“I have always been unsatisfied with life as most people live it.  Always I want to live more intensely and richly.  Why muck and conceal one’s true longings and loves, when by speaking of them one might find someone to understand them, and by acting on them one might discover oneself?  It is true that in the world such lack of reserve usually meets with hostility, misunderstanding, and scorn.  Here in isolation I need not fear on that score, though the strangers I do encounter usually judge me wrongly.  But I was never one to be content with less than the most from life and shall go on reaching, and having my soul defenseless to attacks.  I seldom retaliate, for I perceive too well the ultimate futility.”  – Everett Ruess, June 29, 1934