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Into The Wild - Jon Krakauer
pages 1-16
This book is talking about this truck driver who picks up a hitchhiker whos name is Alex. Alex plans on surviving in the wild for a couple months on a 10 pound bag of rice a .22 caliber rifle and thats about it. The truck driver offers him supplies but he refuses. He also tries to change his mind about going but he still refuses.

Alex is having his first psychotic break. He probably would have been diagnosed schizophrenic, had he made it back out of the wild. I found this book very sad, and at the time I had a couple of teenagers living with me who thought it was the coolest concept in the world. Which was a bit scary to say the least.

It's based on true facts. I found it fascinating that someone could drop out of society and follow a dream...that sadly doesn't end well. I've been to the area where he stayed in Alaska so it had more meaning to me.

I grew up in the country. I had experience camping and doing other outdoor activities. I found Alex's ideas about the outdoors and animals typical for young people who have no real experience in the wilderness. He really had little chance of survival from the beginning. He had no knowledge of the Alaskan weather, Edible plant and wildlife nor available shelter.

As a parent I think he really never gave his family a chance. What an enormous amount of pain his parents and sister must have suffered. Parenting is a day by day activity and some days we do it better than others. I would say most parents do the best they can with what they know and the tools they have.

i certainly was not intending to slight Alex's parents in any way, so i hope my comment was not taken that way. the tragedy of mental illness is that its early signs often don't seem a whole lot different from a young adult turning their back on establishment and wanting to seek out a life as different as possible from the one they have known. it's much easier to pick out signs of illness developing when reading a book or watching a movie...with the benefit of hindsight and already knowing the outcome. i just found the whole thing so profoundly sad. it is one thing to follow a drea, but another entirely when that dream becomes delusional...
sad