the danger of the wildernes

The wilderness is a very dangerous place for any creature to live in, however all these creatures understand the true meaning of life and appreciate it so much more than humans do. Based on Abrams travels he is able to realize that humans can appreciate life like the other creatures of the world, but they must first understands that “Magic, then in its perhaps most primordial sense, is the experience of existing in a world made up of multiple intelligences, the intuition that every form one perceives” (7). This is telling us that magic, in its simplest form, is living with other creatures and how we perceive them. It is the simple life that leads humans to true happiness and the true meaning of life. When humans start to stray from the simple life, the wilderness starts to fight back because it needs to protect itself in order to survive. Siebert understands that the wilderness is starting to battle the humans in order for the world and all of its inhabitants survive. Siebert explains that the wilderness is fighting back through the elephants, “What we are seeing today is extraordinary. Where for centuries humans and elephants lived in relative peaceful coexistence, there is now hostility and violence. Now, I use the term ‘violence’ because of the intentionality associated with it, both in the aggression of humans and, at times, the recently observed behavior of elephants”(527). This shows that when the humans lived a simple life there was peace between the humans and the wilderness, but now there is hostility between us and the elephants. The elephant, an intelligent creature, understands how valuable life is and it realizes that the humans destroying their chances of survival. They are fighting back against the evils of the human species. Kraukauer believes that the human races should fight against the evil in our soul in order to achieve the simple life. Kraukauer notes, “’The west is the best,’ and now aster two rambling years comes the final and greatest adventure the climactic battle to kill the false being within and victoriously conclude the spiritual pilgrimage”(349). Kraukauer believes that western style philosophies that we must defeat the false being within ourselves. This “false being” is simple our evil deeds or our tarnished soul, and by going out into the wilderness we will be able to cleanse it. Humans are suppose to be apart of the wild to fully appreciate life.

Revision

One of the common misconceptions we have about the wild is our conviction of its mundane property. Our minds immediately resort to the stereotypes we have developed over the years concerning the lifestyle in the countryside. We presume living in the wild would be similarly monotonous and, ironically, lifeless. Instead, Abram proves through his experience in the wild how it was completely engaging, especially to his sense. He admits, “I began to see and to hear in a manner I never had before…I became a student of subtle differences” (15). By experiencing the wilderness first hand, Abram became more aware of his surroundings. He uses the words “subtle differences” to show how his deep connection with nature allowed him to fully experience the different aspects of the wilderness. Abram eliminates the possibility that there is something to yawn about in the wilderness as he finds himself intrigued by details he himself may have once expected to be inconsequential. Krakauer reinforces Abram’s notion that the wilderness is far from monotonous through Muir’s elaborate description of the Sierra gale. Muir indicates how “never before did [he] enjoy so noble an exhilaration of motion. The Slender tops fairly flapped and swished in the passionate torrent, bending and swirling backward and forward, round and round” (363). In his observation, Muir uses vivid adjectives to describe the movement of the water. His usage of words suggests that the wilderness in fact influenced the way he perceives nature and its complex characteristics. The splashing of the water is a seemingly minor detail that Muir has found himself captivated by. Thus Muir has become “a student of subtle differences” in the same way Abram did. Krakauer’s selection of words to describe the object of Muir’s intrigue gives a concrete image to the abstract idea Abram expresses. They are in harmony in how they find joy in details that our ordinary untouched eyes would not find the same sentiment in. Hence, Abram’s distinct feel for natural beauty, which is similarly demonstrated in Krakauer reference of Muir’s detailed observation, prove how the wilderness is in fact more fascinating than our contemporary societies and, ultimately, defies our initial supposition.

