Mary and I went to Bowling Green on Sunday with the intent of seeing the movie Across the Universe. However, I got my information crossed and wound up at the theater on Campbell Lane instead of the correct one, next to Greenwood Mall. The only movie that was about to start at the time we were there (we clearly could not have made it across town to the right theater in time) was Into the Wild. Talk about serendipity. WmJ Travis had just told us about this book and movie a few days earlier so I was a bit interested in it, but it was a really powerful and emotional experience.
Like many of us, Chris McCandles sought out the wilderness in an effort to find a real relationship with the planet. He turned his back on materialism and his upper middle class family. He erased his old name and life and set out to wander North America as Alexander Supertramp. He took only the most minimal of items, mainly great works of literature, as his traveling companions. He felt he could prove that the right relationship with the earth would easily replace normal relationships with friends and family. He wound up in the Denali National Forest, alone, unprepared, and, in the end, learned this simple lesson (probably from Dr. Zhivago, one of his traveling companions)...Happiness is only real when shared.
It is one of those movies where you walk out in a different skin than the one you entered in, and it takes a while to even feel up to talking again. I highly recommend it.
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