IDENTITY CRISIS

One thing that Jack Kerouac’s life depicts above all else if that there is no one identity for all situations.  He explored many options for his life from Saint to Heathen to prove the point that a life not examined is a life not worth living.

(via othernature)

                                          TURNING POINT

               Mad Genius Series II: Writers  - Jack Kerouac

The pathos in this hospital has convinced me, as it did Hemingway in Italy, that”the defeated are the strongest.”  Everyone here is defeated, even this “broth of a Breton”.  I have been defeated by the  world with considerable help from my greatest enemy, myself, and now I am ready to work.  I realize the limitation of my knowledge, and the irregularity of my intellect.  Knowledge and intellection serve a Tolstoi - but a Tolstoi must be older, must see more as well- and I am not going to be a Tolstoi.  Surely I will be a Kerouac„ whatever that suggests. Knowledge come with time.

As far as creative powers go, I have them and I know it.  All I need now is faith in myself… only from there can a faith truly dilate and expand to “mankind”. I must change my life, now.

Written in April 1943 from the Naval Hospital at Bethesda, MD

Jack Kerouac, April 1943 (age 21) letter to a friend written from the Naval Hospital in Bethesda, MD

He is quoting Hemingway.

     The original On the Road scroll, by Jack Kerouac

In order to write with out stopping, Jack Kerouac, tapes typing paper into a long role continuously typing until he completed the work that made him a success over night- ON THE ROAD.

(via adictiveantiques)

                                        BORN TO BE BAD

             MAD GENIUS SERIES II: WRITERS - JACK KEROUAC

Destiny, in many cases, can be plotted and even determined. The following selected events in my opinion led to Jack Kerouac’s Fame and to his Finality:

1) Death of his nine-year-old brother to rheumatic fever when Jack was four causing his father to become an alcoholic, heavy smoker and gambler.

2) Jack says he loved his Mother, a woman of strict Catholic faith, more than any woman.

3) Meditations as a 6-year-old child along with visions convinced Jack he would suffer in life but die a Saint. (Buddhism later in life also impacted his spirituality.)

4) Jack was seduced at age 14 by a 32-year-old woman, which disturbed him. Sexual urges developed into promiscuous relationships and boastfulness. Jack was very open in discussing sex which was ambisexual; more closely attached to male friends, spiritually and emotionally, than to women.

5) Bonded with a group of gay and bisexual writers prior to stint in the Naval Reserve (eventually, forming the basis for the “Beat Generation.”)  During this time, he had numerous jobs and short-lived educational experience at Columbia twice.

6) Writing united his Dual Personality together by incorporating his Rebellious Nature into Real Characters in his books. His Image and Writing Style became one and the same.

7) Drinking and Smoking habits eventually ended his life at age 47.

(via monsieurlabette)

                  MAD GENIUS SERIES II: WRITERS  -  JACK KEROUAC

“The core group consisted of Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Neal Cassady and William S. Burroughs, who met in the neighborhood surrounding Columbia University in uptown Manhattan in the mid-40’s. They picked up Gregory Corso in Greenwich Village and found Herbert Huncke hanging around Times Square. They then migrated to San Francisco where they expanded their group consciousness by meeting Gary Snyder, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Michael McClure, Philip Whalen and Lew Welch. Most of them struggled for years to get published, and it is inspiring to learn how they managed to keep each other from giving up hope when it seemed their writings would never be understood. Their moment of fame began with a legendary poetry reading at the Six Gallery in San Francisco.”

(via danstepich)

(via dancingtsarevitch)

                MAD GENIUS SERIES II:  JACK KEROUAC - Writer

                            TWO ENDS OF A ROPE TIED IN A KNOT 

Just days after his official initial diagnosis, Kerouac told a friend why he was under evaluation at the Psyche Hospital: “One of the reasons for my being in a hospital, besides dementia praecox, is a complex condition of my mind split up, as it were, in two parts, one normal, and the other schizoid.”

My schizoid side is…the bent brooding figure sneering at the world of mediocrities, complacent ignorance, and bigotry exercised by ersatz Ben Franklins, the introverted, scholarly side, the alien side.

My normal counterpart, the one you’re familiar with, is the half-back-whoremaster-ale mate-scullion-jitterbug-jazz critic side, the side in me which recommends a broad, rugged America; which requires the nourishment of gutsy, red blooded associates; and which lots whatever guileless laughter I’ve left in me rather than that schizoid’s cackle I have of late.

And, all in my youth, I stood holding two ends of rope, trying to bring both ends together in order to tie them…. I pulled-had a hell of a time trying to bring these two worlds together- never succeeded actually, but I did in my novel “The Sea is My Brother.” where I created two new symbols of these two worlds, and welded them irrevocably together.

lucidliaison:

“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!”

(via edgarwhitmanwilde)