An unusual moment of regret.

In early June my hot little Canadian friend, Blue, posted a picture of Christopher McCandless as her Facebook profile picture. In typical NN fashion I was quick with a wise-ass remark and called McCandless, who sometimes goes by the alias "Alexander Supertramp", superjackass. You can see below how the conversation unfolded.



NN June 20 at 9:20pm

Supertramp...superjackass...

[The subject line of the post above was "McCandless was a self-aggrandizing fool"]


Blue June 21 at 3:57am

Wow NN, pretty random offending opinion right there. We differ because I love the guy and his morals. I actually find him quite a genius. Did you ever even read the book before critisizing like that? It was simply his own way and views of life he was living with his own goals for himself, why do people care if he lived it differently than most boring typical citizens, obsessed by materialism. Anyhow sorry, kinda offended because you'd need to know and learn deeper on his idealism of life before critisizing so harshly.

In my pic, its a week before he died. He took a picture of himself knowing he was going to die any time soon. He holds a letter giving thanx and saying he lived a happy life. Pretty impressed with his happiness level on the picture for a guy knowing he was going to die very soon.

Anyhow, different perspectives i guess. Didnt need to get so intense with your disapproval. You knew i obviously admired him... wtv


NN June 24 at 8:36am

My intention wasn't to offend you, sorry about that. I didn't know you admired him or I would have kept my opinion to myself. I assumed you put the pic for other reasons.

I did read the book, and have done a lot other research on him because my buddy D-Ron and I debated about him a lot. I like his antimaterialistic views, it's very courageous. However, I think he was essentially wreckless and very disrespectful to his family. Anyone who knows anything about the wilderness will say that whether he knew it or not, his lack of education/planning for his Alaskan journey was effectively suicide. He had no map, no compass, and no training. And now people romanticize what he did, which is what bothers me the most.

While I don't feel badly for him, I do empathize with his plight. He fucked up, he realized he fucked up, but it was too late when he did. Whether he accidentally poisoned himself with the berries or not, he became sick and didn't have the energy to walk out of the woods, which is what he desperately wanted (there was a bridge just a few miles from his bus to cross that river, but since he didn't have a map he didn't know it). He died alone, scared, and very angry at himself (as his writing suggests).

There are certainly worse role models, but Mr. Supertramp isn't one of mine.

Again, sorry about how harsh my comments were. It was reflexive, I should have been a little more articulate and sensitive to other views. You're right, I didn't need to be so intense.

-NN

Two things happened here. First, I felt really badly that I offended her. It's extraordinarily unusual that I regret saying something. Sometimes I regret physically vocalizing a thought, but it's rare that I regret the thought itself. [It's similar to thieves. They don't usually regret the act of stealing, they usually just regret getting caught.] However, in this case I really do regret calling him a "superjackass" because in some ways I do admire McCandless. I think his anti-materialistic views are noble. Most people don't have the courage to shun material goods. My problems with McCandless are that he was very disrespectful to his family and irresponsible for going into the wilderness unprepared. He was either stupid, careless, naive, or suicidal. I'm not here to debate any of these, but whichever he was I don't think he is a role model or someone to romanticize. [For the record, I think he had most likely had emotional problems. He certainly didn't sounds stupid.]

The second thing that I realized here is that Blue showed a lot of poise and feeling in her response, which I respect. I always thought of her as a pretty face, but not much more because, well, she's super hot and kind of a goofball. Her email showed that's not the case.

In my defense, I thought Blue posted the picture without knowing who or what McCandless was about. It's kind of a funny picture and I presumed she posted it because she thought it was just an amusing picture of a funny looking dude. I didn't realize she admired him so much. This doesn't make my comments right.

If you would like to learn more about Christopher McCandless you should read the book Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer. There is also a movie by the same name directed by Sean Penn, but it really doesn't do the story justice because it doesn't cover enough of McCandless's background.