Where to start? I can only say that as I flipped through the pages of this truly journalistic endeavor last January, I found (as many will and have) that place in my bones that thirsts for this freedom.

This book, Into the Wild, was written about a young man, Chris McCandless. This young man grew up in a middle-class neighborhood in Virginia with parents whose lives succumbed to the ‘dream’ which kept them working into the morning when they would wake to start again. This young man seemed to develop at a young age a distaste for the unnecessary and a hunger for the most raw qualities of life. Only at his parents insistence did he consent to go to college, where he continued his pursuit of life in its mystical, raw form. But, after college he decided to adventure. An adventure (as I have gathered) about which many fantasize and few find.

It seems like Chris’ purpose was more in getting lost in adventure than finding anything at all. I got caught up in the intrigue, the shock of decisions that thrust a fist at culture – at norms and white picket fences. Intrigued… but sadly stirred by each desperate page of Chris’ story.

You see, at the end of it all, Chris McCandless found death in his adventure’s end in Alaska. The brilliant works of Tolstoy and Thoreau his only companions, this young man disappeared from this world.

Don’t we all wish we could ask him now, “Was it worth your life to go into the wild?” … but I would want to know, “Was it worth souls?” Granted, I have no idea the condition of Chris’ heart when he died. But, I would still want to know if he felt like his life happened for a reason beyond his desire to live it.

When we decide to give up everything for adventure – to live in the rawest form of life we can find – we are still no closer to true life. Unless… well, unless you purpose yourself into the wild for the sake of something greater than yourself.

For the sake of the Gospel, perhaps?

Lately, I’ve been falling asleep in the cities of Petersburg and Moscow. I’ve been dreaming of princes and inheritances and wealthy families and love’s irony. All this because I’m in the middle of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s famous work, “The Idiot.”

This prince, dubbed the idiot in the first pages, has officially stolen my heart. What a character he is! Social mores have no consequence and certainly no hold, though I am at times perplexed by the flush in his cheeks. He is a man without presumption.

I cannot follow in this bold claim. I see how alltogether presumptuous I am. Ironical that though I am fully aware of this tendency, I still live with a certain snobbish air. How ridiculous it sounds even as I say it! But, it is sadly all too true.

I am on page 181 and the adventure could not be long enough for me. Have you ever absorbed some form of art and desired so intensely to understand it completely that you rush to finish? I’ll try to explain. Whenever I read a C.S. Lewis novel or listen to one of my favorite Nickel Creek songs, I am impatient for it to finish so that it can be known – part of my life repertoire. It’s like eating a delicacy, so good that you stuff your mouth, only to find that it’s over too soon and you now have indigestion. I suppose it’s as hard to articulate as it is for me to explain.

I just know that my desire for art, philosophy, and literature seems at times to jump from book to book, page to page in a kind of ADD rhythm. I can hardly focus on the fascinating work in front of me, but upon finishing all I really want to do is go back and absorb it all over again.

If literature were chocolate, I would always have a sweet, sticky face and a tummy-ache. I shall try my best to enjoy Prince Myshkin to the most while I have him.

The book starts with an eloquent description of an elementary text book.

An interesting object on which to base an argument, but C.S. Lewis does just that in his opening of what was originally a lecture series titled “The Abolition of Man” (the subtitle reads: Reflections on education with special reference to the teaching of English in the upper forms of schools).

With all the nebulous talk of improved education among scholars and legislators, I have long wondered if there is truth to the fabled “subliminal message.” After painstakingly reading one of Lewis’ most controversial books, I submit that merely wondering at such a possibility is just as damaging as promoting it.

C.S. Lewis refers to the elementary text in question as The Green Book and sets out to argue that the authors teach very little about literature. In fact, The Green Book essentially seeks to ‘debunk’ the existence of any objective value.

Now, that may not strike you as dangerous or deceiving, but this ideological shift is not so plainly described by the authors. The example Lewis gives from their book cites the “well-known story of Coleridge at the waterfall” (of which I knew little) where one tourist called a waterfall sublime and the other pretty. Lewis writes that Coleridge, a renowned poet, mentally endorsed the first description and was disgusted in the second. This is the excerpt from The Green Book:

‘When a man said This is sublime, he appeared to be making a remark about the waterfall… Actually … he was not making a remark about the waterfall, but a remark about his own feelings. What he was really saying was really I have feelings associated in my mind with the word “sublime,” or shortly, I have sublime feelings.’

Keep in mind, the young mind for which this text is intended has little reference for such a proposition. Boys and girls are more concerned with receiving good marks then defending the notion of objective value. And herein lies the danger.

The authors (possibly unintentionally) are making no claims about literature. They are instead suggesting that human sentiment is contrary to reason and ought to be eradicated. Interestingly enough, as Lewis points out, to say something is reasonable or unreasonable means that there must be a standard to make that judgment.

And now, by way of this disastrous summary of Lewis’ first chapter, we start to see the development of Men Without Chests. Assuming objective value is unreasonable, Lewis moves toward the logical question: On what grounds does any value exist in the world and what force would move me to protect this fleeting, traditional idea?

Interestingly enough, though this idea is purported in institutions across the country, the opposite is expected in life’s vernacular. Students might be taught to disregard value and view all things in relativistic terms, yet when it is time to preserve society, all are called to sacrificially stand on the high grounds of character. Lewis writes that youth are encouraged to strive to be people of character, while being conditioned to believe such traits are unreasonable.

“In a sort of ghastly simplicity,” Lewis writes, “we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise.”

Strip life of sentiment and you are left with a skeleton. Relativism may be trendy and “progressive,” but this kind of progress would lead straight to humankind’s demise. There will simply always be those who make the rules and those that follow them. If the rule makers decide life is void of sentiment, they will certainly reap the benefits of this stale standard.

Dangerous? yes. Deceptive? yes. Merely wondering at the possibility of ‘value debunked’ is just as damaging as promoting it. Can we recapture the necessary distinction of humanity? Can we hold firm the objective value intrinsic to our created nature? I believe we were born for such a purpose.

Maybe someone should write a children’s book about it.

At some thoughts one stands perplexed – especially at the sight of men’s sin – and wonders whether one should use force or humble love. Always decide to use humble love. If you resolve to do that, once and for all, you can subdue the whole world. Loving humility is marvelously strong, the strongest of all things, and there is nothing else like it.