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Jon Krakauer

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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.”

SchoolInto The Wild
Book:Into the Wild
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“Petersburg is a small town, and prim by Alaska standards. A tall, loose-limbed woman walked by and struck up a conversation. Her name was Kai, she said, Kai Sandburn. She was cheerful, outgoing, easy to talk to. I confessed my climbing plans to her, and to my relief she neither laughed nor acted as though they were particularly strange. “When the weather’s clear,” she simply offered, “you can see the Thumb from town. It’s pretty. It’s over there, right across Frederick Sound.” I followed her outstretched arm, which gestured to the east, at a low wall of clouds. Kai invited me home for dinner. Later I unrolled my sleeping bag on her floor. Long after she fell asleep, I lay awake in the next room, listening to her peaceful exhalations. I had convinced myself for many months that I didn’t really mind the absence of intimacy in my life, the lack of real human connection, but the pleasure I’d felt in this woman’s company—the ring of her laughter, the innocent touch of a hand on my arm—exposed my self-deceit and left me hollow and aching.”

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Book:Into the Wild
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“I'd like to repeat the advice that I gave you before, in that I think you really should make a radical change in your lifestyle and begin to boldly do things which you may previously never have thought of doing, or been too hesitant to attempt. So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. 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. If you want to get more out of life, Ron, you must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life that will at first appear to you to be crazy. But once you become accustomed to such a life you will see its full meaning and its incredible beauty. And so, Ron, in short, get out of Salton City and hit the Road. I guarantee you will be very glad you did. But I fear that you will ignore my advice. You think that I am stubborn, but you are even more stubborn than me. You had a wonderful chance on your drive back to see one of the greatest sights on earth, the Grand Canyon, something every American should see at least once in his life. But for some reason incomprehensible to me you wanted nothing but to bolt for home as quickly as possible, right back to the same situation which you see day after day after day. I fear you will follow this same inclination in the future and thus fail to discover all the wonderful things that God has placed around us to discover. Don't settle down and sit in one place. Move around, be nomadic, make each day a new horizon. You are still going to live a long time, Ron, and it would be a shame if you did not take the opportunity to revolutionize your life and move into an entirely new realm of experience. You are wrong if you think Joy emanates only or principally from human relationships. God has placed it all around us. It is in everything and anything we might experience. We just have to have the courage to turn against our habitual lifestyle and engage in unconventional living. My point is that you do not need me or anyone else around to bring this new kind of light in your life. It is simply waiting out there for you to grasp it, and all you have to do is reach for it. The only person you are fighting is yourself and your stubbornness to engage in new circumstances.”

LifeJoySecurityAdventureConformity
Book:Into the Wild
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“I am reborn. This is my dawn. Real life has just begun. Deliberate living. Conscious attention to your immediate environment and its concerns. examples include: a job, a task, a book, anything requiring efficient concentration. (Circumstance has no value. It is how one relates to a situation that has value. All true meaning resides in the personal relationship to a phenomenon….what it means to you). The Great Holiness of FOOD, the Vital Heat. Positivism, the Insurpassable Joy of the Life Aesthetic. Absolute Truth and Honesty. Reality. Independence. Finality-Stability-Consistency.”

LifeHappinessSelf WorthMeaningMeaning Of Life
Book:Into the Wild
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“(...) The people I chatted with in Kito's didn't seem to doubt that I'd been to the top of the Thumb; they just didn't mcuh care. (...) Less than a month after sitting on the summit of the Thumb, I was back in Boulder, nailing up siding on the Spruce Street Townhouses, the same condosI'd been framing when I left for Alaska. (...) It is easy, when you are young, to believe that what you desire is no less than what you deserve, to assume that if you want something badly enough, it is your God-given right to have it. When I decided to go to Alaska that April, like Chris McCandless, I was a raw youth who mistook passion for insight and acted according to an obscure, gap-ridden logic. I thought climbing the Devils Thumb would fix all that was wrong with my life. In the end, of course, it changed almost nothing. But I came to appreciate that mountains make poor receptacles for dreams. And I lived to tell my tale.”

HappinessDreamsSelf WorthMeaning Of LifeSearchPursuing Dreams
Book:Into the Wild
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“Most women are all too familiar with men like Calvin Smith. Men whose sense of prerogative renders them deaf when women say, "No thanks," "Not interested," or even "Fuck off, creep.”

CultureWomenFeminismCommunicationBehaviorMen And WomenGenderSexualitySexismMisogynyAssaultWomen S RightsSexual AbuseRapeDisrespectSaying NoPersonal ExperiencesGender RolesHarassmentSexual AssaultSurvivorsRape CultureVictimsWomen And MenSexual ViolenceVerbal AbusePersonal SpaceRapistsWomen S IssuesPredatorsMisogynistProblems In The WorldStreet HarassmentNot ListeningPersonal ExperienceCatcallingPredatory BehaviorProblems Of TodayPersonal AutonomyMen S BehaviorProblems With SocietyProblems With MenAssaultsAssailantsWomen S Experiences
Book:Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town
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“The fragility of crystal is not a weakness but a fineness. My parents understood that fine crystal glass had to be cared for or may be shattered. But when it came to my brother, they didn’t seem to know or care that their course of their secret action brought the kind of devastation that could cut them. Their fraudulent marriage and our father’s denial of his other son was for Chris a murder of every day’s truth. He felt his whole life turned like a river suddenly reversing the direction of its flow. Suddenly running uphill. These revelations struck at the core of Chris’s sense of identity. They made his entire childhood seem like fiction. Chris never told them he knew and made me promise silence as well.”

