Blissful Happiness

“There was nowhere to go but everywhere, so just keep on rolling under the stars.” Said Jack Kerouac on his phenomenal book named On the Road. That sentence made a revolution with the book it is in. The Beat Generation was forming on the highways and streets of U.S.A. Passionate souls were hungry to any kinds of information and they were trying to find a pair of curious eyes to walk on that supreme road together. Some of those eyes are well known names of world literature. Many of beat generation admirers knows Allen Ginsberg, Neal Cassady, Lawrence Ferlinghettii as the authors of the generation but in origin Jack Kerouac plays a significant role in the formation of stream. In fact, the name of that generation was found by Jack. Dictionaries were defining beat as exhausted until Jack gave it a new meaning. Now we can see the word ‘beatific’ in Longman and many other dictionaries as “feeling or expressing blissful happiness.’’. Jacks tells us in “On the Road” how did they came together and create that inspiring, strong stream of thought. In that essay I will be handling lots of points about that generation by consulting the book On the Road to explain the emotions hidden in it.

Before digging into the tasteful debate about Beat, I would like to draw you readers attention to the conditions of the period just to understand stream better. In 1929, with the collapse of wall street market. America got into very rough time period named The Great Depression. Economically everybody was in a big pain. That’s why there were many seasonal workers who took the trains illegally and travelled around the country. Over time, besides their own jargon, their own way of life was formed. The beat generation created their own style based on that free way of life. People were so bored of the state’s current situation and the fallacies that politicians talk about life expenses. They created their own free space with the people around them. That space was all of the roads, rails, highways of United States of America. The important thing was not the destination for the beats. The important thing was the experiences they gain while they were on the road. With that mentality Jack, Neal and Allen travelled all around the country countless times; by meeting with people who has the sparkle of enthusiasm in their eyes, by witnessing the magic of jazz on the random bars, by getting high to create new perspectives to their conversations, by having open sex to find the physical nirvanas of themselves. Beat was so special because of its inspiring, tempting aura. When a person gets into the vibe of generation, he/she cannot get out easily, because if you are in once, it is addictive. First it leads you to the enormous will to explore. Then it brings you to the point that you want to discuss everything to see world from a different window. And mad people starts to temp you more and more. As Jack said “the only people that interest me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones that never yawn or say a commonplace thing.. but burn, burn, burn like roman candles across the night. ”

Beats called themselves as “Lost Generation” for a while. The main inspiration source of those adventurers was existentialism. Therefore, we can see prints of Proust, Nietzsche, Kafka, Dostoyevsky, Heidegger, Sartre and Camus in books of beat generation. Before Kerouac and Ginsberg, there was a gentrified understanding of art prevailing all over the country. “Howl” and “On the Road” were the works that changed the understanding of stereotypical literature. As beats influenced many others that came after them, today we owe them a lot. The Doors, Pink Floyd, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan are some names that created their art by inspiring the beat generation.