He wanted an adventure. Not necessarily drop out of society permanently. He had a romantic young lads notion of living for a while, away from the drag of other people's expectations, conforming to what is expected. He didn't go on the rampage with a gun. He just wanted to get away from it all and not hurt anyone in doing so, except his family but he alone knows why he chose to put them through that. Kids often don't realise, how parents just want the best for them, and are unaware of what pain they cause.
He was just a young lad and give him some credit, who hasn't done some daft things at that age.
Wayland if you chose to go for a walk in the hills and twisted your ankle so badly you couldn't walk on it and found yourself having to spend the night on the hills and died because of hyporthermia would you be concerned that the people who found you hadn't had a 'good day out', or that 'it hadn't done much for their trip' ? You didn't plan to twist your ankle, just as Chris MacCandless didn't plan to become ill from the plants he ate. The lad made a mistake as we all have done. If you survived the night and the rescue services helped you off the mountain and you lived, would you beat yourself up and scold yourself, because you were a drain on resources and rescue services, or be thankful that you were found, and be thankful that we have such services who either get paid or volunteer, but nevertheless, 'choose' to do the job.
Everyone makes mis-judgements, especially at that age. As far as he was concerned he was getting away from it all without involving anyone else. People can sometimes 'GET' involved with our lives whether we like it or not.
I remember when I was learning navigation, orienting the compass the opposite way to the way I wanted to go, and walking directly 180 degrees in the wrong direction for about 2 miles. realising none of the features were matching up or making sense, I stopped and checked everything again, and realised my mistake. What a twit. It's laughable now, and no-one needed to rescue me. It could have been worse though.
Anyway I'm not having a go, but we should maybe all remember we were all young once, and 'indestructable' and thought we knew more than we actually did.
The lad made some mistakes, as we've all done, it's just his cost him more dearly.
As it says in the good book, "let he who is without sin, cast the first stone"
It's easy to sit from the side and pick faults. Ever cut yourself with a knife? Why? you should have been paying attention and using correct techniques. "the knife slipped" so you should take into consideration that could happen and be using a technique which allows for slipping and the knife to pass into harmless air.
Not having a go at anyone, I'm just saying maybe we should cut the lad some slack, instead of jumping on the bandwagon that seems to want to slate him at every opportunity.
