I'm Going To Paraphrase Thoreau

Getting To The Top Of Any Given Mountain Was Considered Much Less Important Than How One Got There: Prestige Was Earned By Tackling The Most Unforgiving Routes With Minimal Equipment, In The Boldest Style Imaginable.

But Perhaps The Greatest Attraction Of Mormonism Was The Promise That Each Follower Would Be Granted An Extraordinarily Intimate Relationship With God. Joseph Taught And Encouraged His Adherents To Receive Personal Communiqués Straight From The Lord. Divine Revelation Formed The Bedrock Of The Religion.

The Endless, Agonizing Recycling Of What Might Have Been, Soon Followed By A Litany Of Rationalizations And Self-deceptions As You Struggle To Reconcile The Void Between The Person You Want To Be And The Person You Fear You Are.

He Read A Lot. He Used A Lot Of Big Words. I Think Maybe Part Of What Got Him Into Trouble Was That He Did Too Much Thinking. Sometimes He Tried Too Hard To Make Sense Of The World, To Figure Out Why People Were Bad To Each Other So Often. A Couple Of Times I Tried To Tell Him It Was A Mistake To Get Too Deep Into That Kind Of Stuff, But Alex Got Stuck On Things. He Always Had To Know The Absolute Right Answer Before He Could Go On To The Next Thing.

I Was Dimly Aware That I Might Be Getting In Over My Head. But That Only Added To The Scheme’s Appeal. That It Wouldn’t Be Easy Was The Whole Point.