K-K-K-K-Kerouac

I think of Dean Moriarty...and sometimes I hope he thinks of me.

There's a stirring in me that doesn't stop. It's funny to see how people react to my when I am in over-thinking mode. I get emotional, I cry, I think of suicide. Those are all things that I don't wish upon myself, but when the storm comes it's what happens.

It's not a psycho-babble book, or a technical, dry, boring read written by a psychiatrist. The most important book anybody could read to understand where I am at, and where a lot of people like me come from, is one of the greatest books of all time. I beg you to read On the Road by Jack Kerouac. I'll give you my copy. Download the audiobook, anything. It is it.

The rambling, manic impulses that Kerouac so brilliantly and beautifully illustrates are what make me me and what make depressives, and folks with bi-polar them. It's the timeless, vague and never-ending battle of looking for an identity -- a tale that goes back to the Bible. In this modern day what Keroac writes about is a lifestyle that isn't mainstream, and never really was. It's a very stigmatized way of thinking, much less a way of living.

But it's what stirs in me every minute of the day. I can't exist like this, stable, in a job, in a dull routine every day. It has clicked into place since everything happened in May of 2008. The chaos that goes with all of this...it's when I am most comfortable.

Recently, after going to Vergas with the boys, it hit me hard. The best day I had there was when I was alone, left to just do what I wanted to do -- and I had no plan. No itinerary. I just did.

How do I meet a middle? I know realistically that what I'm talking about isn't possible, short of being a vagrant.

Another, maybe a bit more mainstream example of what I mean is Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer. Not sure if it's a commonly known story, but Chris McCandless left it all behind. He was one of us. He was someone who felt deeper and hurt more than most. The world bothered him more than it bothers 99% of the world. He took the money he had saved, $24,000, and donated all of it. He was an idealist, and an introvert...but an introvert who, when needed, could flash the charm that drew people to him.

This is what I think about as I also contemplate how the first 15 minutes of the news tonight will be about a football game, while this country wages two wars under the threat of a potentially nuclear Iran (think Hitler, only Hitler with the power to nuke Israel in his hands). The resources that we spend on clothes, and cars, and iPods while people in other countries don't have running water and have a life expectancy of 45 years old. Countries where men rape women who have AIDS thinking that will cure them of AIDS (think of what this does to spread the growth of AIDS).

I'm not in a position financially to help this out, and that hurts me a lot. I do what I can. I donate monthly. I wear the "INAMTANM" shirt and explain what it means to people who ask. But it's like trying to put out a fire with a glass of water. There are amazing people over there trying to help as much as they can. I struggle with that. I'd love to go and help, but almost every opportunity is tied to Christian ministry -- and I'm not comfortable with that at all. Ministry seems to me to be so incredibly un-ethical, immoral and exploitative. These people have a desperate desire for basic human needs...it's not an opportunity for you to impose your beliefs on people who have nothing else to grasp onto. It just doesn't sit right with me. There has to be a way to help, and not push an agenda.