Another Re-Post

From December 7th, 2011

The list

So, I sent a text message the other day, sort of half in thought and half distracted, a meddling segue had just passed into my transience, as if having a thought had been replaced by a cognitive function dependent on not thinking at all. I passed along the text, closed my phone and resumed watching television. The after thought is this, how many ways could I attach meaning to, and how many different stories could I ascribe a certain genre to, the story of Christopher Mccandless? So, my quick text, in my mind, has started to gain a little attention.
Why else would I compare his story to the story of My side of the mountain, or Jack Kerouac's Desolation Angels, or the Dick Proeneke story Alone in the Wilderness, or Edward Abbey's Desert Solitaire? I think each has merit to stand alone as interesting stories, but do each of them have and share some central theme of isolation, selfishness, ignorance and loss? Is there triumph in being able to claim self-sufficiency? Is there tragedy in losing one's life if that life has been spent pursuing something so honest and abidingly ephemeral as finding a sense of place? Is theirs an issue of empowerment or entitlement?
A lot of spiritual geographies have been written that address that topic, Kathleen Norris, Wallace Stegner, Michael Dorris, Seamus Heaney and many, many other writers could be said to deliberately pursue and achieve a sense of place as a central character or major component of their novels and prose. Moreso than the characters themselves.
What then, draws in an individual, past that fictional realm of the spiritual, and causes one to actively pursue something which does not exist?
so my text was this;
Alone in the Wilderness versus Into the Wild versus Desert Solitaire versus My Side of the Mountain versus Desolation Angels versus Walden Pond. Thoreau always changes the camber of this topic for me. That may be the thread that unravels this ball of twine.
Walked today, yesterday, the day before and the day before. I also skied today, which was fun and appreciated, like a piece of toffee.