"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'.



Chris's sister Carine, who helped Sean Penn write narration for Into the Wild, says her brother was a breed apart. "I think that Chris was someone who didn't waste his life wondering what other people would think of him. He lived his life wondering what he would think about himself," she says.

While some people say that Chris was searching for himself, Carine says that's not true. "Chris knew exactly who he was," she says. "He was searching for a place in this world that he fit into, where he could be true to himself. He was searching for truth, purity, honesty. He was searching for the things that he didn't experience in his childhood."

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If you search YouTube for Chris McCandless, you find, sadly, video upon video of people who've gone to visit bus 142 where Chris died, as a pilgrimage to a makeshift shrine.

How very wrong.





I finished reading Jon Krakauer's book last night. In fact, I started with the last chapter late Wednesday night, but thought I'd leave it one more day, because, inevitably, the main character... the man whom I learned to like quite a bit throughout the book was about to die.

And so, Chris McCandless died again, last night. And every time someone finishes the book.



I wish I could have the revelation he had, and act on it.


My life seems to have stalled (again). Things went really well last year - the formula runs its course. But every now and then I still catch glimpses of Great Things that Still Need to be Done. I can be here, and play the game to a large extent. But sometimes I, too, feel like all I'm looking for is "a place in this world that I fit into, where I can be true to myself".

I'm not like Chris McCandless by a far stretch of the imagination. But I identify with his occassional gregariousness. The need for company, but not always. The need to be useful.

*pensive*

I am logged on through the wildly overpriced Wi-Fi acces at Oliver Tambo International in Johannesburg. The internet facilites here are shit.

I have just curbed my shopper's enthusiasm and managed to buy only ONE item for a friend of mine whose birthday it is on Saturday. I still have to go find el cheapo cigarettes, as this is one easy way to make friends and influence people. I love buying things for other people - things I know they'll appreciate. Things that make it easy for me to SHOW them what I feel. (So much easier than, you know, actual touchy-feely emotion... heh)

Quick mulling: Sometimes I feel like all I ever do is run away and that at some point I'll have to settle down and stick to one place, even if I don't like it. Because here I am, once again, at an airport, running away. I really should stay put sometime.

But not just yet.