Blog six: Transcendentalism

1.)

        Alex’s views on possessions, money, and society do not match my personal views. I agree with his view on society to an extent because I don’t necessarily like how society works or how it views people, but I would never go as far as completely shutting myself out from it. When Alex leaves he donates all of his money and ditches his car, both of which most people would never be able to do because we live in a greed driven society; we always want more than we have. He refused his parents offer to buy him a new car because his ‘old beater’ still ran fine. I would never pass up a new car, who would? Alex donates all of his money, every last dollar. He didn’t save anything, I would never be able to go through with that, and while it’s a wonderful thing to do I don’t think it was smart. Alex believed that that material possessions meant nothing and you don’t need them to live a happy live, but I would never be able to survive a week, let alone, a lifetime without my iphone. I don’t agree with his views on these topics but I can understand where he is coming from.

2.)

       Alex was not living life to the fullest by submerging himself into the wilderness because he never took himself as far as he could have gone into school, a career, or even a family. Every person has some sort of goal or image in their head about what they want to have done or accomplished in their lifetime, and most people aspire to marry, have children, make a living, and other long term things like that, but his vision of a life well spent was gutsier; he wanted to abandon the cliché American dream and go find himself by taking a journey to Alaska. Even though Alex's ideal life is very different from the typical, he did live the way he wanted to, so to say he wasn't living life to its full potential would not be fair. He lived his life and followed transcendental views to live in a very free state. I don’t think he took himself as far as he could have, because he had so many options and connections but he didn’t use them. His father worked for NASA, he could have gone anywhere and done anything he wanted to but he ditched that life and went and got by on absolutely nothing. He died at a young age from the decisions he made and his lifestyle seemed miserable. If I am supposed to judge his life by the standards that I hold myself to, I would not say he lived it to its fullest; he could have gone and gotten an amazing education and made a something of himself. But if the definition of a life well spent is to approve of your own choices and to accept you for who you are, it wouldn’t be a judgment anyone other than Alex could make.