Into the Wild

I've decided that my favorite book genre is adventure non-fiction. After being asked a few times recently what my favorite genre was, I realized that this was the genre that I most often read. Something draws me to the adventure and the book gains a lot of legitimacy in my mind when it is non-fiction. The problem with this genre is all kinds of non-writers tend to write these kinds of books, which makes for really dry books. John Krakauer, however, seems to know how to grab my attention and tell a good story full of emotions and personalities instead of just stating the facts.

The most recent book I've read is Into the Wild by Krakauer. Christopher McCandless, an Emory grad with grades good enough to get into Harvard Law, donates $25,000 to charity and heads west in his Datsun. Soon after, he abandons the Datsun, burns his remaining cash, and is out on his own with nothing except what he can carry on his back. He spends the next couple years hitch-hiking around the west, not spending much time anywhere. At one point he canoes down the Colorado River and gets lost in Mexico where he survives for a month on little more than a 20lb bag of rice. He spends time living in a community of rubber tramps, who spent their lives driving around the country in their RVs. For a while, he lives in Bullhead City, AZ working at a fast food restaurant. He was required to wear socks with his shoes, but every day, the second his shift ended, he would immediately take off his socks. He also spent time in North Dakota harvesting barley, saving money for his last great adventure.

Everywhere he went, people gravitated towards him and became very attached to him before he would leave after only a few weeks. In southern California, while Alex (his pseudonym) was living next to a nudist camp at a hot springs, he met an old man named Ron Franz who gave him a ride into the city to fill up his water bottle. Over no more than 2 weeks, this lonely Christian man became so attached to Alex that when he left, he asked if he could adopt him as his son. Something about Alex pushed people to examine themselves and see what they were missing in life.

In a letter to Franz, Alex writes

I'd like to repeat the advice I gave you before, in that I think you really should make a radical change in your lifestyle and begin to boldly do things which you may previously never have thought of doing, or been too hesitant to attempt. 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 damaging 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. If you want to get more out of life, Ron, you must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life that will at first appear to you to be crazy. But once you become accustomed to such a life you will see its full meaning and its incredible beauty... My point is that you do not need me or anyone else around to bring this new kind of light in your life. It is simply waiting out there for you to grasp it, and all you have to do is reach for it. The only person you are fighting is yourself and your stubbornness to engage in new circumstances.

This is the way that Alex lived, always searching for new experiences, following his heart for adventure. This went all the way to the point of walking off into the Alaskan bush to live off of the land. He wanted to prove to himself that he could survive on his own in the Alaskan wild and to see what it was like to be completely isolated from any outside help. He survived for 3 months while living out of an old bus, eating plants and small game. At one point he had tried walking back to civilization (only 25 miles to the east), but was blocked by the high waters of the Teklanika River. This ultimately led to his death by either starvation or food poisoning. It was pointed out by others that only 1/4 mile away from where he attempted to cross was a hand-operated tram that would have easily saved his life. This along with a few other instances show Alex's  profound lack of common sense.

Krakauer's book gives you an enormous amount of sympathy for Alex, but in the end, what he did in Alaska was not heroic as many of his fans would suggest. Even though I think he was a bit foolish, his character calls out to me and I've even considering making the trek to his "Magic Bus" through Denali National Park. I think that life is too precious to simply dedicate your entire life to the pursuit of adventure to the point of foolishly leaving no path of escape. But at the same time, I think he was very articulate about this call to adventure that many of us feel. While I don't believe in the call of adventure enough to move to the wilderness and live on my own, I always feel a longing for adventure in some capacity -- to put myself in uncomfortable situations that stretch me and test my limits both for the sake of exploring the emotions that adventure inevitably comes with and for the confidence that it produces when you have tested yourself and found that you were more capable than you previously imagined.

Anyways, the book is amazing and you should read it, even if you think that Chris McCandless was a kook. Krakauer does a great job of telling the story and explores this call to adventure through McCandless's story as well as Krakauer's own story of climbing Devil's Thumb and stories of other historic adventurers.

A Quality Book

If I was faster, posting this video would entitle me to a free book. It's a quality book anyway, so here's a promo for the paperback version of A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller.

What story are you telling? from Rhetorik Creative on Vimeo.

It's A Sin To Kill A Mockingbird

If you're one of those people who can't enjoy a book after hearing an important piece of the plot, then don't read this.

