Into the Wild

Everybody has their favorite book they read when they were younger. I was lucky enough to come across mine this afternoon while cleaning out my closet in my house. I brought the book "Into the Wild" with me to college last year and have not read it since the long 14 hour car ride from New Hampshire to Michigan. I loved everything about this book the freedom, the self motivation, the passion. It makes me want to go out there and do something with my life, but not something I could do every day..something extraordinary.

When scimming through this book as I sat on the floor of my bedroom I could not help but think about our major quest that were assigned to us in class the first week. I reflected on what I did, and just laughed out loud because nothing is greater then the quest Christopher McCandless did by donating his entire life savings to charity and hitchhiking, and finding ways to get to Alaska and into the wilderness. I think this quest challenges game theory in all aspects. Coming out of your comfort zone alone, and finding the competitor within, he took risk taking to the logical extreme. He was sick of society and the way it was run so he just quit it all together; like quitting a bad game.

I hope someday I will find a quest like this something that I myself am very passionate about and let nothing in my way stop me to accomplish it. I will leave you with my favorite quote from the book....

"Two years he walks the earth. No phone, no pool, no pets, no cigarettes. Ultimate freedom. An extremist. An aesthetic voyager whose home is the road. Escaped from Atlanta. Thou shalt not return, 'cause "the West is the best." And now after two rambling years comes the final and greatest adventure. The climactic battle to kill the false being within and victoriously conclude the spiritual pilgrimage. Ten days and nights of freight trains and hitchhiking bring him to the Great White North. No longer to be poisoned by civilization he flees, and walks alone upon the land to become lost in the wild."