Jack Kerouac.
Today, when the Urban Man says to people that he is a child of the 1960s, he means that he does not believe in things, but in experiences. The truest legacy of those years was not drugs or rock-and-roll or freedom or sex or youth-worship or the “counterculture,” but the idea of life being a kind of live theatre, organized for one’s personal benefit: be it food, spirituality, relationships, work, or music.
This is a hard but important truth about the world I have known for my entire existence.
The great dream of our generation was to pass among and to sample all things without belonging to any one thing in particular. To live in a moment of beauty and then pass to the next without any consequence or harm to ourselves or others. That, we thought, was the finest life: to exist as a traveler wandering from venue to venue, dropping in on show after show, and sometimes getting to sit in with the band.
It’s not surprising that the first important literary work to shape our generation was Jack Kerouac’s 1957 “On the Road” in which Jack’s alter ego, Sal Paradise, crisscrosses the country digging everything but never digging in. It’s not surprising that our first anthem was, “Blowin’ in the Wind.” That so many of our movies were about “Breaking Away.”
Like Sal, our goal has been always be “around,” but never to “reside.” And most of all? Most of all, never to be “owned.” Never to be owned by any job or any person, any overriding philosophy or style – while tasting them all.
It would be nice to say that we left behind this “life as theatre” ethic as the responsibilities of adulthood set in, as we hit our forties, or even as more conservative political philosophies came to the fore. But it’s not true.
Even if our generation quickly abandoned the outward signs of irresponsibility—the beads, the tie-dyed shirts, the unruly hair—we nevertheless spent the last four or five decades diligently creating a great civilization which could serve our fundamental approach to life: From parasailing to ziplining, from the History Channel to Fantasy Football, from niche religions to reality TV. It is a society where there is always plenty to experience, but where actual obligations have become fewer and fewer: be they the obligations of a spouse to a spouse, a child to a parent, a parent to a child, a government to a people, a people to a government, an employer to an employee….well, the list goes on.
Lip service has always been paid. But we were always suspicious of an obligation to family or God or community. Sure, we believed in an obligation to experience family, experience God, and experience community—but it’s not quite the same thing, is it?
It is essential to understand how this attitude to the universe transcends mere politics. It has absolutely nothing to do with being Liberal or Conservative. You can find the “life as theatre” approach just as much on the Right as you do on the Left. In both cases, the argument is freedom, freedom, freedom as the highest ideal—it’s simply that different kinds of freedom are celebrated. On the Right, the goal is often “individual freedom” of the economic kind, while on the Left the goal is often “individual freedom” of the social kind. Liberal or Conservative, when you’re free, you can always keep blowin’ in the wind.
This underlying agreement between the farthest Left and the farthest Right in our generation is rarely discussed, but it explains plenty of the contradictions in modern politics. For example, how can the Right be in favor of “personal responsibility” without asking anyone to be responsible for fellow human beings or shared infrastructure or the environment? How can the Left be in favor of “social responsibility” without asking people to commit to working for a living or fully raising their own children?
Such paradoxes only makes sense if you see both sides as valuing theatre over obligation. Of being “on the way” but never “arriving.” The disagreements are merely aesthetic.
Like most people reading these notes, the Urban Man was too young to fully know the Sixties—like many Boomers, I came of age mostly in the backwash of the 1970s. But still.
Let me assure you that I tried to fight it, I really did: I married. I had four children. I joined religious organizations. I started a business with actual employees. I went to live in a real community and I acquired real obligations. I tried to not just “own things,” but let myself be “owned by life.”
Like most of my generation, however, I have a nagging doubt about whether I succeeded. As I look back, I see how I craved new experiences at every turn. How I often abandoned projects as soon as they became “my identity.” How I never completely “settled in.” And yes, maybe like you, I wake up every morning with the terrible fear that I am still ‘On the Road.’ That is, on the days when I wake up worrying that I am no longer ‘On the Road.’
In some ways these commentaries are an ongoing attempt to transform ‘life as theatre’ into real life. Like Sal and his buddies, I’m sure that if I keep talking, I can make it happen.
The Urban Man 