
Depending on the person’s perspective on the ideals of life and how a person should go through life, the answer to if Chris McCandless’ soul was unbalanced or not is questionable. For those, like myself, that have the opinion that his soul was perhaps too balanced for the world around him, find that it is probably based how we perceive the world around us. Opinions are usually based off experience, and perceptions, which I am about to share.
A person as intense and sensible to the world around them as Chris McCandless probably had much difficulty in being surrounded by what they do not understand. This understanding is not ignorance, just a sense of disbelief and need to truly read into the things that happen around their environment and understand why they occur. His awareness of the world was sharp, and his frustrated self was too deep into the why’s of the world to care truly about his general safety. Not to say he did not value his life, because it seemed as if he valued life (more than most) so much to try to save his soul. Though the dangers seemed not to comprehend him, as he was probably deep in thought other difficulties in the world.
A man like this rarely walks in society, or if he does, is not noticed or casted off as just another person who couldn’t cope with the real world. What those people don’t realize is that it shouldn’t be the real world. Society today isn’t real; it isn’t normal compared to those who lived simply and freely in places where most unnecessary technology and material items had not yet existed. To try and escape, if only for a while, and live in a truly normal place seems to apply to a perfectly balanced soul. The unbalanced soul might live through their whole life, not aware of the reasons of pain or to live in the beauty of simplicity. His awareness of the happenings around him greatly contributed to his balance.
Society often brushes off the different views and emotions of the world. Only few people in the world could feel the world and the harsh truths as Chris did. He not only merely witnessed poverty from a distance, but lived with it. He abandoned the feeling of general safety to further feed his need to understand. Though not as extreme, joining CSP’s having to do with other people in need has helped me further open my understanding for the world and the harsh truths I do not have to face. Its a little reminder on what the world is really made of, the natural and simplicity faced with the corruption of diseases and economy. Though, it is frustrating to see these problems and want so badly to solve them, to know how and why this could happen, and to know humans can cause it, helped me understand his intentions in just simply escaping. Maybe escaping could be used as a refresher that the world still has good. I respect his journey, though it was extreme. It hopefully served its purpose, and certainly helped inspire other people, such as myself, to truly feel the world.
Chris McCandless was a man of a perfectly balanced soul, which the world around him was not use to having or accepting. His ability to feel the world and want to nurture his own soul with the true beauty of the world probably makes his soul more balanced than most. Whether he’s attempting to understand the harshness of the world by living the experience, or attempting to clarify his own questions by traveling to the unpolluted-by-society lands, he is feeding his soul with the balance of experience and reason.
Angela Freker.
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