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a67c7f4
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Thoreau's declaration in "Civil Disobedience": "I heartily accept the motto--'That government is best which governs least."
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Jon Krakauer |
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eea9bfa
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It is hardly unusual for a young man to be drawn to a pursuit considered reckless by his elders; engaging in risky behavior is a rite of passage in our culture no less than in most others. Danger has always held a certain allure. That, in large part, is why so many teenagers drive too fast and drink too much and take too many drugs, why it has always been so easy for nations to recruit young men to go to war. It can be argued that youthful ..
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travel
wanderlust
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Jon Krakauer |
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1383de6
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And because he happened to be the father of Debbie's own stepmother, Mem, she unwittingly became a stepmother to her stepmother, and thus a stepgrandmother to herself.
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Jon Krakauer |
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46aa1fd
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In any human endeavor, some fraction of its practitioners will be motivated to pursue that activity with such concentrated focus and unalloyed passion that it will consume them utterly. One has to look no further than individuals who feel compelled to devote their lives to becoming concert pianists, say, or climbing Mount Everest. For some, the province of the extreme holds an allure that's irresistible. And a certain percentage of such fan..
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Jon Krakauer |
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c9ea1fb
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that's a real big part of what holds this religion together: it's not having to make those critical decisions that many of us have to make, and be responsible for your decisions.
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Jon Krakauer |
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4952539
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The monks' response was to climb into their curraghs and row off toward Greenland. They were drawn across the storm-racked ocean, drawn west past the edge of the known world, by nothing more than a hunger of the spirit, a yearning of such queer intensity that it beggars the modern imagination.
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spirit
papar
peace
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Jon Krakauer |
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c92a9ef
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It may, after all, be the bad habit of creative talents to invest themselves in pathological extremes that yield remarkable insights but no durable way of life for those who cannot translate their psychic wounds into significant art or thought.
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Jon Krakauer |
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634cdfa
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Alaska topraklari merhametsizdir, ne umutlari ne de ozlemleri umursar.
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Jon Krakauer |
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94c112a
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When McCandless came into his world, however, the boy undermined the old man's meticulously constructed defenses. Franz relished being with McCandless, but their burgeoning friendship also reminded him how lonely he'd been. The boy unmasked the gaping void in Franz's life even as he helped fill it. When McCandless departed as suddenly as he'd arrived, Franz found himself deeply and unexpectedly hurt.
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Jon Krakauer |
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b96ecae
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passing: the righteous, fair-skinned Nephites, led by Nephi, and their bitter adversaries, the Lamanites, as the followers of Laman were known. The Lamanites were "an idle people, full of mischief and subtlety," whose behavior was so annoying to God that He cursed the whole lot of them with dark skin to punish them for their impiety."
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Jon Krakauer |
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ee1f087
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The zealot may be outwardly motivated by the anticipation of a great reward at the other end--wealth, fame, eternal salvation--but the real recompense is probably the obsession itself. This is no less true for the religious fanatic than for the fanatical pianist or fanatical mountain climber. As a result of his (or
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Jon Krakauer |
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ccd120f
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He drifted past saguaros and alkali flats, camped beneath escarpments of naked Precambrian stone. In the distance spiky, chocolate-brown mountains floated on eerie pools of mirage.
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Jon Krakauer |
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897bfe0
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The urge to catalog the myriad blunders in order to "learn from the mistakes" is for the most part an exercise in denial and self-deception."
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Jon Krakauer |
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1585100
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Huguet, on the other hand, insisted that prosecutors settle for nothing less than a lengthy sentence at the state penitentiary in Deer Lodge.
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Jon Krakauer |
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eac424a
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it would be possible to become a Stone Age native. For over 30 years, I programmed and conditioned myself to this end. In the last 10 of it, I would say I realistically experienced the physical, mental, and emotional reality of the Stone Age. But to borrow a Buddhist phrase, eventually came a setting face-to-face with pure reality. I learned that it is not possible for human beings as we know them to live off the land.
