sole reason behind the determination to finish was due to the plain and simple fact that I was told "NO" one too many times. I was told that it was physically impossible; That given my 'physical limitation', I could not do it. I wanted to prove "them" wrong, and I did.

I very much admire the drive behind Chris McCandless. Our backgrounds are eerily similar, so I understand him in so many ways. I do not believe nor subscribe to the theory that he had a "death wish" or in some manner "committed suicide". Very simply put, he got caught with his pants down, totally unprepared. I cannot begin to tell you the number of times on the trail that I was in the same situation that Chris found himself in. (In one such event, I had to be evacuated off of Mount Katahdin in Maine via a National Guard helicopter.)

My wanderlust is still very much alive, and still very much a part of who I am today. In fact, I am preparing even now to load my truck and camper down with gear for a very soon upcoming extended road trip, taking along some of the younger kids with me. (We now have 7 children: 5 sons, 2 daughters, ranging in age from 19 on down to 5.) I moved to East Tennessee (in the mountains where I enjoyed my boyhood vacations) and absolutely love raising my family in a very much dreamy environment - alone and secluded from the rest of the populous. I live my own life the way I want to live it, and leave others alone. I respect their 'right' to live as corporate drones as long as they respect my right to live a wanderlust experience. I'm debt-free, have enough coming in each month to pay the basic bills, and honestly do not need any more out of life than what I already have. I've learned what true contentment is all about.

To the fellow who earlier posted about his desire to "unplug", I say "KUDOS".... You will experience SO MUCH FREEDOM when you're finally able to shed the trappings of a mundane life. You're only going this way once, so you may as well make the most of it while you're here.

Thank you for your time,
Scotty "One-Leg" Rogers