That Great Conciousness of Life

One of my favorite books is On the Road, not so much because I think it’s well written (it’s all right. It’s not Gatsby or Invisible Man, but it’s better than anything I can come up with, and damn it if the mad ones and roman candles sentence doesn’t get me every time), but mostly for what it stands for.

I have a love affair with freedom, adventuring, the road, and the experiences picked up along the way. In fact, the experience or the stories I create and learn are the only reason I do anything. It’s something I have a hard time explaining to people.

I was going to take a road trip this summer to Washington. State, not D.C. The map above is the route I was going to take. I was going to see Rushmore. I was going to stop in the middle of American, with no lights and a clear sky, and stare at the stars. All of them, not the miniscule numbers I see in Syracuse, let alone a place like New York City. I was going to be made tiny in the vast expanse of flatness that is the Plains states. I was going to be awed at he majesty of the Rockies, especially as I watched sunrises and sunsets. And I was going to bring a camera, a video recorder, and friends. Most importantly, I was going to bring a pen. I was going to share it with whoever was willing ot listen, because that’s what life is about, making those connections and sharing those experiences.

I was going to stand on the shore of the Pacific Ocean and say to myself, “So this is wht Lewis and Clark felt like two hundred years ago.” And then I was going ot realize it was nothing like that they felt as they didn’t have cars and roads and everything they could ever need a mere convenience store away. What they would have had is a pure, unaltered Pacific coastline, clear water and clear skies. They would have had the experience eof true adventuring that exists so rarely in the world today- the knowledge of not knowing at all what’s at the top of the next hill or beyond the next bend in the river.

“Why don’t you just fly there?” was the question I was asked the most. Nobody understood when I told them it wasn’t about getting to Portland. It was about the experiences along the way. It’s never about the destination, it’s about the journey. It’s about seeing the things above, sharing the experiences with somebody, and the people met along the way. “I don’t see why you want to drive to Washington,” they’d say. To which I could only respond, “Why not?”

But that plan fell through, so I’m going to have to put off those experiences. But I’ve come to realize I had the wrong idea.

These guys, however, had the right idea. Except the 106 hours part. Fuck that. Give me six months. And you know what? I can drive to Alaska, I’ll go there too. But you know who has an even better idea? This guy. Oh, the things he’s seen and the people’s he’s met. That’s what I want. I want to learn other people’s stories while making my own. There is nothing nobler in the world.

Kerouac and McCandless knew what it was all about. Just get up and go, and chronicle the story.