Perhaps you've heard of Chris McCandless, the young man whose quest for meaning became a best selling book, and movie:  Into the Wild.  If you are not familiar with Chris's story, I won't spoil it for you.  Find the book, read it, maybe see the movie, and then ponder the enormity of the human quest for lasting purpose.

    I do not write about McCandless today, however.  I write about another young man whose name was Carl McCunn. Born to American parents in Munich, Germany, McCunn in the summer of 1981 set out to trek alone through part of the massive Brooks Range in northern Alaska.  He hoped to stay at least three months. 

    Unfortunately, due to some miscommunications between him and a number of bush pilots, McCunn had failed to arrange for a pickup by plane.  He had also (foolishly, he later admitted in his diary) disposed of a considerable amount of his ammunition.

    In addition, although an Alaskan state trooper flew over the lake by which McCunn was staying, McCunn, apparently unaware of the protocol for a distress signal, mistakenly waved and whooped at the plane.  Thinking that McCunn was therefore in no trouble (when he in fact was), the trooper left and did not return.  It was an event whose tragedy was on a par with McCandless's not realizing that he was only a few miles from a hut with supplies.

    McCandless starved to death; McCunn shot himself with his own rifle shortly after Thanksgiving of 1981.  Both stories ended in tragedy, but the impetus for them lies in all of us.

    We all want meaning.  It is a desire that drives everything we do, a longing that spawns untold adventure and countless dreams.  It is the stuff of existence.

    An existence, however, frightfully dependent on an even bigger point:  how else could it even be?