Aging

I must agree with Tim O’Brien when he says that people never change throughout the course of their lives. Though some things might be different due to age or experience but by an overall view, people are always the same.
I too can relate to looking at old photographs and feeling a connection to the child I was then and the child I still am. In old photographs I am a timid little child afraid of people I do not know to well. I was even timid around people in my family and the people I call friends. Shyness never fades away. Sure my mother no longer combs my hair or picks out cute little outfits for me, but I have the same childish smile. My hair is darker and I am much taller, but I still sing to myself in the shower. Some things never change. I still like to be held and comforted. Nervousness still makes my stomach ache. I still keep to my self.
I believe that when I am forty I will still be this way. I will ask my wife to hold me and comfort me. I will learn more songs to sing in the shower. And I will still be hesitant to meet new people. I am not afraid to deny this. These characteristics have gotten me through my first seventeen years of life and I think they will stick with me for another seventeen or thirty-four years.
Though we might change physical, our childish emotional and psychological characteristics are always somewhere in our minds.

Jon Krakauer Why I Write

Since I was very young I knew that would become a writer. I knew that I was the one who needed to tell the stories of great adventurers. People who could truly inspire the people of the world. It is truly my calling.
When I heard about the tragic death of Christopher McCandless, I knew that his story was the story I needed to tell to the world. But I needed to know the whole story first. I gathered all of the information that I could possibly get my hands on. I got the story from the people that Chris was close to. The people that knew him best. The people that he knew best. I write to get the whole story. What is the point of telling a story if it is not the true story?
It is not easy. I never know how to start. Though I might have the information, I never know where to go with it. I need to work of the order of the events. I need to select the perfect word order. Language is key. I need to know how to tell the story without over exaggerating it. I need to become attached to the story and make sure my readers become attached to the story. Since Christopher McCandless’s story is, obviously, not my own I sometimes find it difficult to attach myself to it and not dramatize it. I need to control myself by making it realistic, but as passionate and exciting at it possible can be.
I do not write out of egoism. I write to tell the story the best that I can. I write for myself. I write for my readers. I write for Chris McCandless.
-Jon Krakauer