Revision

Respect serves to build connections which link the opposing sides of a crisis. Abram’s essay, shows how building respect aids in solving problems. While in Nepal, Abram was puzzled by an offering that was being made to a household spirit which turned out to be a colony of ants. Using logic, he soon found that the offering of rice was to prevent an overwhelming invasion of the ants into the buildings on the island. Abram believes that “the offerings seemed to establish certain boundaries between the human and ant communities…the humans apparently hoped to persuade the insects to respect the boundary and not enter the buildings”(10). Although there is a boundary set between these two species, the rice offering allowed them to co-exist rather than becoming a problem. To gain respect from the ants, the Balinese first gave the same respect and acknowledgment to the ants. The respect is generated from the desire to set this boundary or difference between the species. While the Balinese introduce a boundary, Siebert introduces connections to remove the barrier of difference between human and animal. In Siebert’s essay, obvious and subtle traces of the connections made between elephants and humans can be found throughout his piece. He methodically reveals aspects of the “fabric of elephant society” which explains how elephants are “profoundly social creatures” that have family structures and even “engage in intense mourning and burial rituals” (529 – 530). These features of the elephant way of life can, in affect, be considered synonymous with that of humans. By shedding light upon the connections found in behavior research about elephants and knowledge about trauma from human neuroscience, Siebert further strengthens this shared bond of human and elephant. It is not until these connections are made that researchers begin to develop ways to restore the elephant society and heal them. This shows how elephants become worthy of extensive research once humans are able to bridge the gap with understanding of this animal. In this manner, Siebert’s respect for elephants is through similarities. Siebert asserts that the solution relies on mankind’s willingness to accept our similarities with elephants rather than only seeing the differences. Although this may be true, what of other entities in this world that humans may not fully understand or can explain? Finding similarities in them would be impossible, yet do they still deserve the same level of respect?

Paragraph Revision

The determining factor on whether or not you will survive the wilderness is how vast your knowledge of the land is. After his fatal venture McCandless was compared to British naval officer, Sir John Franklin, who attempted to live without using the land. Krakauer defends McCandless for being different from Franklin in the respect that he attempted to “live entirely off the country-and he tried to do it without bothering to master beforehand the full repertoire of crucial skills” (361). McCandless went into the wild lacking the necessary knowledge required to survive. He attempted to live “entirely” off the land while remaining separate from it. The “full repertoire of crucial skills” which Krakauer refers to is not to be taken half-heartedly. McCandless did not allow himself to become a part of the area in which he stayed and for that reason was bested by the very area itself. Abram explains to us how the shamans become one with the land which they inhabit. He proclaims,

It is not by sending his awareness out beyond the natural world that the shaman makes contact with the purveyors of life and health, nor by journeying into his personal psyche; rather, it is by propelling his awarenes laterally, outward into the depths of a landscape at once both sensuous and psychological, the living dream that we share with the soaring hawk, the spider, and the stone silently sprouting lichens on its coarse surface. (8)

In order to survive in the wild, you must become one with the wild. Abram refers to the hawk, spider, and stone to drive home the point that you cannot select one aspect of the land to learn from, but must accept and acknowledge every pebble and creature you come across and try to understand their greater value to place in which they rest.

Revision

Modern day society views the wilderness as a separate world for species that are savage and primitive in the eyes of anthropocentric humans who treat the species as they please assuming that there will be no consequence for their actions. Siebert observes that some people mainly use elephants to generate revenue with no sympathy for what they are putting the elephants through. In addition, Siebert learns that “[w]ild-caught elephants often witness as young calves the slaughter of their parents, just about the only way, shy of a far more costly tranquilization procedure, to wrest a calf from elephants parents” (536). Humans are more concerned with the money they gain from using the elephants then the mental and physical health of the elephants. The elephants become mentally unstable from these experiences and seek revenge on humans. Nature and the animals that inhabit it play a more important role in human survival than people initially give credit for. The healers of Nepal, or shamans, understand how important nature truly is to human society. Abram explains how “[t]he [shamans’] primary allegiance, then, is not to the human community, but to the earthly web of relations in which that community is embedded” (6). In the eyes of the shamans, the human community is not as important as the larger ecological community and will fall apart if nature is not taken care of. The shamans are the medium that understands what both the human and ecological communities need to survive and how to keep them in balance. Shamans would not mentally hinder elephants because of greed, like the people in Siebert’s essay. The difference in morals of the two societies causes people to treat nature as their society shows to be acceptable. The separation of human and ecological communities causes an aggressive tension between the two. Furthermore, people find some parts of nature to be mysterious and full of secrets due to humans’ lack of understanding. This is why Chris McCandless ventured into the wilderness. It was so different from his society and unknown to him that he believed he could discover who he is if he spent some time in the wilderness. Krakauer explains how “[Chris] didn’t want to see a single person, no airplanes, no sign of civilization. He wanted to prove to himself that he could make it on his own, without anybody else’s help” (346). In order to have a temporary break from modern day society, McCandless must venture into the primitive and savage world of nature. The spiritual draw of nature intrigued Chris enough to travel away from the safety of society and into an environment unknown to him. In nature, McCandless was not that different from the aforementioned elephants explained by Siebert. McCandless shares a similar emotional connection to nature as the shamans of Nepal. They both realize the importance of understanding nature and the species that inhabit it. In order to discover if his confidence in his skills without the luxuries that come with modern day society were on par with what he was capable with, McCandless opened himself up to nature emotionally and spiritually.

