May 2010
40 posts
Go west young man, and grow up with the country. →
reachingwest.blogspot.com
A blog following the planning and progress of my trip west.
“[It is important in life to] not necessarily to be strong… but to feel strong. To measure yourself at least once, to find yourself at least once in the most ancient of human conditions. Facing the bald, deaf, stone alone with nothing to help you but your hands and your own head.”
—Christopher “Alexander Supertramp” McCandless
“Some people feel like they don’t deserve love. They walk away quietly into empty spaces, trying to close the gaps of the past.”
—Christopher “Alexander Supertramp” McCandless
“So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more dangerous to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future.”
—Christopher “Alexander Supertramp” McCandless
“It was sad to see this tall figure receding in the dark as we drove away, just like the other figures in New York and New Orleans: they stand uncertainly underneath immense skies, and everything about them is drowned. Where go? what do? what for?—sleep.”
—Jack Kerouac
“What is that feeling when you’re driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks disappearing?—-its the too-huge world vaulting us, and its good-by. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.”
—Jack Kerouac
“
We speak in the store
I’m a sensitive bore
you seem markedly more
and I’m oozing suprise.
But it’s late in the day
and you’re well on your way
what was golden went gray
and I’m suddenly shy.
“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes ‘Awww!’ What did they call such young people in Goethe’s Germany?”
—Jack Kerouac
we are whatever
i guess i’ll start with the end, its the only part that means anything anyway. i am laying in the grass. dew licks at the back of my legs, a contrast to the dry rays of sun that warm my face. i do not hear anything above my labored breathing but the soft whisper of the wind. i think to myself, “how could i have wasted so many days?” fluid fills my lungs and i am drowning. i am drowning in all the things i’ve never done. the suns rays are no longer warm but scalding. they illuminate all of my sins before burning them away. my body goes numb. i am covered in the ashes of my failures, painting my body white with regret. i do not feel the sun anymore. i do not hear my breathing. the wind runs through the blades of grass.
the sun does not notice that i am gone.
“In some respects, science has far surpassed religion in delivering awe. How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, “This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant. God must be even greater than we dreamed”? Instead they say, “No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way.”
—Carl Sagan (via buddhanature) (via fuckyeahzenmind) (via cosima5)
