The Dharma Bums was my first Kerouac novel, and I reacted to it with the same excited recognition as so many other Kerouac fans. The novel seems to strike those of us who enjoyed it similarly, as a raw account of life that touches something true and inexplicable at its heart. I've been thinking about why so many people have the same feeling of kinship with the tale, because everyone I know who is passionate about the book sees it's reflection in their own life. I think much of the Dharma Bum's universality comes from the theme of "a way out." The beats were characterized by disillusionment with the social machine in which they lived more than perhaps anything else, a feeling that appears in nearly all of their work. As the misanthropocene accelerates, this feeling has become more and more prevalent in today's generations. Its old news that we live in a broken system, most people simply take it for granted. For many people, with this recognition comes the drive to find a way out of the broken system, to construct a personally fulfilling life on the outskirts and in the margins and loopholes. At the center of The Dharma Bums is Kerouac's burgeoning love affair with the wilderness, and the way out it provides. He muses often about how he's alright as long as he has his pack, he can just get up and leave civilization behind. His hero-friend Japhy is the classic merry outsider, a wanderer who has left the conventions of normal life behind to make his own way in the world, which is what it means to be a dharma bum. The Dharma Bums is the tale of a "way out," and so resonates with those who have rejected the hegemonic definition of a good life in favor of making their own way.