Here's another take. Actually, here's almost the exact opposite take:
"Carl knew he never stood a chance in that jungle. It was his lifelong dream to go with his wife and be with her there. What was he going to do there? Hunt his food and clean his own water, in his age? Carl was planning to die at Paradise Falls. That way he'd be with his wife again. When he chose to leave the Falls he chose to live."
And here's just a completely different one that your Tea Party grandpa could get behind:
"Carl spends his entire life saving and losing and saving and losing from financial crisis to windfall and back again...He's tired of the new generation sweeping him under the rug. He takes whatever he has and flies his house halfway across the world in an effort to finish what he'd always dreamed of. Much like, say, an American senior citizen cashing in on their 401k. However, his whole plan goes awry when a selfish, obese, and poorly educated child tags along...Carl does everything he can to make his dream come true, but in the end learns that the best he can manage is to make peace with the new generation at the expense of everything he ever worked for or cared about."
Oh woof. That one might be the most depressing theory of all.
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