In the end

Now that we have come to the end of our journey, I realize I’ve learned a lot from the Beat Generation and its writers and poets. Not only did men write brilliant pieces of art but women also wrote about their view. Looking back into history is very important because we are only human and make mistakes, meaning that history has repeated itself from our ignorance. I’ve learned that in the fifties it was alright to hitchhike because it was right after the Great Depression when hobos would roam around for jobs and jump trains to get across the country. I have a serious passion for traveling and can’t wait to go out on the road just as Kerouac did. But times have changed and there are different factors, the freedom of trusting strangers is dead as well as writing freely. Anyone can write obscenities but only somebody can write something from the heart and truly be heard even through its obscenities. Nowadays people can ramble on about sex and drugs but in those days it was a movement, there was a cause. Disrespect from the law enabled the Beatniks to form and join the union of “I’m sick and tired of the old customs holding me down.” It was all exciting because it had never really been done, except for in the twenties and that was thirty years earlier. This was a movement of not only writing but expression. These jazz cats talked about everything everyone else was scared to talk about, which is why the hippies came about, why there is good music, and why we can talk about whatever we want in 2008. I’m really happy with all the books I read because I loved them all. So in the end people can know that “art is love is god” as William Berman said and we have the freedom to say whatever we feel.