Into The WildChris MccandlessAlex Supertramp
Book:Into the Wild
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“Alex here. (...) Ron, I really enjoy all the help you have given me and the times we spent together. I hope that you will not be too depressed by our parting. It may be a very long time before we see each other again. But providing that I get through the Alaskan Deal in one piece you will be hearing form me again in the future. I’d like to repeat the advice I gave you before, in that I think you really should make a radical change in your lifestyle and begin to boldly do things which you may previously never have thought of doing or been to hesitant to attempt. So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one piece of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. 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. (...) Once you become accustomed to such a life you will see its full meaning and its incredible beauty. (...) Don’t settle down and sit in one place. Move around, be nomadic, make each day a new horizon. (...) You are wrong if you think joy emanates only or principally from human relationships. God has placed it all around us. It is in everything and anything we might experience. We just have to have the courage to turn against our habitual lifestyle and engage in unconventional living. Ron, I really hope that as soon as you can you will get out of Salton City, put a little camper on the back of your pickup, and start seeing some of the great work that God has done here in the American West. you will see things and meet people and there is much to learn from them. And you must do it economy style, no motels, do your own cooking, as a general rule spend as little as possible and you will enjoy it much more immensely. I hope that the next time I see you, you will be a new man with a vast array of new adventures and experiences behind you. Don’t hesitate or allow yourself to make excuses. Just get out and do it. Just get out and do it. You will be very, very glad that you did. Take care Ron, Alex”

LifeInspirationalJoyNatureCourageAdventureChangesNew ExperiencesInto The Wild
Author:Jon Krakauer
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“For whatever reason, commercial mountain guide, Anatoli Boukreev raced down ahead of his group—which in fact had been his pattern throughout the entire expedition, as, his employer, Scott Fischer’s final letters and phone calls from Base Camp to Seattle made clear.”

SelfishIncompetentMountain ClimbingEverestCharlatansClimbing QuotesLudditeEverest Base Camp Trek
Book:Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster
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“The accused rapist, Calvin Smith, had graduated from a small-town high school the previous June, where he'd distinguished himself as an athlete. Individuals who knew Smith have described him as "kind," "easygoing," and "goofy." But he had never had sex before meeting Kaitlynn Kelly, and a look at what he has posted on a social media site suggests that he was a frustrated, involuntary celibate. On January 11, 2011, Smith posted a line from the animated sitcom Family Guy on his Facebook page: "women are not people god just put them here for mans entertainment.”

RapeRape CultureRapistsIncelInvoluntary CelibateMrasMen S Rights Activists
Book:Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town
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“Neither Emma's tears nor her rage were enough to make Joseph monogamous, however; nor were the prevailing mores of the day. He kept falling rapturously in love with women not his wife. And because that rapture was so wholly consuming, and felt so good, it struck him as impossible that God might possibly frown on such a thing.”

ReligionMormonPlural Marriage
Book:Under The Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith
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“…such criticism and mockery are largely beside the point. All religious belief is a function of nonrational faith. And faith, by its very definition, tends to be impervious to to intellectual argument or academic criticism. Polls routinely indicate, moreover, that nine out of ten Americans believe in God—most of us subscribe to one brand of religion or another. Those who would assail The Book of Mormon should bear in mind that its veracity is no more dubious than the veracity of the Bible, say, or the Qur'an, or the sacred texts of most other religions. The latter texts simply enjoy the considerable advantage of having made their public debut in the shadowy recesses of the ancient past, and are thus much harder to refute.”

ReligionMormonism
Book:Under The Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith
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“So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more dangerous to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. 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.”

InspirationalChangeComplacency
Book:Into the Wild
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“But perhaps the greatest attraction of Mormonism was the promise that each follower would be granted an extraordinarily intimate relationship with God. Joseph taught and encouraged his adherents to receive personal communiqués straight from the Lord. Divine revelation formed the bedrock of the religion.”

Would BeLordTaughtDivinePromiseAttractionGrantedIntimateRevelationsFollowersRelationship With GodBedrockIntimate RelationshipsMormonismDivine RevelationIntimate Relationship With God
Book:Under The Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith
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“And if I remain in the dark about our purpose here, and the meaning of eternity, I have nevertheless arrived at an understanding of a few more modest truths: Most of us fear death. Most of us yearn to comprehend how we got here, and why-- which is to say, most of us ache to know the love of our creator. And we will no doubt feel that ache, most of us, for as long as we happen to be alive.”

IfsKnowsFeelsLongHappensPurposeUnderstandingDarkDoubtAliveEternityCreatorNo DoubtNeverthelessModestAcheFear Of Death
Book:Under The Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith
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“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.”

PeopleMindRealMatterHardUseBodyHandsHappensActionDiesForceLosesPayAttentionGreaterFocusRiskEssentialsConsequenceAspectTasksRewardsYour BodyPay AttentionJustifyClimbingSatisfyingLosing YourselfAspects Of LifeWhen Things Go WrongTask At Hand
Author:Jon Krakauer
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“The sea's only gifts are harsh blows, and occasionally the chance to feel strong. Now I don't know much about the sea, but I do know that that's the way it is here. And I also know how important it is in life not necessarily to be strong but to feel strong. To measure yourself at least once. To find yourself at least once in the most ancient of human conditions. Facing the blind death stone alone, with nothing to help you but your hands and your own head.”

KnowsWayFeelsHumansImportantHelpingHandsStrongChanceKnow HowSeaConditionsStonesBlindAncientBlowFinding YourselfHuman ConditionHarsh
Author:Jon Krakauer
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“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.”

ThinkingWorldTryingWellsMatterUseRunningSpiritualEvilEnergyForceSimpleDarknessImagineWallAspectHatredAvailable
Book:Into the Wild
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