The Journey

A long dark road leads you to two dimly lit alleys. Only the first couple of steps are illuminated in each path. How would you know which one to take? Prior experience? Curiosity perhaps? Maybe you don’t have a reason. Every journey has its twists and turns, each with their own dimly lit alleys. Every footstep sheds more light towards the next set of twists and turns, but along with every footstep, the path that wasn’t chosen fades away into an eternal darkness. There is no looking back, there is only walking towards that final destination, wherever and whenever it may be. When life is viewed as a journey it seems to be more adventurous than an 8:00 AM-5:00 PM, Monday through Saturday, minimum wage job. Maybe when life is viewed as a journey, one is tempted to take an actual physical journey to find oneself. In the book On the Road, Sal takes his own journey. Was it for the adventure? Was it for Dean? Was it to find himself? Or was it just a way to escape the normal, everyday boredom? Did his journey have a purpose? Does anyone’s journey have a purpose? There are so many people that come into our lives on a daily basis. How often do people decide to share journeys and stay together through it all? Not very often. It seems like saying goodbye is more convenient than trying to hold on. To John Kerouac, time seems to be:

“constantly moving and constantly taking others with it. During the novel, Sal feels many different emotions concerning this reality. As he sees his friends growing smaller in the rear window of a car as he leaves them, he laments not being able to be a part of their lives permanently. Yet, the madness he seeks makes such permanence impossible. This is also the case in the memories that Sal and Dean continually share. They cannot conquer the past, so they continually try to relive it.”(Suggested Essay Questions)

By not being able to conquer their own past, does Sal and Dean create a problem with finding the destination to their journey? I believe that looking back and trying to live in the past only lengthens the journey. One cannot take another step forward if the mind is facing backward. The main theme in this book is travel. Dean and Sal see their traveling as a quest to find “IT”. The closest they come to find “IT” is in Mexico when they decide to get out of their own culture and country. In our own personal journey, do we have to forget ourselves entirely to find the one thing that will complete our quest? Does that “IT” even exist? So many people spend their entire lives trying to find happiness but so many fall short. What is the secret to finding our own “IT”? I don’t know. I can’t figure out what I want in life at this exact moment, let alone be worried about what my destination will be. I wonder if others feel the same way.