Egomania

Ok, some people have commented that I haven't been posting recently, but hey, I haven't been as busy, so I haven't been having late night/early morning sessions, therefore I haven't been sleep-deprived. Simple logical progression, really.

Since I'm not sleep-deprived, I'm not going to do any psuedo-philosophising today. It's a bit unseemly to do such things when you're not sleep-deprived, drunk or stoned. Which reminds me of something which really bothered me today. I've been reading On the Road by Jack Kerouac for class, and I actually quite dislike it. Not the book itself, but its subject matter, the so-called beat generation. For some reason, I don't really see how these people are any different really from any other generation. Just because they're disaffected with society and trying to find new definitions and frontiers does not make them unique. There is always a group within society that is disillusioned and disenfranchised. At any time. Seriously. Going through a war is unpleasant, I'll give them that, but wars have been going on forever. Capitalist or other oppressive social structures have existed forever as well. What really makes this 'beat generation' irritate me is the apparent assumption that they were something new and unique. That they were discovering something no one had before.

What I see when I read this book is a bunch of losers in the world who muddle through as a lot of psuedo-intellectual, poseur drug addicts, who find themselves unable to come to terms with their personal failures and instead seek to blame it upon the world and themselves, so as to avoid taking responsibility. An external failure is completely excusable, of course. A personal failure is also a way of escaping responsibility, for if one is simply unable to succeed, then one does not need to try.

Go read The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene instead. It's a brilliant novel, written around the same time, I think. Also about a loser in life, someone who is a personal failure, and is also persecuted, quite literally, by society. Yet this person is willing, in the end, to take responsibility for himself and his identity instead of using his failure and society as excuses. He does what he is expected, and expects of himself, despite obvious failure and persecution.

Or if that's not your cup of tea, and irresponsible egomania is more your thing, go read Trainspotting, also about a bunch of escapists.