Love.

My life is made up alternating phases of enjoyment for things, that's how i stay interested. For example one month I'll listen to nothing but hardcore, or wear nothing but baggy skaterish clothes, or read nothing but french literature etc etc.
Last months was taken up by hardcore (because of Architects new release) and reading nothing but philosophy and greek poetry.
I had to come to resolve my thoughts in an arrogant mentality that i should dispense with getting wasted all the time and concentrate on trying to achieve the higher good in life.

And lo' and behold all it takes as it ever does was one simple thing to change my phase to a different thing.
This book was it lol.
the next however many months shall be taken up by a renewed love for the american literature of the 50's and the whole beatnik lifestyle in general.
I fucking love it.

Plot summary

Ray Smith's story is driven by Japhy, whose penchant for the simple life and Zen Buddhism greatly influenced Kerouac on the eve of the sudden and unpredicted success of On the Road. The action shifts between the events of Smith and Ryder's "city life", such as three-day parties and enactments of the Buddhist sexual rite of "Yab-Yum", to the sublime and peaceful imagery where Kerouac seeks a type of transcendence. The novel concludes with a change in narrative style, with Kerouac working alone as a fire lookout on Desolation Peak (adjacent to Hozomeen Mountain), in what would soon be declared North Cascades National Park (see also Desolation Angels). These elements place The Dharma Bums at a critical junction foreshadowing the consciousness-probing works of several authors in the 1960s such as Timothy Leary and Ken Kesey.[citation needed] In an oddity, near the end of Chapter 23, there is this line: "I had a dollar left and Gary was waiting for me at the shack." Somehow both Kerouac and the editors missed that "Gary" was not changed to "Japhy".

Can't wait to read this as i've realised everything the beat generation strived for is exactly what i love; Life spent wandering, casting off materialism, experimenting with drugs, loving nature & buddhism and writing poetry.
what an amazing life that must be.

“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!”

<3
x