in the big hard world

Introspection... but not a thesis, not while buzzed. This song -- Hard Sun by Eddie Vedder -- has got me captivated this morning.

I put the Into The Wild Soundtrack on and when I got to Hard Sun I set the music player to repeat and play just that one song -- over and over and over, for a half hour, for an hour, I just can't get tired of it. At some point I went to Youtube and checked out the video and...... geez, man, the similarities between me and that idiot Chris McCandless, they're there. I guess I always knew this but there's a new component now. We both had a rich east coast upbringing that went buh bye to search for the wild of the west -> eventually Alaska. That's where young McCandless was a schmuck and Alaska was too big for him. It's too big and too wild for many... he went Into The Wild... but was unable to come out of it. "Lonely. Scared." he wrote. I know those feelings but they are not ones you can have in the wilderness.

We both also wanted little to do with Society. Yet I find myself sitting here smack dab in the middle of Society, wanting to very much be a part of American Society even more. But things go good -> things go bad, and what I could say about McCandless -- "What a waste of a life" -- could now be said about me, as well. Another striking similarity. At least I'd be smart enough not to get myself dead with the Parks Highway just a day or two walk to the east.

P.S. Before I ever even knew about the movie being made, I went looking for that bus once. Because of wicked high volume of melting glacial waters, I was unable to make it but I could take you there tomorrow. McCandless wasn't that far away from civilization (a major Alaskan road) and that's he's kind of a joke and why his demise is somewhat laughable to many Alaskans.