Revision

As a result of the different perspectives of wilderness, it is easy to be judgmental of the environments that others live in without truly understanding the struggles it takes for someone who is lost in the wilderness. Krakauer received mail from several people about McCandless, many of them critical of McCandless’s trip. Krakauer recounted one letter saying, “Not only did McCandless die because he was stupid, one Alaska correspondent observed, but ‘the scope of his self-styled adventure was so small as to ring pathetic-squatting in a wrecked bus a few miles out of Healy potting jays and squirrels, mistaking a caribou for a moose (pretty hard to do)…Only one word for the guy: incompetent’” (358). The Alaskan correspondent clearly has a different view on wilderness than McCandless, placing the importance of wilderness in its proximity to civilization and focuses more on McCandless’s incompetence than towards the experience gained from living there. The correspondent’s view that civilization cannot be wilderness is contradicted by Eve Abe, who directly connects the perspectives of elephants and humans with the wilderness. As she is comparing the human and elephant orphans, she told Siebert of a conversation she had with a scientist in Kenya and “He said, ‘How come nobody has made this connection before?’ I told him because it hadn’t happened this way to anyone else’s tribe before” (534). Abe, herself, was affected by the wilderness that occurred when her tribe was forced to move due to war. Abe said that because of it, she sees wilderness in a way that nobody else could. The experience of living in the wild creates a perspective that seems foreign to those that have not been through the tribulations of being lost.

-Nelson

Revised Paragraph

Wilderness is no longer correctly described in civilized societies. Krakauer describes McCandless as an ambitious man seeking wilderness to rebuild his character free of civilization. But what he found, Krakauer reports “the wilderness surrounding the bus- the patch of overgrown country where McCandless was determined “to become lost in the wild”-scarely qualifies as wilderness by Alaskan standards” (350). McCandless was not an experienced wilderness man, he did not know the difference between the “overgrown country” from the real, raw and uncultivated piece of land. He was not lost and scared as previous details of Krakauer’s description tells us that where McCandless stayed it was barely classified as wilderness. It shows that a common man, whom Chris was, is not able to differentiate between wilderness and an overgrown nature field. McCandless’s struggling efforts to be in the wilderness that ultimately lead to his death can be best explained by the parallels that can be drawn from Siebert’s “An Elephant Crackup?” essay. Siebert explains that traumatic elephants are ever-seeking for wilderness and it’s the only place where they can function healthy. Siebert observes “even as we are forcing them [the wild elephants] out, it seems, the elephants are going out of their way to put us, the keepers, in an ever discomfiting place, challenging us to preserve someplace for them…”(540). Elephants are clearly showing their discontent by putting pressure on humans to preserve wilderness just for them. That’s why Chris McCandless was not able to fully engulf himself in the wilderness and successfully live of the land. Wilderness is not meant for the civilized world. Another author, David Abram brings up another point that people have to be exposed to wilderness in order to understand the needs of the larger ecological field. Abram explains “these [the “shamanic healing techniques” becoming popular in the west] are noble aims to be sure, yet they are secondary to and derivative from the primary role of the indigenous shaman, a role that cannot be fulfilled without long and sustained exposure to wild nature, to its patterns and vicissitudes”(16). In civilized western nations “the healers” can never achieve the same level of connection with nature that would allow the mediators of the nature to understand the current problems. As evident from “Into the Wild”, most people cannot differentiate and understand that wilderness is a lot more than what we just think, also wilderness is destroyed by the expansion of civilization.

