Christopher McCandless, Robin Williams, Anthony Bourdain.
For some reason, these three people have been on my mind this evening. I don’t know much about any of their lives, though I read “Into the Wild,” the book based loosely on the life of Christopher McCandless, when I was 14 or 15.
I was intrigued by his life. A man who seemed to have the opportunity to gain wealth and prosperity, yet understood the emptiness this brought him. He sought happiness and meaning in other areas.
Robin Williams I don’t know a lot about, and Anthony Bourdain I know even less.
The reason I think of these people is that it seems all of them, like most humans, were in search of meaning and purpose, yet all their lives ended in tragedy. Williams and Bourdain in suicide, and McCandless in starvation. Or at least assumed that it was starvation.
Williams was a man who brought life to many. Known for his stand-up comedy and incredible skill in being able to captivate an audience. Taking on characters of all kinds on television and turning them into believable and relatable characters.
He had fame and glory. One of the most well-renowned actor/comedians of his time. Someone many loved very much. Yet he ended his own life.
Bourdain I won’t pretend to know much about and am open to hearing other perspectives, but from my understanding, was basically a guy who traveled around trying the best food in the world in many cultures. I would think many would look at his life as the dream life. Especially those who are obsessed with wanting to travel and explore the world.
Bourdain, like Williams, also ended his own life.
McCandless, as previously mentioned, understood that he didn’t want the life of luxury or wealth. He understood the emptiness in that. He sought after purpose and meaning in nature. In exploration. Going from one place to the other, eventually hitchhiking his way to Alaska, arguably the most beautiful state in the US.
McCandless ended his life alone in an old bus in the middle of the woods. Starved to death.
All of these men tried the many things the world had to offer, yet in the end were not content. They all got to the point where they would rather die than experience another minute in this world. This broken world.
There has to be something outside of this world that keeps you alive. If you look only to the things that bring happiness and joy in this world, those things will eventually wear out. You will never be fully content in them. You may pursue them for a season, and they may help you for a time, but eventually, like all things in this world, you will tire of them or they will let you down.
Travel is perhaps the biggest longing for my generation. People wanting to live while traveling the world. Thinking that this will bring them the happiness and joy they’ve always desired. These people often realize that this is a lonely journey, and in the end leads only to wanting more. Never fully satisfied.
It can even seem like we’re strangers in this world. Like no matter what you do, there is never a feeling of belonging. You can make your impact on this world, you can have the best of friends and accomplish more than you ever hoped, but what does it even mean? What does having an impact do?
There are certainly people in history, kings even, that had huge impacts on the people of their time. Maybe carrying on for several generations. Maybe they’re even in a book somewhere. But that huge impact they had is completely lost on the generation today. No one cares about it. No one is affected by it.
But what if there was more than just this world? What if there was something outside of it – something that brought value to life? Something that revealed your purpose in being here? Something that even in the darkest and hardest of days, you could look to and realize that the small things of this world are so inconsequential that you don’t have to be tossed around by the pain?
Something that you could put all of your trust, faith, love, and life to, and it would never let you down.
What if it was written about in a book? A book that anyone could read. Open to all who wanted to know the truth.
Could you imagine if this were true, yet people cursed it and mocked it without ever reading this book themselves? They made fun of the people who were reading it even as those who read it tried to tell those who mocked them about the life that they had found through it?
What a world that would be.
What if your purpose isn’t up to you to wonder until the day you die, but is something you can know and grow in now?
If this were possible, why would you not at least look and see?