Jack Kerouac, On the Road

“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.”
― Jack Kerouac, On the Road

Perspective

I am 22 years old and last year I had a sort of reality check when some I knew died. They were the same age as me and without going into too much detail they died suddenly. Now we were not close in fact we hadn’t spoke in years, but it was a shock and made me think nonetheless. All the clichés of wasted life and much too young uncontrollably filled my thoughts. It was almost like a moment of clarity for me, if I felt indestructible before I now felt fragile. This person died in an accident which may make you think that from now on I’d be more cautious with a sense of “if it could happen to them then it could happen to me” but I didn’t feel like that, I felt that I needed to do more with my life as it could be over at any moment. This is probably the kind of thing I’d hear some else say and call bullshit, but its true. This whole thing had a touch of chaos-theory about it, something that should have been rather insignificant to my life ended up making me contemplate the way I live and even more the way I think.

It’s an odd one really as I often think how much this may of impacted me if this person and I had of stayed in touch and been friends. Who knows how crazy this would have made me then, I’d probably have become a vegan or a Buddhist and spent my days doing yoga and drinking kale smoothies. Instead I have a try everything sort of attitude, I want to try everything and do anything that pops into my head. I think this probably has something to do with my newest desire to want a motorcycle after all “it’s the things that you don’t do that you regret”. Errr that cliché left a horrible taste in my mouth, I’ll have to remember not to do that again. In fact looking back this whole thing is full of clichés, oh well it cannot be helped lets move on.

To be perfectly honest I’ve always had a sense of do what you want/do what makes you happy. I’ve certainly never done anything I haven’t liked/wanted to for long. But this event certainly backed that up for me. I believe that if you live like this you will be happy and get to where you want to go in life. aut viam inveniam aut faciam.

England, Idiots, Immigration, People & Politics - Surviving Over Living

Every man and woman has his or her own idea of “the right way to live life”. Most people I know work jobs they hate to be able to afford lives I wouldn’t thank you for, these same people put themselves on a pedestal, a sort of plateau for the high and mighty. They think that every view or opinion they have whether political or general lifestyle choice is gospel and if you think otherwise you are a buffoon, a lesser being, a good for nothing moron. They think that your life consists of huffing paint and trying not to eat your own shit.

Most of them are right wing loons who feel hard done to by the world, nay by their fellow human beings. They vote for politicians whose views align with their own, yet still complain about the choices made by them. They think that every person on benefits is abusing the welfare state, which makes them bitter. Their opinion is that these people don’t want to work and although this is true in some cases I don’t believe that it is necessary to tar every unemployed person with the same brush. These naive beings think that if every person in the country had a job the government would lower taxes instead of raising them when all they really do is line their own corrupt pockets no matter what.

The other major problem that divides this country (England) is immigration. After two world wars this small island was under populated to which we repopulated using people from Jamaica, India, and Pakistan among others. Since then we have been populated with eastern Europeans, Bangladeshi and hell anyone who wants to come here. At last check the percentage of foreign-born people living in the UK is 12% (based on 2011 census).

On the surface I would say that this is a good thing. It adds culture and that seems like a good thing to me. Unfortunately it’s not that simple as it rarely ever is. London is rife with none English speaking people, and the rest of the country is divided we have communities of people not integrated. How I wish black, white, brown, Christian, Muslim, Sikh, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, Jedi, Scientologist or whatever else people may be, could live side by side and learn from each other instead of harboring hate for one another in some sort of segregated community reminiscent of America before the civil rights movement.

I have no solutions to this but I don’t think that ultra-rightwing political parties are the answer as they breed hate. These same parties see women as lesser beings and hate anyone who isn’t a white middle class middle manager at some bullshit company that rapes the world of good (or at the very least rips people off).

People are selfish and want what’s best for them regardless of what’s best for everyone. They care about their money and their house and their car and their life. If they want an extension on their house best believe they are voting for the party that will make it easier for that to happen regardless of if that’s the party most likely to go to war for no good reason. I mean who gives a fuck how many innocents die in the Middle East if you get to add another few square feet to your property to increase its value, hey?

These people are not living, they are surviving and believe me there is a difference. People who merely survive work 9 to 5’s or even worse shifts to afford the lives they have been brainwashed to think they want/need. They have kids, have the occasional drink but don’t do drugs. They look after their bodies, probably going the gym a couple of times a week so that they can be healthy, grow old with their families, and so that when they are incontinent and demented in the twilight years of their existences their kids can wipe their asses as they continue on the same surviving cycle as their parents before their kids have to do the same for them and so on and so on. Living on the other hand is being who you want to be, doing what you want to do and answering to nobody. To do a job not because of the amount of money you’ll make doing it nor for the ease of which the job can be done but because you want to do it, you enjoy doing it. Living is not being bound by laws created by another man, for other men. God, I sound like some sort of hippy-anarchist, time to wrap this one up. All I wanted to really say is do whatever suits you whether that’s working in a store, being a doctor or whatever else you may want to do, as long as it suits you that’s all that matters. Fuck the system.