I recently watched the movie ‘Into the Wild’. It is based on a true story, and adapted from the book written by Jon Krakauer. What drew me to the movie was the fact that Krakauer had also written ‘Into thin air’, a book of his personal account of a disastrous attempt to scale Mt. Everest in the 1990’s. I had gone to the Everest Base Camp in May 2016 and had read the book before going. I found it to be very engrossing in a morbid sort of way, where most of the characters hurtle towards self-destruction because of ego, vanity and pride. And then I heard about ‘Into the Wild’. This time I chose to see the movie first. It is the story of an American, Christopher McCandless, who donates his life savings to charity at the age of 23, gives up on everything materialistic and starts travelling towards Alaska. He survived over 100 days in the Alaskan wilderness, eating berries, roots and managing an occasional kill. The movie traces his journey to the wilderness and beyond.  I found the movie quite thought provoking. It questioned many tenets at a fundamental level. And it set me thinking about some of the things that we take as given as we go about our materialistic lives.

1. Christopher shuns his name and calls himself Alexander Supertramp.  He throws away his degree and an opportunity to gain a post-graduate degree. In the movie, he says that Career is a 20th century invention created to keep ourselves busy. We all derive a certain sense of importance and identity from our lineage and also from our education, our work and our designation. Once we are stripped of these, do we have a sense of purpose in our lives that give us an identity which goes beyond our business card?
2. During his journey, Alexander meets several interesting people including a hippie couple, a grain farmer and a retired army man. He is able to form deep connections with them within a short span of time, but he is also able to leave those and move on. He is able to get in and out of people’s lives quite easily. We encounter several people over the course of our life and they all play a role in shaping our life. They come into our lives for a reason and then they move on for a reason. Very often, we agonize over the loss of these relationships, not realizing that it was meant to be that way, and that it had served its purpose.
3. The retired army man whom Chris meets, has lived his life in a particular way and doesn’t want to get out of that routine. In one scene Chris encourages him to climb a hill and take in the view from the top. He says that the core of a man’s spirit comes from seeking new experiences. And that is so true. We all learn and grow much more when we get out of our comfort zone, and actively seek new experiences. It makes us stronger and wiser.

  Throughout his journey, Chris shuns materialistic things and seeks minimalism by being one with nature. He lives on things provided by nature. Every time he stays at a place, and gets comfortable there, he gives it all up and moves on in search of newer experiences. In many ways, what he did was probably an extreme form of shunning all things materialistic and seeking refuge in the natural wilderness. He realized that Nature is bountiful at one level and is also very minimalistic at another and that is what probably drew him to it. I am not suggesting that we abandon everything and run off to the mountains. My occasional forays into the wilderness, whether through a trek to the Everest Base Camp, or while summiting Mount Kilimanjaro or while traversing the vast landscapes of Ladakh, gave me a glimpse of what it means to be in the midst of nature, and experience the simple joys of minimalism. It gave me perspective when I came back to the material world where we live in, and it helps me lead a more meaningful life. So I am thinking, what next – a walk through the Mongolian Steppes in 2018, anyone?