Everything had changed suddenly - the tone, the moral climate; you didn't know
what to think, whom to listen to. As if all your life you had been led by the hand
like a small child and suddenly you were on your own, you had to learn to walk
by yourself. There was no one around, neither family nor people whose judgment
you respected. At such a time you felt the need of committing to something
absolute - life or truth or beauty - of being ruled by it instead of the man-made
rules that had been discarded. You needed to surrender to some such ultimate
purpose more fully, more unreservedly than you had ever done in the old familiar,
peaceful days, in the old life that was now abolished and gone for good.
from "Dr Zhivago"
by Boris Pasternak
PASSAGE HIGHLIGHTED IN ONE OF THE BOOKS
FOUND WITH CHRIS MCCANDLESS'S REMAINS.
"NEED FOR PURPOSE" HAD BEEN WRITTEN IN
MCCANDLESS'S HAND IN THE MARGIN ABOVE
THE PASSAGE.
