"Into the wild"

All photos by me

"Into the Wild"

The first time I watched this movie in a theatre, I did not have a word in my mind. The impression that the movie had given me was not describable with my vocabulary. It was astonishing.

The movie is based on a real story. "After graduating from Emory University, top student and athlete Christopher McCandless abandons his possessions, gives his entire $24,000 savings account to charity and hitchhikes to Alaska to live in the wilderness. Along the way, Christopher encounters a series of characters that shape his life." -from The Internet Movie database

Obviously, he had the potential to success and get whatever he wanted. His grades were good enough for going to Harvard Law school, which many people are dying to get inHowever, what he wanted to attain in his life was not the social status, fame, or money but the truth.

"I'm going to paraphrase Thoreau here... rather than love, than money, than faith, than fame, than fairness... give me truth. "

He was tired of living in the world where common values were all around. He wanted to find the truth by himself. Common values.... are the values which majority of the population have consensus for. In capitalism, everything is based on money. In religion, love and faith are always emphasized. Fairness is what is all about in democracy. We usually take these values for granted. However, Chris McCandless did not. He did not want to take these values without questioning and experimenting by him self. For him to find what is the truth of life, he had to abandon all the labels and materials which the society had given him and be free from the "readymade" values. And he started feeling the world purely by him self.

(The pictures on this post were taken in Salvation Mt in Niland, CA, which was one of the places where Chris had visited on his way to find the truth. )


It was a thought provoking movie for me and for a lot of my friends too. It's a movie that I know I'm going to watch and discuss about again with my friends when we grow up and have families.