Tags
alexander super tramp, falmouth cutter, into the wild, Lord George Gordon Byron, sailing, thoreau
Rather than love, than money, than faith, than fame, than fairness… gimme Truth” – Alex Supertramp, Into the Wild.
~Thoreau
In my younger days I would tramp off into the wild with little more than a warm hoodie a sharp knife and a few fish hooks.
With my dog by my side we would explore the great interior of this beautiful country
Now that I’m a bit older I need more, not much more but more. A nice warm dry bunk, a hot meal and a place to call home.
I was recently asked what it is I love so much about sailing.
Its the pure freedom that I love, the simplicity, self sufficiency and the ability to take my home with me wherever I go. There are more places accessible by boat in this world than any other form of transportation. Sailing isnt a sport to me its a lifestyle, a means to an ends. I seek to climb every mountain and explore every valley, the boat is my E ticket to the world.
There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more
~Lord George Gordon Byron
Wow, what a powerful quote and story….for me at least. A number of years ago, I was about to get onto a flight for a business trip to Europe. Cruising the airport bookstore, I stumbled upon INTO THE WILD. Having enjoyed Krakauer’s previous book, I grabbed it without really reading the teaser. As we taxied out for take-off, I cracked open the book……and didn’t put it down until six hours later when I finished the last page. I was shell-shocked by the story and the often frightening similarities to my own youth. I admit that Chris McCandles was more “hard core” than I. I didn’t feel the need to divest myself of EVERYTHING, instead accomplish goals and dreams with the minimum required. Nonetheless, he and I shared similar questions about individual existence and our society, similar tests of physical stamina and resourcefulness, similar geography and passions, similar hubris and introspection. I suspect many of us can relate….. at least many of us mid-life crisis men. In the late 90’s, when this book was published, I was a new father, business “executive” and homeowner, miles away from where I ever anticipated my life would end up.
Reading this book was haunting, no so much from the realization that “that could have been me”, but for understanding of the person I was then, and the one I am today; Similar, yet very different. Sorry Alan. I know this topic was not the intended “message” of your post, but it got me thinking, and I felt the need to write it down, if only for my own catharsis.
Ken, not off topic at all. Like you I’m the same age as Chris, I spent those same years as Chris thumbing it all over the world with little or nothing, well I had a huge wad of cash. I had many near death encounters including 21 days in the jungle with nothing but a lighter, a Swiss Army Knife and a 32 ounce water bottle in my day pack. Into The Wild is my Cather In The Rye. Every man I know has found this book haunting in so many ways. Chis’s death was tragic and untimely but he stacked more life into his short years than most can or do in a lifetime. So what is the real tragedy, Chris living his short life and doing and seeing it all or the man who lives to 100 trapped in his coffin of safety and security. Oddly enough I’m shocked at where I am now. I have traveled and sailed all over the earth. I had thought that by now I would have a family and children. life takes us in strange directions. I can live without quite happily, This Year I went 7 days without a bite to eat and it didn’t bother me at all. While I can live like this I would never make my dog go without so my years or wandering the world with a day pack have come to an end. Last summer I met a 19 year old kid, or hobo I should say, He was in his second year of hopping trains all over. I worried about him but then again I didn’t because He was living his life in a way many of us could never understand.
http://thepineconegentleman.com/2012/04/10/living-in-168sq/