But living that way, and slowly gaining ground getting out of the economic pit, it left me with a strong desire to NEVER return to that mode. So throwing away all those hard-earned worldly goods and "living off nature" are a completely foreign concept to me.
Add a spouse and, most especially, children to that responsibility cocktail and McCandless' style of philosophical adventurism is completely impractical for most of us, regardless of our motivations. As are many other things, this is an unattached young man or woman's endeavor. I'm not so drastically far removed from my twenties that I can't recall acting on a wild hair, but unnecessary self-denial and voluntary austerity weren't ever in my game plan. No Tibetan monk here.