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Jon Krakauer |
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e171cc0
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Beidleman knew they were on the eastern, Tibetan side of the Col and that the tents lay somewhere to the west. But to move in that direction it was necessary to walk directly upwind into the teeth of the storm. Wind-whipped granules of ice and snow struck the climbers' faces with violent force, lacerating their eyes and making it impossible to see where they were going. "It was so difficult and painful," Schoening explains, "that there was ..
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Jon Krakauer |
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c4f82a1
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will be thoroughly cleansed of Satan's minions--apostates,
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Jon Krakauer |
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baff97f
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He never suspected that in so doing, he was crossing his Rubicon.
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Jon Krakauer |
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b948152
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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.
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Jon Krakauer |
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620cf0a
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By and by your attention becomes so intensely focused that you no longer notice the raw knuckles, the cramping thighs, the strain of maintaining nonstop concentration. A trancelike state settles over your efforts; the climb becomes a clear-eyed dream. Hours slide by like minutes. The accumulated clutter of day-today existence--the lapses of conscience, the unpaid bills, the bungled opportunities, the dust under the couch, the inescapable pr..
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Jon Krakauer |
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b76759c
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Boredom presents a very real, if insidious peril. To quote Blaine Harden from the Washington post:"Boredom kills, and those it does not kill, it cripples, and those it does not cripple, it bleeds like a leech, leaving its victims pale, insipid, and brooding. Examples abound...Rats kept in comfortable isolation quickly become jumpy, irritable, and aggressive. Their bodies twitch, their tails grow scaly." The backcountry traveler, then, in ad..
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travel
boredom
mountains
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Jon Krakauer |
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3617d0c
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I enjoy its beauty and the vagrant life I lead, more keenly all the time. I prefer the saddle to the streetcar and star-sprinkled sky to a roof, the obscure and difficult trail, leading into the unknown, to any paved highway, and the deep peace of the wild to the discontent bred by cities.
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Jon Krakauer |
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5cfa552
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Simply by recounting their stories and breaking that silence, survivors of sexual assault strike a powerful blow against their assailants.
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Jon Krakauer |
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ef22a21
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Whether a belief is considered to be a delusion or not depends partly upon the intensity with which it is defended, and partly upon the numbers of people subscribing to it.* ANTHONY STORR, FEET OF CLAY
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Jon Krakauer |
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b5bef35
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could be generous and caring to a fault, but he had a darker side as well, characterized by monomania, impatience, and unwavering self-absorption, qualities that seemed to intensify through his college years.
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Jon Krakauer |
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8370bc8
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And he never quit in the middle of something. If he started a job, he'd finish it. It was almost like a moral thing for him. He was what you'd call extremely ethical. He set pretty high standards for himself.
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Jon Krakauer |
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adb4bb7
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But at times I wondered if I had not come a long way only to find that what I really sought was something I had left behind. Thomas F. Hornbein
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Jon Krakauer |
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41fddb3
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I don't think he ever hung out with any of the employees after work or anything. When he talked, he was always going on about trees and nature and weird stuff like that. We all thought he was missing a few screws.
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Jon Krakauer |
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ed4dcf8
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In trying to understand McCandless, I inevitably came to reflect on other, larger subjects as well: the grip wilderness has on the American imagination, the allure high-risk activities hold for young men of a certain mind, the complicated, highly charged bond that exists between fathers and sons. The result of this meandering inquiry is the book now before you.
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wilderness
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Jon Krakauer |
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4849a49
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Alex looks quickly around for signs of trouble," his journal records. "But his entry of Mexico is either unnoticed or ignored. Alexander is jubilant!"
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Jon Krakauer |
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585fc6c
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It is morally impossible to remain neutral in this conflict. The bystander is forced to take a side. It is very tempting to take the side of the perpetrator. All the perpetrator asks is that the bystander do nothing. He appeals to the universal desire to see, hear, and speak no evil. The victim, on the contrary, asks the bystander to share the burden of pain. The victim demand action, engagement, and remembering...
