Post by Paul Maher Jr. on Jan 1, 2017 16:33:42 GMT -5
By December 1950, Kerouac was at full boil, ready to begin at once to disclose the “full confession of my life.” Doing so, Kerouac explains, enables him the ability to “renounce fiction and fear.” He is less than a year from breaking through with his “sketching” method of writing, and assuming the way proper to authorial maturation, the bulk of which would find its way to print by the end of that decade. Kerouac is concerned with “truth,” as he always was, and by virtue of doing so, allows him to delve deeper into the chasm of his heart to find haven in the proper solemn underground.” It is a diversion from the collusion of good and evil, the amassing of the forces at large. Kerouac, yearning to dive deeper in a Melvillean attempt to pluck the sacred pearl of Truth, shrugs commodification of his work in order to crystalize Truth’s essence, as if knowing already the longevity of his legacy matters more than catering to the whims of the marketplace.
In The Subterraneans, Kerouac wants to “let the truth seep out.” One of the key lessons Kerouac bestowed unto me, is truth. Over time I learned to embrace the truth and extract from it a further refined essence that remained elusive. Younger I was a liar, I lied about everything because I was afraid of confrontation. It was easier to lie and ward off conflict than tell the truth and face the erratic and unpredictable reactions of my parents. This turned into an ugly habit, from my teens mostly through my twenties, of lying about even the most trivial and mundane things. I would lie to not hurt someone’s feelings. I would lie to leaven advantage (never monetary), to allow me a safe exit from confrontation. Deception was the key toward keeping myself hidden. It was, in the words of Kerouac in a journal entry of May 1946, a “strange madness” that gripped me. It consumed my ideals and exploited my insecurities. It was Kerouac that made me believe in a higher calling, to foreclose the lien on my heart that my insecurities gripped. My parents called me “ugly” and they labeled me “stupid.” These labels stuck with me and were further validated by a high school guidance counselor that told me that I wasn’t “smart enough for college,” and steered me toward the military. This, perhaps was a blessing in disguise, for it was the freedom of the open sea that my tensions were eventually released and the world, via in part by Kerouac, began to speak a new language to my heart and spirit.
In The Subterraneans, Kerouac wants to “let the truth seep out.” One of the key lessons Kerouac bestowed unto me, is truth. Over time I learned to embrace the truth and extract from it a further refined essence that remained elusive. Younger I was a liar, I lied about everything because I was afraid of confrontation. It was easier to lie and ward off conflict than tell the truth and face the erratic and unpredictable reactions of my parents. This turned into an ugly habit, from my teens mostly through my twenties, of lying about even the most trivial and mundane things. I would lie to not hurt someone’s feelings. I would lie to leaven advantage (never monetary), to allow me a safe exit from confrontation. Deception was the key toward keeping myself hidden. It was, in the words of Kerouac in a journal entry of May 1946, a “strange madness” that gripped me. It consumed my ideals and exploited my insecurities. It was Kerouac that made me believe in a higher calling, to foreclose the lien on my heart that my insecurities gripped. My parents called me “ugly” and they labeled me “stupid.” These labels stuck with me and were further validated by a high school guidance counselor that told me that I wasn’t “smart enough for college,” and steered me toward the military. This, perhaps was a blessing in disguise, for it was the freedom of the open sea that my tensions were eventually released and the world, via in part by Kerouac, began to speak a new language to my heart and spirit.