The Windblown World: One Man’s Attempt to Stay Awake

Cover via Amazon

I am reading “The Windblown World“, a compilation of Jack Kerouac‘s journals from 1947-1954. This is a man who thought about his life and struggled with the huge questions of existence, but he never seems to lose his naive wonder at it all.

” We are come onto this earth and we do not know what we are supposed to do, and in all the disorder and confusion, we cry out in our souls — “There must be truth for I myself am true!” Yet it is all false and foolish around us, and we, ourselves, are the falsest and most foolish, and oh what are we supposed to do?”

I know what he is talking about. The world always drags us away from truth and muddles things. A person can’t help, but cry out every now and then, at least if s/he is paying attention.

I also found this quote there.

“History is a nightmare from which I am trying to wake“

James Joyce (speaking through Stephen Dedalus)

It fits in nicely with the way I am feeling about the general trends in the world, but before we can wake up, we must first realize we are dreaming.