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Jon Krakauer |
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1c9b5d5
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From elementary school through high school, my siblings and I were hectored to excel in every class, to win medals in science fairs, to be chosen princess of the prom, to win election to student government. Thereby and only thereby, we learned, could we expect to gain admission to the right college, which in turn would get us into Harvard Medical School: life's one sure path to meaningful success and lasting happiness.
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school
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Jon Krakauer |
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ab79f98
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Because I was alone, however, even the mundane seemed charged with meaning. The ice looked colder and more mysterious, the sky a cleaner shade of blue. The unnamed peaks towering over the glacier were bigger and comelier and infinitely more menacing than they would have been were I in the company of another person. And my emotions were similarly amplified: The highs were higher; the periods of despair were deeper and darker. To a self-poss..
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travel
inspirational
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Jon Krakauer |
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2a5a02c
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While tentbound high on Everest, Mallory and his companions would read aloud to one another from Hamlet and King Lear
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Jon Krakauer |
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4e4a20e
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Everest has always been a magnet for kooks, publicity seekers, hopeless romantics, and others with a shaky hold on reality.
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Jon Krakauer |
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0ce85f8
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If this adventure proves fatal and you don't ever hear from me again, I want you to know you're a great man. I now walk into the wild. ALEX.
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Jon Krakauer |
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08a048b
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There are no events but thoughts and the heart's hard turning, the heart's slow learning where to love and whom. The rest is merely gossip, and tales for other times. ANNIE DILLARD, HOLY THE FIRM
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Jon Krakauer |
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58a3055
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After a victim has reported a crime to the police, many people believe that the decision whether or not to charge the suspect with a crime, and then prosecute the suspect, is the prerogative of the victim. News media often contribute to this misconception in stories about rape victims by reporting that a victim 'declined to press charges.' In fact, the criminal justice system gives victims no direct say in the matter. It's the police, for t..
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Jon Krakauer |
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b313b64
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Achieving the summit of a mountain was tangible, immutable, concrete. The incumbent hazards lent the activity a seriousness of purpose that was sorely missing from the rest of my life. I thrilled in the fresh perspective that came from the tipping the ordinary plane of existence on end.
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Jon Krakauer |
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92684ce
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if you have been assaulted by somebody you thought you could trust, how do you restore your sense of trust in the world or in people? And how do you trust yourself?
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Jon Krakauer |
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3209a1b
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Not only during the ascent but also during the descent my willpower is dulled. The longer I climb the less important the goal seems to me, the more indifferent I become to myself. My attention has diminished, my memory is weakened. My mental fatigue is now greater than the bodily. It is so pleasant to sit doing nothing--and therefore so dangerous. Death through exhaustion is--like death through freezing--a pleasant one. Reinhold Messner T..
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Jon Krakauer |
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c9ca594
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It would be easy to stereotype Christopher McCandless as another boy who felt too much, a loopy young man who read too many books and lacked even a modicum of common sense. But the stereotype isn't a good fit. McCandless wasn't some feckless slacker, adrift and confused, racked by existential despair. To the contrary: His life hummed with meaning and purpose. But the meaning he wrested from existence lay beyond the comfortable path: McCandl..
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Jon Krakauer |
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a142346
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The courtroom oath--"to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth"--is applicable only to witnesses. Defense attorneys, prosecutors, and judges don't take this oath--they couldn't! Indeed, it is fair to say the American justice system is built on the foundation of not telling the whole truth. It is the job of the defense attorney--especially when representing the guilty--to prevent, by all lawful means, the "whole truth" fr..
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Jon Krakauer |
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ba62329
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Rape, Boylan pointed out, is the only crime in which the victim is presumed to be lying.
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Jon Krakauer |