The Essays I wrote

Deliberately Living

"de-lib-er-ate\de-lib-ə-rāt\ vb-at-ed;-at-ing v (14c): to think about or discuss issues and decisions carefully vt: to think about deliberately and often with formal discuss before reaching a decision syn see THINK"

-Merriam Webster, Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary

Living deliberately means to think ahead. It means to create one's own path. It means to think outside the box and break free from society's ideas. Think about life. Follow passion, but also use the brain.

Chris McCandless did not live deliberately. He lived impulsively. He threw himself in a new environment, and he was woefully unprepared. He never got to truly experience life in the 'real wildernesses'. He clung to modern society and civilizations, and right when he was on the fringes, it was too much. His wild, unsound blunderings proved to be lethal.

"Our life is flittered away by detail. An honest man hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest."

-Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Thoreau says to "Simplify, simplify", not throw your life into a dark, mysterious, and untelling void. Thoreau is encouraging the use of the Late Mr. Common Sense who seemed to have abandoned McCandless numerous times on his expedition.

"But McCandless, in his naïveté, relied on the advice of hunters he'd consulted in South Dakota"

-Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild (166)

Seriously? What made him think that was a good idea? When he killed the moose, he was closer to Russia than he was to South Dakota. Then, of course, he missed the point. He writes that he needs to "eat and cook with concentration... Holy food." (168) He doesn't need to cook his "Holy food" with more "concentration". What he needs is knowledge. He needs to know what to do and how to survive in the "wild" of Alaska. But he doesn't search for this knowledge; he focuses on getting to the Alaska "wilderness" but not how he is going to survive it.

For those who argue that McCandless was smart and knew what he was doing, because he had a college education, let me tell you that I know a whole bunch of dumb, idiotic people who had a college education and a bunch of smart people who barely got a high school education. Having a college education doesn't necessarily mean one is smart. Having a college education does not mean that one is ready to live and go "into the wild".

McCandless did not think deeply before cutting as many ties to his family as possible. He lived a life that was based on his instinct and impulse. He followed his passion, but he didn't use his brain efficiently.