Transcendentalism Quotes
"Many people have told me that they admire Chris for what he was trying to do. If he'd lived, I would agree with them. But he didn't, and there's no way to bring him back.
Billie McCandless says this about Chris. She has to live with her son's death every day, and even though he attempted to do something selfless, he didn't succeed and now she is stuck with that loss.
I, too, would like to step in here in his defense, not as an ecologist, but as a filmmaker. He captured such glorious improvised moments, the likes of which the studio directors, with their union crews, can never dream of.
Director. All though what he was doing out in the wild might not make much sense to most people he got just amazing shots of the bears in camera in their natural habit in their own world. Which could have been one of his main goals.
Beyond his posings, the camera was his only present companion. It was his instrument to explore the wilderness around him, but increasingly it became something more. He started to scrutinize his innermost being, his demons, his exhilarations. Facing the lens of the camera took on the quality of a confessional.
Director. He was all alone in the wild so the camera was like his friend and an outlet that he uses expect for the last couple of summer when Amy went with him except for that she was never shown on camera.
Wild, primordial nature was where he felt truly at home. We explored the glacier in the back country of his Grizzly Sanctuary. This gigantic complexity of tumbling ice and abysses separated Treadwell from the world out there. And more so, it seems to me that this landscape in turmoil is a metaphor for his soul.
Director. He was so separated from the outside world literally due to distance but in his mind, he also was become he did not like the majority of society.
And what haunts me, is that in all the faces of all the bears that Treadwell ever filmed, I discover no kinship, no understanding, no mercy. I see only the overwhelming indifference of nature. To me, there is no such thing as a secret world of the bears. And this blank stare speaks only of a half-bored interest in food. But for Timothy Treadwell, this bear was a friend, a savior.
Director. The bears didn't really care about Treadwell he was there and they got used to him so if he didn't bother them they wont bother him. But timmy care so much about the bears even if they didn't care for him
What remains is his footage. And while we watch the animals in their joys of being, in their grace and ferociousness, a thought becomes more and more clear. That it is not so much a look at wild nature, as it is an insight into ourselves, our nature. And that, for me, beyond his mission, gives meaning to his life and to his death.
Director. Timothy truly lived and died for the bears and this videos are everything that he worked for wanted people to see to understand to bears and maybe to understand him more as a person too.
"Whoso would be a man must be a non-conformist."
Emerson Self Reliance., Man must not do the normal and expect to do regular practice. He has to be different and do new and different things.
"There I feel that nothing can befall me in life."
Emerson in Nature. Emerson means here that people are able to feel as though they are a care-free blank slate once they shed the stress that comes with everyday city life.
"A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise, shall give him no peace."
Emerson in Self-Reliance. A man has to do his best and try his best in everything to feel happy but if not he will be unsatisfied.
"And fired the shot heard round the world."
Emerson said this in Concord Hynm. a poem that he wrote about the battle of lexington and concord. Emerson feels that this battle encouraged movements toward democracy worldwide.
"In the woods is perpetual youth."
Emerson said this in Nature. in the woods there is never ending youth so when people go out in nature they should feel younger and more alive and connected with themselves.
"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."
Emerson said this in Self Reliance. He thinks that people should be different and follow their own individual self and be themselves but being the same is not good for the mind
"I figured he'd be OK. I thought he'd probably get hungry pretty quick and just walk out to the highway. That's what any normal person would do."
Jim Gallien said this. When he dropped McCandless off, he considered alerting the authorities about him, but decided not to. He thought that McCandless would use his brain and return home if he reached any danger.
"I HAVE HAD A HAPPY LIFE AND THANK THE LORD. GOODBYE AND MAY GOD BLESS ALL!"
McCandless writes this on a page of a book as his goodbye, he takes one final picture with it. McCandless is thankful for his life and feels like he died doing what he wanted.
"HAPPINESS ONLY REAL WHEN SHARED."
McCandless wrote this in the margins of a book. When Chris is really sick he feels alone, but he can't leave the bus. He is saying that people aren't truly happy when they are alone because after awhile you get lonely. You are more happy when you make others happy.
"If this adventure proves fatal and you don't ever hear from me again I want you to know you're a great man. I now walk into the wild."
McCandless wrote this to Wayne Westerburg right before he entered into the wild. This quote shows that McCandless knows his plan is dangerous, but he does it anyway.
My opinion, I think Treadwell thought these bears were big, scary looking, harmless creatures that he could go up and pet and sing to, and they would bond as children of the universe or some odd. I think he lost sight of what was really going on.
Pilot. The pilot is right sometimes he would go up to the bears and try to touch as if one wrong move he could die. It is like he didn't always know their power and dominance.
Where I grew up, the bears avoid us and we avoid them. They're not habituated to us. If I look at it from my culture, Timothy Treadwell crossed a boundary that we have lived with for years. It's an unspoken boundary, an unknown boundary. But when we know we've crossed it, we pay the price.
The guy from the museum. In his beliefs, we should let the wild animals do their own thing and not make them susceptible to humans so that they don't think all humans are there to help them.
"I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that is one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours."
Thoreau From Walden. If a man lives his life the way he was to live it and is proud of the life he is living he will accomplish his dreams and wants.
"Let every man make known what kind of government would command his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it ..."
Thoreau civil disobecice. He does not want to get rid of the government be he want them to be a better government and one that he respect and will make good actions moving forward
"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."
Thoreau in Walden. He means by this that he want to live in a different sense of scenery to see if he could live this the same intend and happiness and see what he learned from the experience
"We do not ride the railroad: it rides upon us ..."
Thoreau in civil disobedince. We build railroads to see the country and it land but by doing this we are also destroy the land.
"That government is best which governs not at all."
Thoreau wrote this as his first line of civil disobedience. He is saying that government is best when they are not overly controlling and telling the people exactly what to do.
I will die for these animals, I will die for these animals, I will die for these animals.
Tim Treadwell. He does end up dying from the bears so he was pretty serious about actually dying from the bears.
"I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand."
Walden Thoreau. Let your life be simple not over the top and over done. It give you less things to wirry about.
"He never explained why he'd changed his name. From things he said, you could tell something wasn't right between him and his family, but I don't like to pry into other people's business, so I never asked about it."
Wayne Westerburg says this about Chris changing his name to Alex. It seems that he changed his name so that he couldn't be traced back to his parents, and he couldn't be found. He wanted to go out into the wild with no help and do it on his own
