Twentysomething

In lieu of quoting from Kerouac work for the fiftieth anniversary of his seminal On the Road work, I'll quote from his inspiration: Mon enfant! I give you my hand! I give you my love, more precious than money, I give you myself, before preaching or law, Will

In the meantime, it's not so much fun borrow Candice's laptop, particularly when she has a lot of work and I need to look for jobs. But at least I get to learn my way around a Mac (pretty darn good, I have to say).

The me that would climb mountains and pitch a tent with strangers was clueless and bonkers among the aisles of foam mattresses and throw pillows. It all seemed very – staid.

So now what? What now, in a town where the weather drops twenty degrees at night? Where a fat girl with purple hair walks by a desolate guy who may or may not be homeless strolling along with a backpack on his shoulders in front of a pink house...

But for a few of us, On the Road mattered.  Perhaps I was rebelling against myself, against a Protestant guilt, a strict family culture, a Sartrean existential need to define myself through the reflections of others – or just a desperate need to break out.

I decided to go back and explore Europe to understand its impact on my current areas of interest, namely the Middle East, Central Asia and India.