There are material days. I have a lot of those days, days when I'm glad I have several thousand dollars in the bank. On those days I'll get up in the morning and check the stock market, check my credit account payments. I'll admire my car, and the parts I have installed on it. Then I'll sit and write a list of all the parts I need to install, because the car...just needs them. To be faster, louder, shinier...just better, in my convoluted, contemporary mind. On those days I'll spend some time online searching for something I need. A new pair of skis, LEDs for my car, bushings for my longboard. Or maybe on that particular day I am looking for a new sweatshirt, 60 dollars from Quiksilver. Or posters for the dorm, five dollars each. I need those things. I need money. Things, money, things...it is a poisonous circle.
The truth of the matter is, on those days, I am not truly searching for anything. Typing in a few words and hitting enter does not constitute a true search. I know that what I am looking for is already there, I am just uncovering it. Like that car you know is somewhere in the parking lot..."search" for it by hitting the alarm, and there it is. I don't need that thing I am trying to find, either. In the years since the hard, cold existence of mankind as a primitive species on this Earth, the meaning of "need" has been diluted and fragmented by our "sophisticated" tastes. It is only when we are forced to revert to that "...most ancient of human conditions..." that we rediscover the real signification of "need."
Today is one of the days when I am able to see this. On these kinds of days, I am able to see past the metal and plastic of the material world, past the cashmere suits and German cars and cold, hard cash. Rather than "searching" for the Xbox game on Amazon, I search for truth and reason. "Rather...than money, than faith, than fame, than fairness... give me truth." These are the days that I stay up late writing, because I am able to break free from the blind, material life.
"What is wrong with you?" you may ask. "What are you smoking?"
I just watched "Into the Wild" for the second time. The first time I saw it was right around graduation, and it changed me. After seeing it again, I think I can fairly say it has changed me even more. It is, I believe, a highly romanticized, Sean Penn version of what really happened. This is indescribably ironic, that the truth of the circumstances surrounding Chris McCandless's death be distorted when, in real life, truth is what he was searching for. But, in any case, I respect his goal and determination to reach it. Chris made mistakes. He was unprepared, and this untimely led to his untimely death. Although I never would have embarked on his journey and made those mistakes, I see his point.
To really find the meaning in life, you need to look past material. Past the grid of city streets and orange lights, the cars and the smog. Sometimes for the irreversibly lost souls, you need to go to the ends of the Earth to find it, to the great Alaskan wilderness. But for the everyday person, sometimes you need to search no further than within yourself.
"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 dangerous to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun."
— Chris McCandless
No longer to be poisoned by civilization he flees, and walks alone upon the land to become lost in the wild.
Current Mood: Blank
Listening To: "Hard Sun" by Eddie Vedder
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