“Practice kindness all day to everybody and you will realize you’re already in heaven now.”
- Jack Kerouac
I subscribe to Brain Pickings, an awesome site with loads of great information about art and culture, to name a few topics. This article about Jack Kerouac is really fascinating.
I've always had a great fascination with Jack Kerouac, as many of us did, that missed the 50s but grew up in the 60s. Traveling on the road like he did, is a life experience no one should miss. It changes you, makes you become introspective, your perception toward the human condition becomes acute, seeing the good, bad and the ugly.
There is something about being exposed to the elements, in the great out of doors, that gives you the kind of connection to the world that you can not get by way of any other means, only by being out there, on the road.
Traveling in my youth, and spending a lot of time as an adult, depending of the kindness of others when hitch hiking, while I was struggling to get back and forth from University, gave me this perspective and connection. I had a greater appreciation, a gratitude for life, and for human beings. I also learned what I was made of, and the inner resources and strengths I had to draw upon.
I also realize now, one of the reasons I relate to Jack Kerouac is because of his disease of alcoholism, and having a father who was also alcoholic. It's tragic that there was such a stigma about being alcoholic then, and many, Jack Kerouac included, lost their life to this disease, that does a complete and thorough job of destroying families and human beings.
What I found today, I think is the jewel in the crown of the King of The Beats . An excellent documentary I suggest you take the time to watch.You won't be sorry.
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| Jack Kerouac - Robert Frank |
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