My reading material is pretty random. I have a hard time reading an entire series and I skip from genre to genre--Science Fiction, Biographies, fiction and nonfiction Adventure, Christian, Classical Literature.

The most recent book I finished was To Kill A Mockingbird. I first read this book when I was a sophomore in high school and I immediately loved it. Recently I've been re-reading books I enjoyed reading in language classes in high school, so this was the next one in line.

Unlike some books, I think the title really captures the whole message of the book. I've never actually seen a mockingbird, but they are apparently very nice birds. They don't dig holes in bad places. All they do is sing nice songs and they're never annoying. They never did anybody any harm and all they do is make nice music, so it's a sin to kill them.

One of the main parts of the book is the story of a black man who was falsely accused of raping a white woman. The accuser knew fully well what had really happened, but he knew he could shift the blame to the black man because of his low status in society. The black man never did anything wrong, in fact, he was incredibly generous to the accusers and was repaid with a rape accusation. After overwhelming evidence for his innocence, he was proclaimed guilty by a jury of white men.

In one of the final scenes of the book, Scout, the main character was in her 3rd grade class. The teacher was teaching them about Hitler's persecution of the Jews.

"An inquiring soul in the middle of the room said , ' Why don't they like the Jews, you reckon, Miss Gates ?'

'I don't know, Henry. They contribute to every society they live in, and most of all, they are a deeply religious people . Hitler's trying to do away with religion, so maybe he doesnt like them for that reason.'

Cecil spoke up. 'Well I dont know for certain,' he said, ' they're supposed to change money or something', but that ain't no cause to persecute 'em.They're white, ain't they?' "

---

It's amazing how we can put on blinders and ignore what's going on right next to us.

Minus 148 on Denali

Yesterday I finished reading Minus 148: The First Winter Ascent of Mt. McKinley. I finished the book while I was walking down the bus aisle to get off and walk out into the 5 degree weather in Denver. It was a very appropriate time to finish the book.

The book was really good and I'd recommend it to anyone who likes reading about adventures. First of all, it's crazy because they're climbing the tallest mountain in North America in March. They were happy to have a warm day where the high was -10F. It turns from an already extremely difficult climb to a survival situation and it's really fascinating.

Mountaineering has been a fascination of mine for a while. I love climbing mountains, so it makes sense. I completely understand the thrill of climbing a 20,320 ft mountain. The technical climbing, the camping at high altitudes, and the amazing views all sound thrilling. If this was all there was to mountaineering, I would jump at the opportunity to learn how to ice climb and travel in glaciers so that I could climb Denali and other high peaks. But there's much more to mountaineering than the thrill.

The thing that's had me confused ever since I started getting interested in mountaineering is how the climbers are willing to go through so much suffering to climb a mountain. The suffering seems ridiculous.

Even though I grew up in Alaska, I can't understand why climbers are okay with being so cold for so long. The guys in this book scheduled an entire month to climb the mountain. The high was around -10 at base camp, but they spent most of their time at higher elevations where the temperature got as low as -50 (with the wind chill it was colder than -148). I was stiff and grumpy by the time I walked 3 minutes in 5 degree weather to my connecting bus stop. I could never spend a month in weather colder than that. The cold is a huge thing about mountaineering that confuses me.

At high altitude, your body has major issues. First, there's the whole breathing issue. You have half the oxygen that people at sea level have for an extended period of time. You get to a point where you have to take a break after every few steps. Next, you have headaches, dizziness and slow brain function. Then you have altitude sickness, where you just feel miserable and your only option is to hike down in your misery to a lower altitude and wait until you recover. The worst thing that can happen because of the high altitude is pulmonary edema. Relatively high pressure in your blood veins causes fluid to fill air spaces in your lungs, making it even more impossible to breathe. You can die in days from this if you don't immediately descend to lower altitudes.

On Annapurna, a 26,545ft mountain in the Himalayas, 142 climbers have attempted the summit (as of 2008) and 58 of those climbers have died. That's a death rate of 41%, but people still climb it. Death is something that all climbers have to accept, especially on solo attempts, the very difficult routes, and winter ascents. Even on Everest, where the death rate is only 10%, it is still the most popular 8,000 meter mountain to climb. They know that one in 10 people will die climbing it, but it's worth it to them.

