Kerouac's Quote = My Inspiration

"I've been reading Whitman, know what he says, Cheer up slaves, and horrify foreign despots, he means that's the attitude for the Bard, the Zen Lunacy bard of old desert paths, see the whole thing is a world full of rucksack wanderers, Dharma Bums refusing to subscribe to the general demand that they consume production and therefore have to work for the privilege of consuming, all that crap they didn't want anyway such as refrigerators, TV sets, cars, at least new fancy cars, certain hair oils and deodorants and general junk you always see a week later in the garbage anyway, all of them imprisoned in a system of work, produce, consume, work, produce, consume, I see a vision of a great rucksack revolution thousands or even millions of young Americans wandering around with rucksacks, going up to the mountains to pray, making children laugh and old men glad, making young girls happy and old girls happier, all of 'em Zen Lunatics who go about writing poems that happen to appear in their heads for no reason..." (The Dharma Bums, pg. 77-78)

Work, produce, consume, work, produce, consume, and nothing has changed. That was from Dharma Bums, the most influential body of work that motivated all of this, and if Kerouac was still alive (is he still alive?) he would see that nothing has really changed. For the most part American's work, produce, and consume more. If God is the machine and we are all soldiers in God's eyes then we work for him for life, but God does not bleed and life has no meaning and neither do I. I sit and write I let the ink dry black and I write, black pen, black sweater, black day and black night. All is black and I wonder will color ever come back into my life. Will this world be filled to the brim with hues and not just shades of grey. The world is stale and I sit, I sit and rot, because life doesn't age like the timeless world, life rots and rots and stinks and I rot and I wonder what ray of light will come to bring me back to life. What will nurish my veins-roots and lift me up so that I can breath. Live, work, produce, consume, repeat, die. wake up! Live, work, produce, consume, repeat, die. WAKE UP!! Live, work, wake up, snap out of it. What will wake me up? What will free me as I sit in front of my personal screen typing out to all the other screens in the dark that I hate to love, what will wake me up? I write about a bag. thats it. a bag.

In the end, there will be light. And I crouch, arms stretched fingers banging on the alter to tell me what to do, because I am lost and looking for direction. Lunacy without the peace of zen (piece of zen) in my hungry stomach. I sit and wait for schemes to hatch and life to be worth living but all i do is sit and wait for life to be worth living when life is right outside my window living, and when i join that life, i still sit and wait for another life. stale is the word now. before it was beat, but now that beat existence has been torn at, hackneyed, repeated, refreshed in the browser so many times that now even the colors on the screen have faded and we have moved from beat to stale. ennui... look it up. It's a GRE word that should be taught to little monochrome first graders because they don't know it, but they are already gone. so wake up before the sun, burn petrolium that you worked so hard for just so that it can take you and me to jobs so that we can work and produce and consume till my new god, the screen i pray to 12 hours a day stops and so do I.

My 101 Possessions

When entering the Peace Corps, every volunteer agonizes over their pack list. Interestingly I would say 75 percent of all of these pack lists are the same, but the differences are what make them interesting. I remember one person bringing 768 tampoons (supposedly enough for two years), another bringing a dog collar and leash for the anticipated pet monkey, and yet another with over 100 DVDs a digital projector and a brand new powerbook (which of course broke a few months later). These differences spoke about the priorities of the people carrying these bags.

Now I am creating a new list. Instead of a list that is for an extended journey, this is a list for life. One bag to carrying everything I need to have a complete life. This is about a decision to carry or to not carry all the things that are functional and life sustaining, and also a declaration of what is important to me--what I deem necessary for a fulfilling life, and what things are just products of societal norms. Of course I have to live in the same world as everyone else, but I definitely do not have to have the “must have” blazer of the year, or that spring form pan for making cheesecakes that my lactard body cannot digest anyway.

So, without further delay, my 101 possessions (the number was not planned):

1 chrome messenger bag
2 sunglasses
3 wallet
4 flip flops
5 bike shoes
6 boots
7 new balance sneakers
8 bandana
9 deller hat
10 soft-shell jacket
11 north-face gortex hard-shell
12 scarf
13 water proof cut off pants
14 smart wool hat
15 gloves
16 chinos
17 chrome shants
18 capoeira pants
19 slacks
20 thermal top
21 threadless t shirt
22 dark blue tie
23 light blue tie
24 red tie
25 blue paisley boxers
26 pink paisley boxers
27 yellow green striped boxers
28 red striped boxers
29 dark blue boxers
30 black boxer briefs
31 black boxer briefs
32 nike athletic shorts
33 blue dot dress socks
34 orange smart wool socks
35 grey smart wool socks
36 athletic over calf cotton socks
37 edune T-shirt
38 green T-shirt
39 white blue patterned dress shirt
40 white black striped dress shirt
41 red dress shirt
42 orange button down
43 white paisley dress shirt
44 white american apparel t shirt
45 white zara t shirt
46 jeans
47 cutting board
48 cook set
49 coffee grinder
50 french press
51 thermos
52 wood chopsticks
53 mini chop sticks
54 can opener
55 metal insulated mug
56 bottle opener
57 sigg water bottle
58 coffee spoon
59 utensils
60 pack towel
61 shaving brush
62 straight edge razor
63 needles
64 tweezer
65 nail clippers
66 scissors
67 toiletry case
68 strop
69 clippers
70 soap dish
71 wash cloth
72 back brush
73 outlet multiplier
74 grado labs headphones
75 shure headphones
76 flash drive
77 ipod and cable and case
78 vga adaptor for laptop
79 laptop
80 laptop case
81 blackberry pearl (adaptor and usb cable)
82 fountain pen
83 candle holder
84 deck of playing cards
85 gtd book
86 big notebook
87 small journal
88 pocket sized notebook
89 5 folders
90 envelop of pictures
91 space pen
92 thick lead pencil
93 thin lead pencil
94 case for office stuff
95 flash light
96 tape measure
97 lighter
98 benchmade knife
99 bike tool kit
100 bike
101 bike lock

So the way I created this list was that I started putting things into my rucksack, with what I wanted to keep the most, whether it be for functional reasons or just “I can’t live without this!” Once the pack was full, the pack was full. Apparently before doing this I had about two rucksacks worth of kruft. Of course for me this was a pretty easy task. If i had done this same thing two years ago, I would have had to get rid of 2000 dollar speakers, about 50 DVDs, a huge Sony WEGA TV, pots and pan and glasses etc. But after moving from Cambridge to San Fran to DC to Cleveland to West Africa back to Cleveland and then to Philly, you sort of just get tired of carrying a lot and you sort of get broke. anyway, this is just a rough draft, I still would like my list a bit tighter. I would like to to reflect me as a person more than this list actually does. I would like to get rid of things (what do I need 5 folders for?) and I need to analyze some of my possessions (e.g my coffee system consisting of mug, thermos, grinder, french press, coffee spoon) that take up serious space.