Walden Into The Wild

Chris McCandless, self-portrait, July/August, 1992

Last week my mother sent me Jon Krakauer's Into The Wild. She said it reminded her of me and this project. A stretch, but a nice comment nonetheless. I don't think I have ever finished a book so quick in my life. It touched me. I think I was at the perfect point in my life, and in this journey, to have read that book. Thanks Moms.

Rather then love, then money, than fame, give me truth. I sat at a table where were rich food and wine in abundance, an obsequious attendance, but sincerity and truth were not; and I went away hungry from the inhospitable board. The hospitality was as cold as the ices.

Henry David Thoreau,
Walden, Or life in the Woods
Passage highlighted in one of the books found with Chris McCandless's remains. At the top of the page the word "TRUTH" had been written in large block letters in McCandless's Hand.

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary.

Henry David Thoreau,
Walden
Passage highlighted in the copy of Walden I'm traveling with. Highlighted at some point in the past by my girlfriend; Laura.