You Should Own Nothing Except What You

An Extended Stay In The Wilderness Inevitably Directs One's Attention Outward As Much As Inward, And It Is Impossible To Live Off The Land Without Developing Both A Subtle Understanding Of, And A Strong Emotional Bond With, That Land And All It Holds.

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.

Chris Would Use The Spiritual Aspect To Try To Motivate Us. "he'd Tell Us To Think About All The Evil In The World, All The Hatred, And Imagine Ourselves Running Against The Forces Of Darkness, The Evil Wall That Was Trying To Keep Us From Running Our Best. He Believed That Doing Well Was All Mental, A Simple Matter Of Harnessing Whatever Energy Was Available.

Above The Comforts Of Base Camp, The Expedition In Fact Became An Almost Calvinistic Undertaking. The Ratio Of Misery To Pleasure Was Greater By An Order Of Magnitude Than Any Mountain I'd Been On; I Quickly Came To Understand That Climbing Everest Was Primarily About Enduring Pain. And In Subjecting Ourselves To Week After Week Of Toil, Tedium And Suffering, It Struck Me That Most Of Us Were Probably Seeking Above All Else, Something Like A State Of Grace.

Mountains Make Poor Receptacles For Dreams.