Mad to Live

I have fallen in love with the Beat Poets. The more I read them the more I want to be a writer. I find solace in their insane amount of passion. We read the Beat Poets for my Literature class, or shall I say were supposed to read about the Beat poets. It was during my depression when I wasn’t doing much homework. I didn’t really appreciate them like I should have, although I did love hearing my professor talking about them. I loved pretty much anything he had to say about literature. We did get to listen to Jack Kerouac reading the first chapter of his most famous book “On the Road,” and we read the ending as a class. I was intrigued, but not enough to really read about them. When I screwed up my take home exam I had to go back and look at the Beat poets for an essay question. I got caught up reading about them and before I knew it, it was 3:30 AM and I had yet to study for my Social Work exam the next morning. I couldn’t stop though. It was just so amazing and interesting, and in some weird way I related to it. It seems insane that I relate to the Beat poets, after all they were a bunch of college dropouts with drug addictions, no money, and some alcohol issues. They traveled the country from big city to big city living in horrible conditions in the 1940’s. How can I relate to that? I probably would have constant panic attacks if I traveled with them and experienced their adventures. I can’t help but feel a connection with their idealism and passion about writing to the point where it is considered unhealthy, and definitely not “cool.” I am somewhat jealous of their freedom. Jack Kerouac lived with his mom his whole life when he wasn’t traveling. He lived with her to avoid rent and just write all-day and everyday. It is so amazing that a bunch of college stoners all decided to dropout, and then devote their lives to writing. They had regular late night intellectual conversations while under the influence of god knows what. It’s not like I want to drop out of school and become a druggie, obsessed with literature and writing, but I would love to have such freedom to write. That type of lifestyle is not even feasible anymore. When I was talking about this with my brother he compared that type of rebellion to someone today just stopping after a bachelors degree and traveling and writing, because it seems a bachelors degree does not mean much these days, or at least not as much as it used to. They were mad writers. Allen Ginsburg wrote his famous poem “Howl” in a 40-hour straight sitting. He claimed to do this under the influence of “heroin, liquid Methedrine, and Dexedrine.” In a similar burst of insanity Kerouac wrote “On the Road” in the form of a completed manuscript in a 3-week period. His wife at the time claimed he would sweat through several t-shirts a day. He would take Benzedrine to stay awake. He refused to change the paper on the typewriter, because he was certain that it interrupted his flow. His final manuscript ended up being 120 ft long (single spaced). That is pure insanity.

I relate to their search of self and spiritual values. It was said that they were “young people coming of age into a Cold War without spiritual values they could honor.” I feel like my generation has a major dilemma with spirituality as well. I feel like spirituality has been replaced by doctrines and religious rules for so many, and those who try to combine them are outsiders to church people and non-church people alike. It was quoted that the Beat poets had a “will to believe, even in the face of an inability to do so in conventional terms.” I know I have that. I also am mad to live, like Kerouac quotes in “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 and in the middle you see the blue center light pop and everybody goes 'Awww!'"
I am mad for all of those things (It is clear I am finally healing, because I am feeling passion again). If I can find a semi-good looking guy that is mad to live like that, then I will beg him to marry me instantly. Unfortunately, I don’t think I could have ever married a Beat poet, even with all of their passion. Drug-addict/alcoholic/promiscuous guys do not make very good husbands. That’s just my opinion though. I sure admire their romantic idealism, though. It makes me want to be a writer even more than before. It makes me want to be able to read literature and write all-day and everyday. Add some traveling to that, and I think they were on to something. I have come close to their freedom this summer (Which only started this week). I spend my days reading and writing, and I love it. I have been doing a lot of thinking lately at how much I have grown this year, even in the past few months. Writing really helps me think clearly. I still struggle to meditate, because my thoughts are still racing a little abnormally fast with all of drugs and stuff. When I write I can keep more control over my thoughts and even follow them to wherever they may take me, and isn’t that the idea of meditation? There are so many people from my past I have been thinking about lately. People I feel wronged me, or that I was “too nice” to. I feel like I have grown into a much stronger person, and I need to accept that I was not confident in myself in high school. I guess, on the positive side I didn’t make any enemies, even if I did put up with a lot of crap, and not let people really know me. There are also people from this year that I think of that I let walk all over me as well. Retrospect is always 20/20 though. My friend Beth always tells me “Aimee, you are not as much of a badass as you think.” That is entirely true. I still cry when people reject me or yell at me. I still get angry at things beyond my control, and I still get giddy when I am excited about something. I still freeze-up in the moment and often don’t stand up for myself like I should, even though I believe I am a stronger person. I can think of stuff even in the past week where I did not stand up for myself, and it turns my stomach when I think about it. Life is so weird. I am glad to be taking a break from my life for a while to evaluate, which emotions are worth bringing up with people, and which ones I need to let go. Maturity is tough, in the sense that I have to learn how to forgive and stand up for myself. Those two things are much harder than I had expected.