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Charles Siebert, who has personally engaged himself within the human elephant crises, found his meaning of wilderness with the help of his research of that crisis. During his time studying, observing the crises, and pondering about the bigger ecological issues, Siebert found wilderness to be much larger then he thought. Siebert made a keen observation which helps define what he feels wilderness is by claiming “saving them will require finally getting past ourselves; it will demand the ultimate act of deep interspecies empathy”(537). Siebert chose to use the word, interspecies, as of way of saying that humans need to be considerate of other species besides ourselves, which in essence can describe what wilderness is. Interspecies empathy means that wilderness as a whole is the species that humans co-habitat with.. David Abram’s definition of wilderness relates to Siebert’s definition that wilderness is a group of other species, although Abram’s theory on wilderness is different. Abram, during one of his trips to Indonesia, shares an experience that parallels Siebert’s. Abram describes wilderness to the reader in the passage, “Fireflies! It was in Indonesia, you see, that I was first introduced to the world of insects, and there that I first learned of the great influence that insects- such diminutive entities- could have upon the human senses”(3). The phrase, great influence, is important in making the connection between Siebert’s theory and Abram’s. This shows that Abram also finds importance in such primitive animals, considering them to be a part of the vast wilderness, or group of species that humans live with. Jon Krakauer, also makes an observation about his character, Mr. McCandless’, view of wilderness that is analogous to Siebert’s theory of wilderness being a group of species. One of the records recovered from McCandless’s journal shows the connection between him and the animals he hunts and lives with. McCandless, after hunting and killing a moose, reconsiders his actions. McCandless journal entry to the response of his actions states “Deliberate Living; Conscious attention to the basics of life, and a constant attention to your immediate environment and its’ concerns…” (352). Krakauer chose this quote from McCandless because it shows the important relationship between man and the other animals. McCandless makes it clear by stating, “constant attention to your immediate environment”, that wilderness, by his definition, is the animals he has hunted and lived with throughout his journey. Krakauer’s personal definition is different than Siebert’s, but this quote, that McCandless makes, portrays the other species humans live with as the definition of wilderness. While Siebert’s definition has aspects in common with the other two authors’, it is Abram who tends to believe that wilderness is not a group of animals but something else.

In and out of the wilderness

In his excerpt, Esturvick Evans adventures to the solitude and grandeur wilderness of the western civilization to rid himself of the imperfections of society, while at the same time learn about the more correct views of human nature. He explains how he wants to “divest myself of the factitious habits, prejudices and imperfections of civilization” (Evans). Evans believes society has lost its lust for the wild and nature. And that society needs to venture back into the wilderness to experience the true and raw feelings of human nature. On the other hand, Roderick Nash speaks of wilderness to be a means of an escape to those bored and disgusted with civilization. In his excerpt, he describes a pioneer in search of human nature’s true values. He writes “it [wilderness] not only offered an escape from society but also was an ideal stage for the romantic individual to exercise the cult that he frequently made of his own soul” (Nash). It appears as if Nash is describing Evans and mocking the people who want to express themselves spiritually through nature since cult is like a separate group from everyone else. He expresses how the materialistic world is filled with things that become so ordinary and redundant that we do not know what natural beauty is anymore. Both authors talk about the wilderness as a means of escape from the materialistic world and that by venturing out to the wilderness, people can understand the importance of nature in their everyday lives.

Evans and Nash on nature

In Evans article, he is describing why he would like to go into nature. He wants to know what it truly means to be a human being while distancing himself from the modern civilization of that time. To do this, he wants to go into the wildreness during the winter so he can truly experience the full power of nature. In Nash's article, he is saying that wilderness only appeals to those who are currently tired or unhappy with civilized life. He describes a stage that the Romantic individual can display their actions and ideas so he can properly mock them for it. It is almost as though they are just entertainment to the civilized world. This cult that Nash describes is the Romantic individual's own following that he must complete. After reading the articles, it becomes apparent that Nash is describing people like Evan in his article.

Returning to the Wild

Through the ages, civilization has gone through changes, which have brought about differences in the way people conduct their lives. This is how Estwick Evans felt about modern society. He felt as though society had become somewhat corrupted during its development. To him society represents something, which has in a way become lost and needs to find its way back to where it originally came from. That is where nature comes into play. Nature is seen by Estwick and Nash, who believed nature, was for those who gave up on civilization, as a pure world. Nature isn’t even seen to be a part of the same world as civilization because they are so different. It is though nature represents the way of the past. Nature is the pure world untouched or corrupted by man or time. Those wishing to seek refuge in this uncorrupted place are looking for something human beings have lost over time. They’re looking for human ideals, which have been lost on the journey of human development. Returning to nature is like returning to the past ways, which people have given up for more modern conveniences.

