Jack Kerouac is another person, like William Least Heat-Moon, who also left home after losing his wife and having other unfortunate occurrences in his life at home. In his novel On the Road, Kerouac describes that he felt his life at home had “reached the completion of its cycle” and he “needed new experiences” (Kerouac 7). He wanted something new, so he took to the open road with Dean Moriarty to seek new experiences on the west coast. Kerouac also extends Emerson’s idea of restlessness and seeking by saying, “Something, someone, some spirit was pursuing all of us across the desert of life and was bound to catch us before we reached heaven . . .The one thing that we yearn for in our living days, that makes us sigh and groan and undergo sweet nauseas of all kinds, is the remembrance of some sweet bliss” . Here, Kerouac discusses restless seeking and his comment on the subject is that everyone is restless and seeks lost experiences in the new. This is the idea that people are motivated by past memories that brought them pure bliss which causes them to be restless to move on. This can be a very hard concept for some to understand because if someone feels that they are not whole, they do not tend to search within himself to find the answer. Most people find it easier to rely on places and tend to look in a variety of places and most do this through traveling. Jack Kerouac is one of those people who felt he had lost himself when he also lost his wife and he felt he needed to find himself and he attempted to do so by traveling the open road. This idea of the restless seekers of America extend Kerouac’s comment to connect to the American Experience.
People who seek to fill their void of lost experiences through movement and travel illustrate the idea of restless seeking. This idea extends Salman Rushdie’s idea of migration in order to create new experiences and learn new things. Kerouac explains that not only do people learn new things on the road, but he believes one can also learn new things about themselves. He believes that while people are traveling they will discover something new that will make them feel happy and whole again. William Least Heat-Moon, author of the novel Blue Highways, also turned to traveling to solve his problems and restore his bliss just as Kerouac did. Kerouac and Heat-Moon believed that traveling the country would allow for new experiences they could not experience at home and they believed their voids would be filled “as soon as [their] worries became only the immediate worries of the road” (Heat-Moon 5). They let the worries of traveling take over all the other things inside of them that created a missing piece which caused their restless seeking. With everyone seeking feelings of lost experiences, a restlessness is created between Americans. We are a “nation of restless movers” (Russell Sanders 1) and Jack Kerouac’s comment on this subject extends the idea to the American Experience as a whole. According to Kerouac, the American Experience is seeking out the piece that fills your void; the piece that makes you feel whole and when you feel whole, you find yourself. The American Experience is seeking out your true self through travel and movement.
People who seek to fill their void of lost experiences through movement and travel illustrate the idea of restless seeking. This idea extends Salman Rushdie’s idea of migration in order to create new experiences and learn new things. Kerouac explains that not only do people learn new things on the road, but he believes one can also learn new things about themselves. He believes that while people are traveling they will discover something new that will make them feel happy and whole again. William Least Heat-Moon, author of the novel Blue Highways, also turned to traveling to solve his problems and restore his bliss just as Kerouac did. Kerouac and Heat-Moon believed that traveling the country would allow for new experiences they could not experience at home and they believed their voids would be filled “as soon as [their] worries became only the immediate worries of the road” (Heat-Moon 5). They let the worries of traveling take over all the other things inside of them that created a missing piece which caused their restless seeking. With everyone seeking feelings of lost experiences, a restlessness is created between Americans. We are a “nation of restless movers” (Russell Sanders 1) and Jack Kerouac’s comment on this subject extends the idea to the American Experience as a whole. According to Kerouac, the American Experience is seeking out the piece that fills your void; the piece that makes you feel whole and when you feel whole, you find yourself. The American Experience is seeking out your true self through travel and movement.
Another character who leaves their town in search of himself is George Willard: