I’ve been on the road a lot this year. 20 countries and 239 hours in the air — it’s the last year before my corporate job robs me of regularly scheduled summer winter spring breaks, so I told myself I should take advantage of it while I still can. I wanted to create more cherished moments that’ll pay the “memory dividend.” I wanted to see more of the world while I’m young, while my dreams still feel alive to me. When I think of myself this year, I think of Sal Paradise from On the Road. I think of how he says “the road would get more interesting, especially ahead, always ahead.”

It was easy for me to criticize On the Road when I first read it. Sal and Dean Moriarty wave their hands in desperation, mumble senseless words, trample the boundaries of morality, and disregard of how their actions cost others. I thought them to be vulgar and raucous, to lack discipline and coherence.

Nearly one year since, I understand them a little more now because the road really is exciting. The promise of a trip eases the bore of today — the senior project that sits half-finished and the writing quotas yet unmet. Starting anew is exciting. Embracing uncertainties is exciting. Just like how sliding down the Swiss snow and breathing in the cherry-blossom-infused Tokyo air are exciting. There is so much you wouldn’t know unless you go.

Sal and Dean’s fault, to me, is that they let expectations consume their journey. Yet without thinking and planning and laboring, expecting materializes in nothing. They think the road would cure them. Yet external treatments cannot cure internal emptiness: no amount of adventure can fill the gaping void in one’s mind. “This madness would lead nowhere,” Sal remarks about halfway through the book. They choose this mad journey because they forgo reflection. Without clear ideas about what they want to accomplish and who they want to be, this journey is without purpose or destination. It’s bound to lead nowhere.

In pursuing madness, they also choose laziness: running from their problems instead of solving them. The problems are still there. All roads eventually lead them back. They have to return to their reality, no matter how dismal. Perhaps that’s why they stay on the road, such that the sensory overload drowns out their problems. But if they never settle down to think, they can never reach a state of contentment, and they’ll never outrun despair. Instead of believing that better scenery will be ahead, they should focus on the views now.

Now, I agree, there is no point in playing Socrates with fictional characters and arguing that the unexamined life is not worth living. But I see their story as a caution for mine, warning me to not lose my direction nor be consumed by expectations as I ride down this road.

I consider myself a dreamer. I was drawn to the novel by a single, incomplete quote I saw on the Chinese internet: “all that road going, and all the people dreaming.” But upon finishing, my favorite lines became what I consider to be the book's most sobering proclamation: “the days of wrath are yet to come. The balloon won’t sustain you much longer. And not only that, but it’s an abstract balloon. You’ll all go flying to the West Coast and come staggering back in search of your stone.”

Life hasn’t unleashed its full wrath upon us. We can still float to imaginary heights with our balloons. But balloons pop, dreams shatter. At some point, we’ll become too careful, too comfortable, too afraid. We’ll fall back to our stones and return to reality. We shouldn’t ground our existence on expectations nor on the thrill of the road. It has to be something abiding, coming from deeper and within. I need to internalize the fleeting sensations. I need to stay introspective when on the road.

A part of why I’ve loved the road is that it’s a place where I have no past nor future, only the present. When I’m on the road, I live in a transitory state — in the in-betweens in time where anything can happen. I stand amidst the ambiguity, holding on to my stone. The adventures have only made me more sure of why I started, more certain of my way. I now know the world is much more alike than it is different. The unknown doesn't tickle me so. I am still at peace.

However, now is not the time to relinquish my dreams: the balloons have not yet popped, I can still fly high. It may be presumptuous, but I'll try to do so until the day I die.

It's just that I don’t expect the future to be better. I know this is already the best.