Lessons from INTO THE WILD

Christopher Johnson McCandless

The very basic core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.
-Chris McCandless, in a letter

The physical domain of the country had its counterpart in me. The trails I made led outward into the hills and swamps, but they led inward also. And from the study of things underfoot, and from reading and thinking, came a kind of exploration, myself and the land. In time the two became one in my mind. With the gathering force of an essential thing realizing itself out of early ground, I faced in myself a passionate and tenacious longing--to put away thought forever, and all the trouble it brings, all but the nearest desire, direct and searching. To take the trail and not look back. Whether on foot, on snowshoes or by sled, into the summer hills and their late freezing shadows--a high blaze, a runner track in the snow would show where I had gone. Let the rest of mankind find me if it could.
-John Haines, from The Starts, The Snow, The Fire: Twenty-five Years in the Northern Wilderness

He was right in saying that the only certain happiness in life is to live for others. ... I have lived through much, and now I think I have found what is needed for happiness. A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one's neighbor--such is my idea of happiness. And then, on top of all that, you for a mate, and children, perhaps--what more can the heart of a man desire?
-from Tolstoy's "Family Happiness"

HAPPINESS ONLY REAL WHEN SHARED.
-Chris McCandless's note over a passage of Doctor Zhivago