Abstractions and Distractions of Living: #Enrichyourweekend ( EYW ): Week 38

I find movies, a powerful medium for learning.

Watching great films has been a liberating experience.

Good movies often require multiple viewings to get a proper understanding.

Understanding of some movies, also seem to improve over a period of time.

Movies stimulate introspection and the individuals can experience Eureka moments.

Movies can also be seen in groups and teams. Since individuals process information in different ways, groups could discuss ideas and arrive at an enhanced understanding.

It has been my endeavour to bring perspectives to movies that can impact the quality of our lives.

I recognize there are other perspectives to great works of art.

I would encourage the readers of this post, to offer their perspectives, so that there can be greater insights and collective learning.

IN the 38th week of #Enrichyourweekend series, I visit 'Into the Wild'.

Into the Wild is a 2007 American biographical drama survival film, adapted from Jon Krakauer's 1996 non-fiction book of the same name, based on the travels of Christopher McCandless across North America and his life spent in the Alaskan wilderness in the early 1990s. The book is highly used as high school and college reading curriculum.

'Into the Wild' has to be on the must watch list of not only high school students, college grads but also, professionals, aspiring parents, parents and adults who aspire to live, learn and evolve. Even, the herd, that goes through the motions of life, may benefit, should they pause and reflect, on important aspects that are discussed

Why does Christopher McCandless, decide to spend, 114 days in the Alaskan wild? In his own words:

And I also know how important it is in life, not necessarily to be strong but to feel strong, to measure yourself at least once, to find yourself atleast once in the most ancient of human conditions,facing the blind deaf stone alone, with nothing to help you but your own hands and your own head.

What do you do there? You are just living, in that moment, in that special place and time.

I am sure many people may have divergent thoughts on the movie. Nevertheless the range of the subjects and the distractions that can muddle the thought process, robbing an individual of clarity of thinking at critical states in life, that can lead to unfulfilling lives, makes this movie on the mandatory watch list.

Th narrative of this biopic is divided into five parts: My Own birth, Adolescence, Manhood, Family and Getting of Wisdom

The movie opens with these poetic verses by Lord Byron

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods:

There is a rapture on the lonely shore;

There is a society, where none intrudes,

By the deep sea, and the music in its roar:

I love the man less, but Nature more...

In a way, Lord Byron seemed to have influenced the insanely gorgeous sequences of every possible terrain, throughout the length of movie. Sample this.

But the movie is more of a lament that the glorious nature, a miracle of the universe, seem to be far removed from the human mind . The collective consciousness of a seemingly blind human race, that is preoccupied with false security and material excess, careerism and money that embolden the blindness, power and money that contributes to an illusion, all of which can cut, any individual from the truths of existence. The lament is also about an emerging sick social order and human's obsession with wanting to control, and the terrible urgency in forming opinions, arriving at judgments and its innate capability to hate its fellow travelers.

Before I reveal my compelling reason to write this post and visit reasons that may have driven Chris on what he set out to accomplish, I want to visit Chris and his world.

Chris

Chris, an adventurer, who measured himself and others around him by a fiercely rigorous moral code, risked a lonely path, donated all his savings, burnt all his ID Cards, burnt all money on hand and broke away with characteristic immoderation, to pursue his Alaskan adventure.

Chris's World:

Education: Fulfilling the absurd and tedious duty of graduating from college...

Career: I think Careers are 20th century invention and I do not want one...

Money: Don't need money... Makes people cautious...

Truth: Rather than love, than money, than faith, than fame, than fairness, give me truth...

Change: People need to change the way, they look at those things..

Nature: The freedom and simple beauty is too good to pass up

Experience: Core of the man comes from new experiences...

Happiness: You are wrong if you think the joy of happiness comes principally from human relationship, God placed around us in everything, anything we can experience

Life: If we admit that human life can be ruled by reason, the possibility of life is destroyed..

Parents: Mom and Dad, Living in their lies somewhere...

Parenting

I had recently made an offer of employment to a forty year old. I had the chance to connect with him on an informal occasion and was curious, why he had not married? Despite continuous attempts, he said, that the efforts did not seem to converge. However there also seemed to be a sigh of relief that he had not got married. He observed that several of his friends who had got married in the last ten years where going through serious marital discord

My own observations of marriages that have taken place in the last fifteen years, is that, the data seems to point to more unfulfilling relations than say about twenty five years ago.

The concern may not be about unfulfilling relationships, but about the impact that a marital discord can have on children.

The irreversible damage on an impressionable mind can cause immeasurably agony on the individual and shape his or her life in ways that could have been better.

I only wish that aspiring parents seriously consider the responsibility of parenting, before they decide to have kids. A serious business indeed. If my memory serves me right, JRD Tata was once disappointed, when some youngsters had interviewed him, they did not ask him, why he had decided to not have kids?

While Chris's sister, avers that, there was something more than a rebellion and more than anger that was driving, Chris, to accomplish what he set out to do, the unhappy childhood triggered due to marital discord should have left a permanent scar.

Chris' nomadic journey, across lakes, rivers, canyons, the deserts, the mountains, the wheat fields while ever focused on Alaska and the preparations before it, also allows him to intersect with interesting characters who are not entirely in approval of the trip.

Chris, based on the inputs, from the film, is one of the finest young men you can find anywhere in the world. The defining moment of his value system comes to the fore, in one of the best moments in the film, when he, despite having an opportunity to have a physical relationship with young girl, does not take advantage of the situation and patiently explains why it would be inappropriate.

While we celebrate Chris's spirit and what he tried to accomplish, the loss of his life, was probably preventable. Shutting of portions of life is avoidance. One gets a feeling that acceptance came in pretty late, probably close to his death.

Was, Chris, walking away quietly into empty spaces, trying to close the gaps to the past?

Fascinating is Chris's interaction in segments with Hal Holbrook, who wants to adopt Chris as his grandson.

Hal, while trying to understand, what Chris is running away from, also observes that, when you forgive, you love, and when you love, god's light shines on you.

While you may love nature more, you cannot love the human less and we finish watching the movie with Chris's realization and his decision to forgive himself:

Happiness is only real when shared.

P.S: Along with my own point's of view, I have taken the liberty of using several dialogues in the film in an as is condition, hoping that it will help me convey the flavour of the film in the best possible condition.

As parting gift, a video of Charles McCandles 'quotes'