Yes. This one. I kept starting and stopping, starting and stopping, not for the same reason I do it for, say, House of Leaves, which AJKENAIULZBHALQWJ*(^TYAGXHZ, but because I found myself just... not really caring.
I know, Jack. Mind blowing.
Here's the thing - I know quite a lot of people. I've met quite a lot of people who I do not know anymore. And with all of these people, very few of them have acted as such great idiots as do the people in this book. In general, I find people interesting. The things that they do, the reasons they do them, all are particularly fascinating in that most people tend to contradict themselves and negate themselves and undermine themselves and all those ridiculous things that make us all entertaining and enlightening and weird. But the characters in Kerouac's book - who, of course, aren't characters at all but are actual people Kerouac knew - just seem stupid. They're the kind of deep thinkers who don't actually think deeply about anything, but because they can make connections between a banana and selling real estate, all while barreling down the highway in borrowed cars and on borrowed money, they think that this is some form of genius.
It's not. It's mind numbingly stupid.
Back in college, I wrote something called Kerouac Kids. It's a short story, kind of, wherein I basically bitch about people I considered to be trying too hard to be part of a Beat movement I'd never actually learned about before, had never read anything or seen anything or listened to anything from. But what strikes me is that, despite my complete and utter ignorance, I was right. I looked back at that story when I finished On the Road, and I was a little startled at how accurate - though technically and stylistically crappy - I was in my assessment. It's all emptiness. People think they're enlightened by feigning all sorts of things, when really the greatest achievement is to own your reality, to understand that sometimes things aren't good, and then take steps to make it better. To embrace it. To look at the people you know and value them.
I admit to not being perfect. That would be ridiculous, and anyone who actually knows me would literally die laughing, and I really don't want that blood on my hands. I am brooding, petulant, and stubborn. I have a vision, and though I am willing to compromise, I'm not going to let it go. But that doesn't mean that I won't be the first to send a message, or a letter, or to make the phone call or visit. I won't do it all the time - there's a point of no return where if I do not see any particular gains in committing myself, I can drop everything and never look back - but if I look at someone and see something I like, see potential for friendship, see that maybe I need to make the first step because they just don't really know how, I'll do it. These people in these books and the people obsessed with these books and the ideas that we need to know everyone and need to know the world, don't really understand.
You can't be completely self centered, but you can't be reliant on everyone else to tell you what to do, either. Get over yourself, get over your "genius", because you don't have it. I don't have it either, don't worry. There's just something to knowing that I have a friend or two who I can talk to, and who will talk to me, rather than telling the whole world everything all the time, making it into nothing at all.
......says the blog post writer. See what I mean? This shit is bananas. Want to buy some real estate? Just get in the car, but let me borrow five bucks first. I have a magic trick to show you.
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