i had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion.
i've been reading jack kerouac's on the road. i started it right at the beginning of last semester, but i'm awful about recreational reading during the school year... i never seem to finish "just for fun" books unless it's the summertime.
anyway, i recently picked it up again, and i've been reading it during my planning periods at school, if there's nothing else burningly important that i have to do. it's brilliant. i just hit the halfway point, and i think something finally clicked with me.
i mean, something about it sort of resonanted with me the whole time. the beat generation, seeing the country, finding america, all that hippie crap. but, in the last chapter i read, sal and dean were bringing sal's aunt's furniture from virginia up to paterson, new jersey, and at one point sal references that they drove all the way up 301. up through richmond, through d.c. and baltimore, past philadelphia... and i mean, shit. that's how i get home. 301. a curvy, 2-lane highway through pretty much nowhere. considering the book is more or less autobiographical... i mean, fuck. jack kerouac saw some of the country on the same road i ride through at least 6 times a year.
it's a really strange thing to connect me to the book, but i guess it's just recognizing something. seeing something describe that is very familiar already. but i don't know... i want to go be a fucking hippie now, hahah. i'm tired of staying still. i want to get up and go, and move my feet, and keep from getting stagnant.
my life is very stagnant right now.
"That's what I was trying to tell you - that's what I want to be. I want to be like him. He's never hung-up, he goes every direction, he lets it all out, he knows time, he has nothing to do but rock back and forth. Man, he's the end! You see, if you go like him all the time you'll finally get it."
"Get what?"
"IT! IT!"
anyway, i recently picked it up again, and i've been reading it during my planning periods at school, if there's nothing else burningly important that i have to do. it's brilliant. i just hit the halfway point, and i think something finally clicked with me.
i mean, something about it sort of resonanted with me the whole time. the beat generation, seeing the country, finding america, all that hippie crap. but, in the last chapter i read, sal and dean were bringing sal's aunt's furniture from virginia up to paterson, new jersey, and at one point sal references that they drove all the way up 301. up through richmond, through d.c. and baltimore, past philadelphia... and i mean, shit. that's how i get home. 301. a curvy, 2-lane highway through pretty much nowhere. considering the book is more or less autobiographical... i mean, fuck. jack kerouac saw some of the country on the same road i ride through at least 6 times a year.
it's a really strange thing to connect me to the book, but i guess it's just recognizing something. seeing something describe that is very familiar already. but i don't know... i want to go be a fucking hippie now, hahah. i'm tired of staying still. i want to get up and go, and move my feet, and keep from getting stagnant.
my life is very stagnant right now.
"That's what I was trying to tell you - that's what I want to be. I want to be like him. He's never hung-up, he goes every direction, he lets it all out, he knows time, he has nothing to do but rock back and forth. Man, he's the end! You see, if you go like him all the time you'll finally get it."
"Get what?"
"IT! IT!"