ZenLifter

Thought I would post this quote from Big Sur. I think he captures it pretty well. Dead at 47...what a shame. Of course the book isn't all so morbid. His descriptions of the coast make me long to take another trip down there. Soon! 😏

“I can hear myself whining again 'Why does God torture me?' - But anybody who's never had a delirium tremens even in their early stages may not understand that it's not so much a physical pain but a mental anguish indescribable to those ignorant people who don't drink and accuse drinkers of irresponsibility - The mental anguish is so intense that you feel you have betrayed your very birth, the efforts nay the birth pangs of your mother when she bore you and delivered you to the world, you've betrayed every effort your father ever made to feed you and raise you and make you strong and my God even 'educate' you for life, you feel a guilt so deep you identify yourself with the devil and God seems far away abandoning you to your sick silliness - You feel sick in the greatest sense of the world, breathing without believing it, sicksicksick, your soul groans, you look at your helpless hands as tho they were on fire and you can't move to help, you look at the world with dead eyes, there's on your face an expression of incalculable repining like a constipated angel on a cloud - In fact it's actually a cancerous look you throw on the world, through browngray wool fuds over your eyes - Your tongue is white and disgusting, your teeth are stained, your hair seems to have dried out overnight, there are huge mucks in the corners of your eyes, greases on your nose, froth at the sides of your moth: in short that very disgusting and well-known hideousness everybody knows who's walked past a city street drunk in the Boweries of the world”
― Jack Kerouac, Big Sur

Jsbodhi

I haven't read him in so long!! Thanks for the quote xo

Layali

Wow. Thanks for this quote,

SweatyHands

When I first read that 20 something years ago in high school, I knew that at some point I would know what he was trying to describe. It was just a fact that I accepted. It was no different than me knowing that the paper would be delivered in the morning. There was no dread, and there was no joy. I just knew where I was going way before I got there. And when I was in the hospital with an IV in my hand getting fluids during a supervised detox, I knew that as soon as I could hold my hands steady, I was going to have to read Big Sur again to see that my prophecy was fulfilled. I usually hate when I'm right about something.

Soberwolf

nice quote

Juno11

Thanks for this. It's a reminder of the despair I would feel with a hangover.

ZenLifter

I can remember reading, or seeing movies about characters in some sort of downward spiral, and thinking in some part of my mind that it would be exciting and dramatic to be that person. Much better than ordinary everyday life, right? Until you are them.

thomas11

Hi Zenlifter, you quote sent me down quite the rabbit hole today. Spent a couple hours reading about the author and big sur. Kind of horrifying. It appears brilliant minds are often casualties of alcohol.

saoutchik

Yes, Jack Kerouac was an exceptionally gifted writer as ZenL 's quote admirably demonstrates but by all accounts he had many failings as an individual

Fluffer

It's a shame with his obvious intelligence he couldn't figure out the BS of his addictive voice and actually do something about his alcoholism. I think by the end he was drinking 24/7 living in squalor with his mom. Sometimes it's possible to overthink and romanticize things.

Hevyn

I'm so glad you posted this, Zen. I need to read him again.

ZenLifter

I think I've finally realized that intelligence doesn't have anything to do with it, at least in the way we normally think of "intelligence." For me (and I have a fairly high IQ), intelligence is the very thing that must be overcome. I use mine to create a world of concepts, an ideal world that stands between me and my actual life and other people, if you get what I mean.

duderwit

Thanks for sharing, ZenLifter. I remember reading Karouac when I was younger and thinking how cool he was. Now that I'm older and have gone through similar things, I just feel bad for him - because its not pretty.