Alex Ventoux's Journal

"Luminary" - I only saw this episode once, at its original airing in 1998, while Millenium was still an active series. I drifted off at some point during the series and didn't see it through to the end but this one episode made an impression on me. It was apparently inspired by the true story of Christopher McCandless (Into the Wild) and features the journal writings, done in voiceover, of Alex Ventoux - a young man who has abandoned his possessions and headed into the Alaskan wilderness in a search for the truth of life. These are his journal entries, written for his parents and his brother Ian, from the show:

I never thought it would it would end like this. To tell the truth, I never thought it would end at all.

There are forces acting on us, with or without our consent, forces sure of themselves as gravity. I thought knowing myself with the same certainty would keep me safe. Surprise! As they say, "What a long strange trip this has been."

You want to know why it happened, and I can't say. But I do know when. It was that moment when I turned my back on everything - and felt peace.

***

Alaska.

I was never honest with you why I came back here – I could never quite explain. But I'll try now while I still can.

It happened on the cruise we took through Prince Edward Sound. I was looking at the water and the mountains, which were beautiful of course, but for a moment up on the deck of that ship I couldn't swear it wasn't just an incredibly realistic simulation. Not just the scenery – my whole life. Back home the feeling never left. All junior and senior year while I studied, ran track, filled out college applications, I returned here to find my life again. I had to. I don't quite understand what draws me on, but that's OK because God doesn't move us by telling us the facts, he moves us by pains and contradictions. He's given me a lack of understanding, not answers but questions – an invitation to marvel. And here, for the first time, I have.

I never thought it would end like this. I never thought it would end at all. But, like they say, what a long, strange trip this has been.

My leg is broken. I've lost a lot of blood. It's starting to rain and I know I'll never make it home. Some day some kid will tell Ian, "You're an idiot just like your brother who threw his life away, walked into the woods, and died". I'm asking you as a last favor to put a better spin on it for him.

You two, and Ian, you have always been real. Please know I love you, I'm thinking of you in the end and I'm looking at the stars.

***

We are meant to be here. We step from one piece of holy ground to the next under stars that ask, "Imagine, for one second, you could drop in on a past life. What would you like to find yourself doing there? What would charm you? Make you proud?"

Ask yourself that. And the question of what to do in this life becomes so simple it's terrifying. Just to do that thing that would charm you. It would make you say, "Yes, it's the real me". Do that, and you're alive.

The character has just one line of dialog in the episode, when he is found badly injured, by a rescuer:

"It's that I didn't want to die. I wanted to be alive."