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Chris seemed to be well-liked wherever he went and among whomever he came across in his travels. Even though he made up a fictitious name for himself, I believe that we all can be whomever we choose to be whether we use the name our parents gave us or not. He never used anyone else’s social security number and when he filled out the W-4 form at Wayne Westerner’s the second time, he did give his real name, and permanent address as well. (100). Chris seemed to be a young man that needed to run away and find who he really was after being someone who his parents wanted him to be his whole life, unfortunately it came to a tragic end.
When thinking about Chrism’s life and comparing it to mine, I find that our lives are quite the opposite. He comes from the family that wanted to basically make sure he got the best of everything, and he didn’t want it, and came from the family that had nothing and didn’t want to further their education, or couldn’t because of the financial disadvantages. His parents encouraged a college education, and mine never encouraged anything but a high school diploma.
He chose to give it all up and I chose to work hard to go to college and get my degree. I care very much about getting a degree even though I have get student mans and Chrism’s education was paid for. He never struggled through school with his brilliant mind as I struggle with having to take medications to keep my mind at even keel. I have always told myself that my life will always be a challenging journey due to the medications that I take and the levels and panels that are tested through blood tests very often when things are “out of wacko. Who ill reading Into the Wild, have felt radical involvement in the process of absorbing the story. What has been happening all week is I relive night after night a night- terror of a female ghost trying to terrify me. There is maybe a trigger that I am not aware of something from the past? The future? The present? All I know is that the night terror has me sleep deprived, and scared at night and during the day. I cry because I don’t understand it; maybe Chris’ Uncleanness’s life has more meaning to me than I realize.
This semester has had some radical changes for me in my lifestyle. Even though our financial status has dropped considerably since I have given up employment to attend college, like Chris, we have not given up on life. Even though he suffered a demise, we will not suffer. We have similar levels, we enjoy “God’s outdoors”, though we would never attempt to go as far as he did to run away from civilization or current lifestyle. We are better educated about what the land provides, and we have more respect for it!.
While putting myself with Chris Mishandles and knowing that our lives are very different, he struggled with who he wanted to be before so many years until he could finally free himself of the material things he so loathed, unlike him, I need just the necessary material things to survive like a roof over my head, clothes on my back, warmth, food and medications to keep my mind and body alive and well. I also need companionship and love from another human being. Am not able to live without human contact, as he was.
I would literally die of depression. Maybe he died of depression, even though as Jon Krause states,’that the final journal entry of Chris Mishandles where he penned a final adios “l HAVE HAD A HAPPY LIFE AND THANK THE LORD. GOODBYE AND MAY GOD BLESS YOU ALL! ” (199). Enjoyed reading about Chris Mishandles, though I did not care to read so much about Jon Krause and what his ventures were. It was like he was trying to “one-up” Chris, and this book was supposed to be about Chris Mishandles, so I thought.
I thought Krause was Arrogant and self-centered and we “little people” seemed beneath him. May choose to read another book of his to see if Krause puts himself as much in that book too. He did keep me interested and I guess that is what is intended by authors. Chris is another story. It is hard for me to say that I don’t like him having five children of my own and three of them being boys each of them having their own strong personalities.
Matter of fact, I have one that is a free spirit like Chris. The one thing that I didn’t like about Chris was that he didn’t have respect for authority: the law or the wild. He chose his tat in having to be difficult from the start, and he put himself above all others who weren’t as intelligent as he was, though when he was on the road he wasn’t like that at all. He lived a life of tramping meeting all kinds of people and giving them all respect.