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 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.
Alex McCandless in a letter to his 81-year-old friend Ron Franz as quoted in Into the Wild
Maybe I’ll go buy an old school bus.
I have mixed feelings about Alex. On the one hand, he died in a rather pathetic way because of youthful arrogance and, well, stupidity. On the other hand, he lived life on his terms, and I admire him for that. Still, I can only imagine the grief his family still endures, so the needle swings back to selfish…
And foolish.
Into the Wild Movie