201411251954Into the Wild-阿拉斯加之死，Happiness only real when shared
《阿拉斯加之死》（Into the Wild）是一部改編自真實的故事的電影，由奧斯卡金像獎得主西恩·潘編劇並執導於2007年上映，獲得該年奧斯卡金像獎提名，並贏得金球獎最佳歌曲獎。劇本的靈感來源於1996年Jon Krakauer的非小說類同名作品《阿拉斯加之死》（Into the Wild）(IMDB評星=7.1)。故事講述了一個理想主義和超驗主義者Christopher McCandless的流浪傳奇真實故事。(Wiki) (荒野生存 豆瓣评分=8.6)
1992年9月6日，24歲的麥肯迪尼斯（Chris McCandless）被獵人發現陳屍在阿拉斯加迪納利國家公園荒野中的一部廢棄巴士裡。
麥肯迪尼斯帶著少量的的食物和裝備徒步進入阿拉斯加荒野地帶，靠著獵捕野生動物以及採集植物生活了119天，直到他因疑似中毒死亡。他的荒野流浪經歷（隨著書的走紅）成為年輕人的仿效對象，數以千計後繼者跟隨著他的腳步，獨身走入各種荒野，尋找最後的心靈淨土。其中也有無數人跟麥肯迪尼斯一樣丟了性命。
Chris McCandless的冒險經歷成就了一本暢銷書《阿拉斯加之死》（Into the Wild）以及一部由西恩潘（Sean Penn）導演的同名電影，觸發了無數年輕人的心靈，也創造了極大的爭議。
法醫原本的鑑定認為麥肯迪尼斯死因是餓死。
強克拉庫爾在他最早的報導中，推論麥肯迪尼斯把兩種同屬岩黃蓍屬（Hedysarum）的植物搞混（一種有毒、一種無毒），導致嚴重中毒症狀而無法外出覓食，才會餓死。
但在後續調查中，他(強克拉庫爾)發現麥肯迪尼斯其實買了一本阿拉斯加植物圖鑑帶在身邊，書中很明確陳述這兩種植物如何分辨，而且Chris McCandless在書後面的空白處還做了筆記確認哪一種無毒可食用。他把兩種植物搞混的機會很低。
根據Chris McCandless日記的記載，他非常明確地知道自己是吃了無毒的Hedysarum Alpinum（俗名被稱作野馬鈴薯）。
《阿拉斯加之死》作者強克拉庫爾（Jon Krakauer）本身也是狂熱登山者，事實上去(2015)年的電影《聖母峰》（Everest）(imdb)中那個登山隊中倖存的雜誌記者正是他本人。強克拉庫爾在《阿拉斯加之死》中，很明顯地展露了他對麥肯迪尼斯精神上和情感上的認同，但這個認同也使得他一直對「麥肯迪尼斯到底是不是死於無知和輕率」這個議題耿耿於懷。
20多年來，包括強克拉庫爾自己、科學家以及一些熱情的粉絲各自進行了不同程度的調查研究。這個爭議一直到20多年後，他的真正死因慢慢被科學驗證，才終於塵埃落定。一直到2015年才真正確定了這個驚人的結論：
被稱作野馬鈴薯的這種無毒植物的種子其實是有毒的。麥肯迪尼斯的死很可能就是這種過去被認為無毒可食用的野馬鈴薯，第一個有記載中毒死亡案例。
去(2015)年3月《野外與環境醫學期刊》（Wilderness and Environmental Medicine）刊登了這篇由一群科學家和強克拉庫爾共同掛名的論文，證實了野馬鈴薯在不同季節、不同部位可能含有不同程度的左旋刀豆胺基酸（L-canavanine）這種有毒鹼性氨基酸。
麥肯迪尼斯在死前一個月，寫下了「真正的幸福必須仰賴與人分享才能真實存在」（Happiness only real when shared）這段話。
他的意外死亡，加上一本書、一部電影，和一個鍥而不捨追兇20多年的作者，也促使另一個定理的真實存在被認識、傳播跟分享：在擁抱自然(試圖摧毀“內在的虛假存在” ，在孤獨中尋找生命的意義)的同時，必須俯首敬畏。
He hitchhiked across the continent for two years before ending up in a makeshift van in Alaska. He gave up his family riches and a possible bright future. Away from world’s materialistic scope, in a more subtle term, he was looking for the meaning of life in solitary by trying to kill the “false being within”. (出處)
Guaranteed (Into the wild)
Lifting up an empty cup, I ask silently
That all my destinations will accept the one that's me
So I can breathe
Circles they grow and they swallow people whole
Half their lives they say goodnight to wives they'll never know
Got a mind full of questions and a teacher in my soul
And so it goes
Don't come closer or I'll have to go
Owning me like gravity are places that pull
If ever there was someone to keep me at home
It would be you
Everyone I come across in cages they bought
They think of me and my wandering but I'm never what they thought
Got my indignation but I'm pure in all my thoughts
I'm alive
Wind in my hair I feel part of everywhere
Underneath my being is a road that disappeared
Late at night I hear the trees they're singing with the dead
Overhead
Leave it to me as I find a way to be
Consider me a satellite forever orbiting
I know all the rules but the rules did not know me
Guaranteed
----------------
Because author Jon Krakauer presents the events of Into the Wild out of chronological order, establishing what happened when can challenge the reader. For the sake of clarity, this timeline rearranges the book's episodes in the order in which they occurred, rather than the order in which they appear in Into the Wild.
