Map of the World - USA Edition

Found this on the web, made me laugh out loud...

A taste of my own medicine...

I was looking for something on my blog and did a Google search (where else?) and stumbled across a paper someone had done for school about Christopher McCandless where my blog was quoted.

Quite a surprise.  What was even more surprising was the "interpretation" of my post.  Here is the piece (with my corrections in brackets):

Many people believed and looked at Chris as a hero and a person to look up to [they must've missed this quote of mine: "But he was not a hero. There was no glorifying his tale."]. In a blog [post, singular] written entirely about him, the author, an average man, lived and traveled the same as Chris McCandless throughout his entire life  [it was a brief period of time in my life].

He graduated high school at the same time and his parents are the same as Chris'. He has all the things in the world that Chris did: a savings account, a new car and all the stuff he got he didn’t really want [while there were similarities there were also huge differences, especially familial]. 

"I have a soft spot for Christopher McCandless. Without being too sentimental, I can honestly say he may have saved my life. I was the typical suburban dreamer, longing of living in the mountains, or moving to Tibet, being free and on the road. As Christopher McCandless learned, too late, it is hard. And, in the end, what really matters is not being self-sufficient but being interdependent upon others" (“Into the Wild”).

This man lived the same teen years as Chris did, too. He was going through family struggles, and wanting to move on and get away. The guy traveled with his wife [ex-girlfriend, mostly solo], meeting new people in Colorado, Montana and South Dakota. He loved Chris McCandless [captivated is not the same as loved] and his story and he wanted to live like him [it wasn't until Krakauer's book was published that I realized the details of the journey he had taken] in order to also be freed of his previous existence.

He gives Chris credit for saving his life, and by following his Chris’ story [I didn't follow his story; everything in the post was in retrospect], he made it through life without failing [he must've missed the other blog posts about how my downward spiral came after my journey...].

"The book is a great read (though it is as much about the author as it is about McCandless) and the movie is stunning. I cried several times during the film, something quite rare, though it had more to do with my process of healing, film as mirror, than it did a concern for the character in the film. It comes highly recommended" (“Into the Wild”).

By reading this book when going through life like Chris did [my story took place up until 1994; the book was published in 1997], it helped the author take a risk he had been previously unwilling to take [it was a calculated risk; the drugs were probably the greatest impetus to getting me on the road]. 

It helped him get through his negative feelings by relating to what Chris had done [I was aware of the end result of his journey; I knew nothing about his personal life until I read the book many years later].

Chris McCandless's story of following his ideals makes him an inspiration because he convinced other people to go pursue the lives that they had always dreamed of [we had parallel paths with different outcomes].

I did not find in him inspiration; I found in him a cautionary tale.

It's kind of cool to be quoted, I have to admit.

It's also interesting to see how one's meaning can be interpreted in a completely different fashion than the one intended.

It made me smile...irony indeed.

Bliss...

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