So you can see my confusion. It's hard to understand why climbers climb these high peaks with all the suffering they are putting themselves through. The cold seems unbearable, the altitude sounds miserable, and the danger of death is inevitable. This is why I have been so fascinated with mountaineering recently. I want to understand their motivation for going through so much difficulty just to climb a mountain. Mountaineers have a completely different view on suffering and death than we who have never climbed a mountain higher than 15,000ft and that's what keeps bringing me back to their stories.

Immortals Among Us

What would our society be like if one out of a hundred babies born were immortals? This would change every one's perspective on death. The 99 would either live their life wishing they had been immortal, wondering what they would have done in their life if they were immortal, or they would be glad they get to die and not have to endure this life for longer than 80 years.

If you were immortal you would see all kinds of evolution. Languages would change like the difference between Old English and American English. You might even see your own language die out and see how it evolved into completely different languages. You would experience adjectives evolve from nifty to groovy to hip to cool to sweet.

Technology would change. You would see how technology changes the way people behave, their work ethic, their addictions to information, their strong desire to work hard so they can quit working. It might be disheartening to see the increasing need for entertainment. Then again, you would probably evolve to. You'd wonder how you ever got in touch with people before phones or how you could stand washing your clothes with a washing board.

Your experience would be incredibly valuable even though your skills would surely out date themselves. The only way your experience would be valuable would be for aspects of life that don't evolve through time or perhaps when you could recall back when things worked better. If you allowed yourself to have romantic relationships you would be a great mentor for a youth who wanted to get married. You would probably have much experience in resolving conflict and would understand how different people work.

You would also see the way things change for the worse or for the better. You'd be able to tell us mortals whether morals have gotten better or worse. You might see that when one evil goes away another takes it's place and that moral standards just cycle over time.

All this wisdom would come at a great personal cost. Family would die. You might track your descendants down generation after generation, but your emotional attachments would ever decrease. You might get tired of life to the point of suicide. Although you may learn to accept that you only have 80 years with each person you meet and choose to live a good life anyway.

It's hard to say exactly what it would be like. It could be great or it could be horrible.

Note: This idea of having a few immortals among us was stolen from Jonathan Swift, author of Gulliver's Travels. Gulliver traveled to a country where a few of the people were immortal. They grew depressed, bitter, and envious with old age. Their bodies decayed and they were shunned by the people around them. They made it so absolutely nobody had a fear of death. I like my idea of immortality better, but it may not be entirely realistic.

Concerning the famous hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha

This is a drawing I did of a statue of Don Quixote that my friend Cynthia gave me from her trip to Spain.

Some People:

Don Quixote's that guy who ran into a bunch of windmills thinking they were giants right? Yeah... that's the guy.

Yep Wishbone (the old PBS show) got it right. He's the guy who ran into the windmills. Normally I am very pleased with the summary Wishbone does of books, but not Don Quixote. Sorry.

Oh he's the guy that the Broadway musical Man of La Mancha is about right? Yeah... that's him too.

Whoever did that musical should be forced to do something horribly unpleasant for making that musical.

Enough ranting. Don Quixote is a cool guy. If you know me very well, then you know that Don Quixote by Miguel Cervantes is my favorite book. I'm secretly obsessed with the book and not many people realize it. It is a hilarious book with really cool insight into the character of Don Quixote.

Don Quixote is a crazy old man who was obsessed with chivalry books, so much that he believed they were all real. He dedicated his life to a life of chivalry, living as a knight going from town to town, righting the wrongs that he encountered. He is absolutely ridiculous (and his squire Sancho is even more ridiculous).

What I love about Don Quixote that really impresses me is how ridiculous he looks to everyone around him, but how ridiculously good he is to those he feels have been wronged. Everybody thinks he's stupid for running around in armor and a washpan as his helmet, but he is so honorable and kind. He protects servants from their abusive masters and he even treats the ugliest girl in town as a princess. He spends so much time dreaming of his beautiful Dulcinea, forcing his foes to swear that she is the most beautiful maiden in Spain. He also had this scrawny old donkey, whom he called Rocinante and spoke of the animal like it was a great stallion. Poor thing had to carry him across Spain.

Don Quixote dedicated his life to defending the weak and beautifying the ugly. Good guy. You should read the book, but please promise me not to watch the musical!