American Frontier

“We spend our time searching for security and hate it when we get it.”

-John Steinbeck

            For a long while now, I’ve had this burning obsession in regards to writing and the literary world in general. The ability to manipulate and remold the physical world around me is a high no drug can even compare with. But my love affair with the word goes far past the concept of intentional self-deception. This is evident by my taste in literature and, to a degree, music. I gravitate towards prolific iconoclasts such as Jack Kerouac, Ernest Hemingway, and Thomas Wolfe. Pioneers not only of American literature, these cultural legends were drawn to a windward existence… always seeking the raw truth.

            This methodology and approach to life was rooted in the concept of the American Frontier. We, even as a young fledgling nation, have been emboldened by a restless spirit… constantly driven to wander and discover and explore. Our origin, as an American people, stems from the pilgrimage and exodus. The insatiable fire that burns in our collective soul has provided the spark for the creative minds to rise over the past two centuries. It was the impetus for Hemingway to trek the roads of Europe and sail the coasts of Cuba. It provided the drive for Wolfe to write one of the most explicitly American novels in Look Homeward, Angel. And it was the fevering madness that pursued Kerouac from coast to coast.

            Yet, sadly… the American Frontier is no more. The sense of adventure and exploration is not only defunct, it is openly antagonized these days in our culture. Hitchhiking is an illicit act reserved for foreigners, the impoverished, drug addicts, and serial killers. The network of cross-country buses and trains are now unaffordable for the impecunious pilgrim seeking God on the road. In essence, our entire culture has hardened and become isolated in itself, fearful of the unknown and the wild yonder.

            Sadly, I think it is an epidemic ravaging most of the world. The digital revolution might be the source. In global networking and rapidly advancing technology… the world has become a smaller place.  But that narrowing of the map means there is less room to wander. And as such, the drive to roam and wander diminishes: why drive cross country to see the American continent when Google Earth/Maps can give you any view your demented heart could ever ask for?

            As I sit here, pontificating my distaste towards the apathy-driven, slothful generation I find myself a part of… I suppose I must be, as my father always tells me, ‘intellectually honest.’ Even the greats whom I’ve mentioned previously were not the defining bastions of their generations. No, they too were social pariahs… passively ostracized by the masses for daring to seek more, to inquire continuously, and to dream. Given the choice between ridicule and a constant change of scenery… who wouldn’t journey?

            All of this, my sanctimonious little social analysis, begs a question: were the great literary figures drawn to the extraordinary life because they were artists… or were they artists because of the life? Yep… see what I did there? One of those preposterous and completely portentous questions that really can’t be answered and are only asked by the most naïve and arrogant amateurs! How disgraceful: if I had a semblance of honor left, I’d isolate myself in the mountains… forcing myself to read Jodie Picoult or Nicholas Sparks in torturous penitence. But alas, for now I’ll have to just learn to stick the ol’ rhetorical foot in the hypothetical mouth.

            Even if tritely pious, I do feel that it is a much less imaginative world these days. Of course I write this on a laptop in order to present it in an exclusively digital reality, which makes me a hypocrite. But nonetheless… in restless nights and anxiety-filled days I have discussed this with peers and compatriots. And, in the end, we tend to reach a common consensus on the matter. To chase a life like this, be it writing or painting or music or photography or any other goddamn form of art that I overlooked, one has to be mad and anxious and fearful of mediocrity and repetition. Life is but road: the ones called crazy are the only ones who sanely traverse it.

“Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me, as is ever so on the road.”

-Jack Kerouac