May 12, 1990: Christopher Johnson McCandless graduates from Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. He tells his parents that he is going to spend the summer traveling in his car, a used yellow Datsun.
June 1990: Mails his final college transcript and a brief note to his parents' home in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. McCandless's family will never hear from him again.
July 6, 1990: Arrives at Lake Mead National Recreation Area in Nevada.
July 10, 1990: Abandons his car after it is damaged by a flash flood. Loads his belongings into his backpack and sets out on foot.
July–August 1990: Hitchhikes to California's Lake Tahoe, then hikes into the Sierra Nevada mountain range. Travels to the Cascade mountains, across the lava beds of the Columbia River basin, and across the Idaho panhandle. Jan Burres and her boyfriend Bob discover McCandless by the side of the road and befriend him. In Cut Bank, Montana, meets Wayne Westerberg.
August 1990: McCandless's parents drive to Atlanta looking for their son and discover that his apartment was vacated five weeks earlier.
August 10, 1990: Receives a ticket for hitchhiking in Willow Creek, California.
October 1990: McCandless's Datsun is discovered by a park ranger.
October 28, 1990: In Needles, California, reaches the Colorado River. Walks south through the desert, arriving in Topock, Arizona, where he buys a second-hand canoe.
October–November 1990: Canoes on the Colorado River, apparently traveling through Lake Havasu, the Bill Williams River, the Colorado River Indian Reservation, the Cibola National Wildlife Refuge, the Imperial National Wildlife Refuge, and the U.S. Army's Yuma Proving Ground. Sends a postcard to Wayne Westerberg at the Sioux Falls work-release facility where his friend has been incarcerated.
December 1990: The private investigator employed by McCandless's parents discovers that their son donated $24,000 to OXFAM.
December 2, 1990: Reaches the Morelos Dam and the Mexican border.
December 6, 1990: Encounters hazardous waterfalls along the Colorado River.
December 12, 1990: Realizes that he will not reach the Gulf of California traveling this route. Meets duck hunters who drive him there.
December 14–24, 1990: Pulls his canoe out of the water and sets up camp on the edge of a desolate plateau.
December 25, 1990: Seeking refuge from high winds, discovers a cave on the face of a bluff, where he stays for 10 days.
January 11, 1991: Back in his canoe, encounters a violent storm that almost drowns him.
January 16, 1991: Leaving his canoe at El Golfo de Santa Clara, starts wandering northward.
January 18, 1991: Caught by U.S. Immigration officials when he tries to slip back into the country from Mexico. Spends one night in jail.
January–February 1991: Travels to Houston and then to the Pacific coast.
February 3, 1991: Applies for an ID and a job in Los Angeles, then changes his mind and returns to the road.
February 9, 1991: Camps at the bottom of the Grand Canyon with a young German couple. Notes in his journal that he has lost over 25 pounds.
February 24, 1991: Unearths the few belongings that he buried in the sand when he abandoned his Datsun.
February 27, 1991: Buries his backpack and hitchhikes into Las Vegas.
May 10, 1991: Leaves Las Vegas.
July–August, 1991: Possibly living in coastal Oregon, sends a postcard to Jan Burres complaining about the interminable fog and rain.
October 1991: Arrives in Bullhead City, Arizona, where he works for two months at McDonald's and lives in an empty RV overseen by an old man named Charlie.
December 9, 1991: Sends a postcard to Jan Burres in Niland, California, including a map so she and boyfriend Bob can visit him in Bullhead City.
December 13, 1991: Unexpectedly appears at Burres's campsite at The Slabs campground in Niland.
January 1992: Meets Ronald Franz while hitchhiking near California's Salton Sea.
February 1992: Dropped by Franz at the San Diego waterfront. Mails Jan Burres a postcard telling her that he has been living on the streets in San Diego for a week.
March 5, 1992: Sends postcards to Burres and Franz from Seattle.
March 12, 1992: Calls Franz from Coachella, California, in the desert not far from the Salton Sea and asks Franz to pick him up.
March 13, 1992: Spends one night at Franz's house.
March 14, 1992: Driven by Franz to Grand Junction, Colorado.
March 14 (approximate) to March 28, 1992: Works at Wayne Westerberg's grain elevator in Carthage, South Dakota.
March 1992: Leaves Carthage, bound for Alaska.
