Don't judge a book by it's cover

"In the third grade, after receiving a high score on a standardized achievement test, Chris was placed in an execrated program for gifted students" (Krakauer 106).

Inspiration or Fool

People get judged often by their personal traits and interests. An individual may have a"playful" or "dumb-funny" personality, but could actually be very intelligent. I believe this relates to how people get categorized based off their personal traits. Chris may not have good test taking skills, therefore he earned the categorization of a "gifted" student. Based on his test score one would believe he is not smart, but people who truly know Chris would believe he is actually very intelligent. Nowadays  I see people get judged based off their "playful" or "dumb-funny" personalities, not what they with hold intellectually.

Reasons for Decisions

"It's a good place to spend the winter and I might finally settle down and abandon my trampling life, for good. I'll see what happens when spring comes around, because that's when I tend to get really itchy feel"(Krakauer).

Inspiration or Fool

Many people in the world have a certain way to just free themselves and get away from everything that going on in their lives. As Alex's way was to go into wilderness all along. some people may say he is an idiot but other would support and respect his decision to go off and free himself from whatever was bothering him. I must say there are many other ways to free your mind from stressful or angry things that supply for safety to one's life. Though, I am not Alex so I cannot feel exact sympathy for him as I do not know every reason for his decision to run off into the wilderness. I do respect him for being independent and dealing with his frustrations and his anger in his own manner, unfortunately it cost him his life. I believe Alex symbolizes the small amount of people who are independent as he tried to free himself ion his own civilized way.