If you ("you" being my non-existent readership) have never read Kerouac's The Dharma Bums then, well, you are missing out. On some great writing about travel, life, and the great PNW.
And here is an example of just what you are missing.
...See the whole thing is a world full of rucksack wanderers, Dharma Bums refusing to subscribe to the general demand that they consume production and therefore have to work for the privilege of consuming... all of them imprisoned in a system of work, produce, consume, work, produce, consume, I see a vision of a great rucksack revolution thousands or even millions of young Americans wandering around with rucksacks, going up to mountains to pray, making children laugh and old men glad, making young girls happy and old girls happier, all of 'em Zen Lunatics who go about writing poems that happen to appear in their heads for no reason and also by being kind and also by strange unexpected acts keep giving visions of eternal freedom to everybody and to all living creatures...
That's a little more out-there than I am (I don't hate consuming, and life would be dull without some kind of work). But I like the idea that maybe I am, or was, at least for a few months, a part of that rucksack revolution. I love to / want to wander and see things and meet people.
But now I want something more purposeful than just the wandering and the seeing, something that will give people visions of eternal freedom. (I think I'll skip the part about becoming a Zen Lunatic, though.)
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