April 13–15, 1992: Stops at Liard Hot Springs in British Columbia, Canada, where he is stuck for two days before hitching a ride with Gaylord Stuckey in the cab of his sunflower-seed-hauling truck.
April 18, 1992: Hitchhikes north. Takes a photo of the sign that marks the official start of the Alaska Highway.
April 18–21, 1992: Reads up on edible plants at the University of Alaska's Fairbanks campus. Buys a used gun and sends postcards. Leaving the campus, hikes west.
April 22, 1992 (approximate): Pitches his tent on frozen ground not far from the Stampede Trail.
April 28, 1992: Waking down the highway, is picked up by Jim Gallien, a truck-driving electrician on his way to Anchorage. A three-hour drive brings McCandless to the Stampede Trail.
April 30, 1992: Sees Mt. McKinley.
May 1, 1992: Finds an old bus beside the Sushana River and writes "Magic Bus Day" in his journal. Decides to stay for a while, taking advantage of the bus's ". . . crude comforts."
May 5, 1992: Kills and eats a spruce grouse.
May 9, 1992: Shoots a small squirrel and writes "4th day famine" in his journal.
Mid-May, 1992: With only four hours of darkness each night, can forage for edible plants. Feasts on lingonberries and rose hips.
May 22, 1992: A crown falls off one of McCandless's molars.
May–June 1992: Regularly eats squirrel, spruce grouse, duck, goose, and porcupine.
June 9, 1992: Kills a moose and takes a photo of himself with the carcass.
June 10, 1992: Amid hordes of flies and mosquitoes, butchers the moose carcass and tries to preserve the meat.
June 14, 1992: Discovering maggots on the carcass, abandons it to the local wolves.
July 3, 1992: Prepares his backpack and sets out on the 20-mile hike back to the road.
July 5, 1992: What had been a series of frozen beaver ponds in April has become a lake. What once was an easily fordable river is now a raging torrent that McCandless cannot cross. Heads back to the bus.
July 8, 1992: Arrives back at the bus.
July 30, 1992: Writes in his journal, "EXTREMELY WEAK, FAULT OF POT. SEED. MUCH TROUBLE JUST TO STAND UP. STARVING. GREAT JEOPARDY."
August 5, 1992: Writes "DAY 100! MADE IT!" and "BUT IN WEAKEST CONDITION OF LIFE. DEATH LOOMS AS SERIOUS THREAT."
August 9, 1992: Sees a bear but doesn't shoot it, kills five squirrels.
August 11, 1992: Kills and eats a ptarmigan.
August 12, 1992: Posting an S.O.S. note on the bus door, forages nearby for berries. Writes his final journal entry: "Beautiful blueberries."
August 18 or 19, 1992: Dies, apparently of starvation, in his sleeping bag in the bus along the Sushana River in Alaska.
September 1992: Hikers and hunters discover McCandless's S.O.S. note, then his body in the bus.
Symbols in Into the Wild
Deserts
Like mountains, deserts in Into the Wild function primarily as means for Christopher McCandless to challenge himself, and as such, they illustrate his hubris. Not only does he fear the desert insufficiently; he behaves as though it has been put there purely in order to test his competence.
"Magic Bus"
Presumably named by McCandless after a song by British rock band The Who, the bus stands for the good fortune he repeatedly encounters in his odyssey through the American West. After all, what are the odds when McCandless forges into the bush that an abandoned bus will be waiting there for him to live inside? Of course, McCandless dies inside the bus, too, indicating that his luck has run out.
Moose
The moose that McCandless shoots and then, heartbreakingly, fails to preserve stands for his relationship to the wild in general. Moose meat could prevent McCandless from starving to death. Because of his hubris, however, he has not prepared adequately for the enormous task of curing the flesh and ultimately fails at it. The consequences are fatal.
Mountains
In Into the Wild, mountains function not as scenery, nor are they especially significant geologically or historically. Instead, a mountain is an obstacle to be conquered, a way of testing one's capability and character, especially in the chapters of the book where author Krakauer recalls his own youth.
Rivers
Many rivers run through Into the Wild. Like deserts and mountains, they test Christopher McCandless's survival skills. Unlike other natural formations, it is a river that defeats McCandless and kills him. Because he has not predicted that the river separating the "Magic Bus" from civilization will swell with snow-melt, he cannot cross it in late summer, when he intends to leave the woods. And because he (intentionally) lacks a map, McCandless is unaware of options for fording the raging waters.
Yellow Datsun
The yellow Datsun is emblematic of Christopher McCandless's genuine disinterest in material things. Americans value their cars. McCandless leaves his in the desert.
[From]http://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/i/into-the-wild/book-summary
It could be true…
Happiness is only real when shared.
It sounds charming.
For someone who loves living alone and finding happiness within, the quote comes in direct contradiction.
What if I never find people to share my happiness with?
What if I am never really happy?
(出處)
延伸閱讀：Jon Krakauer近年的調查過程
【出處】2016/05/11 http://www.thenewslens.com/post/323249/
