Mr. Franz I think careers are a 20th century invention and I don't want one.

I saw "Into the Wild" last night with a dear friend. An old friend by Umeå standards - we met more than a year ago.

"Into the Wild" is the true story of a young man who combines the wanderlust of Kerouac and the severe ethical rigour of Wittgenstein (also the obsession with Tolstoy), who breaks out from an unhappy family life and hitchhikes across America, and heads into the wilds of Alaska with nothing but a bag of rice, a rifle, and a book about bush tucker.

The sense freedom derived from directionless wandering rekindled feeble instincts in me that have been dormant for a while now. But the real theme of the film is whether one should seek happiness in human relations, or in self-reliance, nature, and new experiences. This aspect struck me deeply.

I have to recommend everyone see this movie, but I also understand that perhaps certain recent events have made me particularly susceptible to this sort of thing.


In it he paraphrases Thoreau:

"Rather than love, than money, than faith, than fame, than fairness... give me truth."

But that immediately made me think of Graham Greene:

"The truth has never been of any real value to any human being — it is a symbol for mathematicians and philosophers to pursue. In human relations kindness and lies are worth a thousand truths."