So let's begin with an image taken from a book that you may perhaps have read into the wild,

which was made into a movie maybe about 10, 15 years ago,

based on an essay written by John Krakauer, which was published in like 1993,

detailing events that had just taken place recently.

So a word about the protagonist of that story

and how it can be like brought to bear on the topic that we entertain together. So Into the Wild

tells the story of Christopher McCandless. He was one of eight children, one, you know, full sister as it

were, or blood sister, and then six half brothers and sisters.

He grew up in Annandale, Virginia. His father worked for the Jet Propulsion Lab, and he had a kind of normal suburban upbringing,

himself very intelligent and very capable. He went to Emory University and was an honors graduate of the school

in about 1990, I believe. And at that point, he determined that he was going to do something radical with his life.

So upon graduating, he had told his parents that he would go back up to Annandale,

spend some time with him, check in, but instead he just dropped off the grid.

Now, mind you, as you come to appreciate in reading the original essay, I think

which is called Death of an Innocent or Into the Wild itself, he's a very intelligent man,

perhaps sometimes ideological or even demagogical, but very intelligent. He was very

compassionate as well and concerned for the poor. He found it maddening. He found it distracting to even think that one could perish from starvation,

especially in the United States, so close to many who had such material wealth.

So he wanted to throw in his lot with the outcast, to somehow throw in his lot with the poor.

And so in a way that's somehow reminiscent of the exploits of a George Orwell,

he decided to live intensely as a kind of tramp. And so he began in 1990, tramping throughout

the United States, sometimes living in cities, sometimes working his way through national parks

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