Divesting oneself and its implications for society

Both Estwick Evans and Roderick Nash discuss how the wilderness helps an individual learn more about himself and escape from the negative aspects of civilization. However, when closely analyzing the word choice both authors use, it becomes clear that they are really saying so much more than that. Evans specifically discusses how he wants "to divest [him]self of the factitious habits, prejudices, and imperfections of civilization" (344). The word "divest", meaning undress, has some very interesting implications in the context which he uses it. By expressing his need to divest society, it implies that he feels stifled and constrained by it, similar to someone wearing a bundle of jackets on a hot day. Much more significant though, is the unspoken implication that this metaphorically clothing is not as natural as the raw nakedness Evans would like to achieve. The clothing represents society and Evans' need to divest it to discover the "true nature" of man indicates that the raw essence of who a person is is stifled by the society he or she lives in. Nash too offers a similar interpretation of how some romantic individuals view society. He describes the wilderness as an "ideal stage for the Romantic individual to exercise the cult that he frequently made of his own soul" (344). The idea of a stage implies getting into a character or a new mindset in which one has less creative restrictions. Nash comparing the wilderness to a stage is significant because he is saying that the wilderness brings out a different side in people, in which they feel less restricted by the constraints of society. The stage is where they can not only be their true selves, but more importantly, the people they want to be. This idea seems contradictory, because normally when one is on stage, he or she is in a different role. However, the stage of the person's own soul is a true reflection of how the person in question views himself, as opposed to how society views him. So often people define themselves by how others define them, but in the wilderness, Nash expresses that these romantic individuals can not only escape from social judgment, but truly express themselves. Both authors are indicating that society can be a stifling thing that suppresses an individual's true spirit, and therefore, people escape to the wilderness to rediscover their true selves.

According to the two quotes in the beginning of selections from Into the Wild by Estwick Evans and Roderick Nash, the wilderness ,perhaps, offers a way for people to escape from the civilized perspective of the world and experience that world from a new point of view. This wilderness provides "the solitude and total freedom" required to be unbound from the laws of society. Only in this law-free environment can people see the "more correct views of human nature and of the true interests of men." People have to be placed in a different environment in order to be enlightened of the events occurring around them.
However, the wilderness isn't for everyone. It is only for the "bored or disgusted". Only those who are able to endure the suffering and dangers can survive the harsh realities of nature. One must have the desire to learn of the "prejudice and imperfections of civilization" to fully experience and survive the solitude and uncertainty of the backwoods.

Evans and Nash's "solitude"

"I wished to aquire the simplicity, native feelings, and virtues of savage life; to divest myself of the factitios habits, prejudices and inperfections of civilization;... and to find, amidst the solitued and grandeur of the western wilds, more correct views of human nature and of the true interest of man. The season of snows was preferred, that i might experince the pleasure of suffering, and the novelty of danger." (The Alaska Interior, Estwick Evans).



"Wilderness appeled to those bored or disgusted with man and his works. It not only offed an escape from society but also was an ideal stage for the Romantic individual to exercise the cult that he frequently made of his own soul. The solitude and total freedom of the wilderness created a perfect setting for either melancholy or exultation." (Wilderness and the American Mind, Roderick Nash).



In this quote it seems as if nature or the wilderness is some type of paradise that most people want to go to, to escape their problems. Evans uses the word “solitude” in his quote which sounds to me as if it means that there is no influence of man in the wilderness, as if these people can escape from their day to day problems. Also by “solitude” it could mean the lack of technology. These days technology is everywhere and you see it 24.7 nonstop, it can be overwhelming, but in the wilderness there is no technology and there we can take a rest from it. Nash also mentions “solitude” in his quote and it sounds exactly the same how Evans mentions it in his quote. Nash’s usage of “solitude” seems to mean, again, the lack of human influence or signature. A place to get away from it all and put aside our thoughts about our human problems and just relax; where “total freedom” can be found. Freedom from work, thoughts of human regular problems like bills and things of that nature and freedom from being with other human beings.

Evans and Nash

The idea of being alone in nature is intriguing for both Evans and Nash along with most people. But the mindset you hold for such a journey is extremely important. Evans thinks that the thrill of the trip and the danger creates the experience. He states “that I might experience the pleasure of suffering and the novelty of danger” (344). These thrills can only be achieve by a near death or dangerous experience. Nash seems to think differently. He says “the solitude and total freedom of the wilderness created a perfect setting for either melancholy or exultation” (344). Nash’s point is just that the beauty and vastness of nature is enough to get anyone excited. You don’t need to put your life at risk to get everything you can from nature. Nature can be appreciated many different ways be many different people.