Happiness Is Only Real When Shared

When Alex Left For Alaska," Franz Remembers, "i Prayed. I Asked God To Keep His Finger On The Shoulder Of That One; I Told Him That Boy Was Special. But He Let Alex Die. So On December 26, When I Learned What Happened, I Renounced The Lord. I Withdrew My Church Membership And Became An Atheist. I Decided I Couldn't Believe In A God Who Would Let Something That Terrible Happen To A Boy Like Alex.

I Never Studied Writing, But I'd Always Been A Reader And Had A Secret Fantasy About Being A Writer.

Having Stumbled Upon A Tolerable Career, For The First Time In My Life I Was Actually Living Above The Poverty Line. My Hunger To Climb Had Been Blunted, In Short, By A Bunch Of Small Satisfactions That Added Up To Something Like Happiness.

According To The Moral Absolutism That Characterizes Mccandless's Beliefs, A Challenge In Which A Successful Outcome Is Assured Isn't A Challenge At All.

Unlike Most Of Life, What You Do Really Matters. Your Actions Have Real Consequences. You Have To Pay Attention And Focus, And That's Very Satisfying. It Forces You To Pay Great Attention And You Lose Yourself In The Task At Hand. Without The Risk, That Wouldn't Happen, So The Risk Is An Essential Part Of Climbing, And That's Hard For Some People To Grasp. You Can't Justify The Risk When Things Go Wrong And People Die. The Greater The Risk, The Greater The Reward In Most Aspects Of Life, And In Climbing That's Certainly True, Too. It's Very Physical, You Use Your Mind And Your Body.