Monday, October 10, 2011

Day 69 Kerouaction: On Spontaneity


Day 69 (an auspicious number, n'est pas?) in The Beat Handbook is titled, "On Spontaneity." It was inspired by the above passage from On The Road.

The beat way is to live each moment like it's your last. What are you doing right now that honors life?

Loosen up! Howl at the moon. Go somewhere. Sing out loud. Walk around outside naked. Try a new food. Write a poem. Read something radical. Call an old friend for no reason. Give a stranger five bucks and ask them to pay it forward. Throw an impromptu party. Something! Anything! Even piggyback around the tanks of a gas station beats sitting there reading this blog.

Sunday, Crystal and I got up and were getting ready to leave Lowell from our fantastic Lowell Celebrates Kerouac weekend. I said, "Hey, sweetie. Guess what?" "What?" she replied. "Concord is only 15 miles from here and that's where Thoreau is buried. Want to do another author's grave visit?" (Visiting author's graves is something we like to do - click here). She said, "Sure!" and the rest is history. I have yet to document it on The Daily Beat, but we saw Thoreau's grave along with Emerson's, Hawthorne's, and Alcott's. We took some pictures/video and did some reading. I'll write about it in an upcoming post.

The point is to be spontaneous and look for opportunities that honor life. That's what Jack would do.

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