Share Your Happiness....

"...You are wrong if you think that the joy of life comes principally from the joy of human relationships. God's place is all around us, it is in everything and in anything we can experience. People just need to change the way they look at things." ~ Emile Hirsch, playing Christopher Johnson McCandless in the film Into the Wild.

I recently watched the film adaptation of Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer and, to be honest, I was disappointed. Maybe I was jaded from long hours reading the book and sinking into McCandless's head, trying to decipher his longing, to figure out why someone so young would throw away everything, turn away from people who loved him, to embark on a long and lonely journey... into the wild.

But the more I thought about it, the more I have come to appreciate the film and wish it were something greater than it is. Chris's story deserves to be heard by everyone, to be pondered by everyone. It's more than a movie. It's more than a book, a 20/20 special, a series of articles and news clippings.

The story of Chris McCandless is probably one of the greatest parables of self-awakening and rebirth ever told. It is the story of unbridled appreciation for the greatest gifts ever bestowed upon human beings.

Life. And beauty.

And while Chris McCandless's story is one laced with anger, selfishness, even idiocy, it is still one that makes you wonder about that which was powerful enough to draw him (not drive him away). And it is a story with a very simple, albeit burried, lesson for all of us.

"Happiness only real when shared."

~ Found scrawled in the margins of a book among Chris McCandless's belongings, August, 1992.

I found this tribute on YouTube. If you've read the book but haven't seen the movie, or if you've heard the story but never seen the images, please check it out.

The composer does a nice job of mingling scenes from the movie with a little explanatory exposition at the end. Not a bad tribute.
(If the link dies, I'm sure you can find it (and others) by searching "McCandless tribute" on YouTube)

A Tribute to Chris McCandless.

Alexander Supertramp... may you live on in the hearts of all of us.

And that's what I'm up to.