Melissa Modolo "On the Road"

Last summer I read the book "On the Road" by Jack Kerouac. It's interesting how for some people, the only way to feel alive or possibly spiritually connected is to be on a pilgrimage. In this book the real life characters Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassidy are constantly restless unless they are traversing the country and at one point they even venture into Mexico once America is no longer new to them. Traveling and adventure are easily translated into spiritual journeys or pilgrimages. When one is in a journey, they have no ties to any belongings or even to the people they left behind. It is that liminal state which they reach where they are completely free from everything worldly. Once you are no longer held down by worldly obligations, it is likely you will have a profound spiritual experience. Jack and Neal find something in their travels which Jack does not really speak of in the book. They would not have continually yearned for this freedom if they did not find something spiritually appealing about the liminal state. It must have stemmed from having the ability when in route, to disconnect from everything that held them back before. As they drove wherever they wanted for weeks on end, they must have found themselves in a search that was easily compared to the search they were also spiritually on at the time.