I
am thankful for my parents who sometimes disagree with me but support
me nonetheless and who show care and love unmatched by anyone else,
thankful for my family of whom I can talk to about anything and of whom
we can laugh together about everything, thankful for all the wonderful
people I met this year and all the friends that have stood by me
throughout the years and last but not least, thankful for Hans who
reminds me everyday how to live a beatnik life and whom has showed me
that everything and anything is possible. Thank
you, thank you, thank you!
-----<3---<3---<3---<3---<3-----
Kerouac and Ginsberg, you two fucking rock my world. This passage, defined my adolescence,
"I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix, angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night, who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz"
Now, I must say that living this sort of "life on the road" is also a bit of a luxury. It comes from a certain middle-class socioeconomic status in which people can afford to travel, think about being free, backpack across India for 6 months, do yoga, smoke pot...all these things. It stems from a certain education, literacy, access to literature and film...a sort of privilege. Even to live this minimalist lifestyle requires a lot of resources and time that the average working class person cannot even begin to contemplate. So on the other extreme, there are people who engage in very blatantly luxurious activities like shopping sprees, staying at 5-star hotels, dining at expensive restaurants etc. etc. but isn't it both kind of the same side of the coin? One is not better or worse than the other. It is simply a lifestyle preference but most importantly, we must be self-aware about the things we do and why we do them. I am aware that I have had the privilege to travel a lot and experience many new and interesting things and also equally aware that my ideology has been heavily shaped by writers of the Beat Generation (most notably Ken Kesey, Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg) and existential philosophers such as Jean Paul Sartre and Albert Camus. I claim no originality in my thoughts or lifestyle choices but I am on a constant path towards defining myself. The ever pertinent existential question, "who am I"?
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