'I wish God had made me vaster myself'

—Now events of this moment are so mad that of course I can't keep up but worse they're as though they were fond memories that from my peaceful hacienda or Proust-bed I was trying to recall in toto but couldn't because like the real world so vast, so delugingly vast, I wish God had made me vaster myself—I wish I had ten personalities, one hundred golden brains, far more ports than are ports, more energy than the river, but I must struggle to live it all, and on foot, and in these little crepesole shoes.

—Jack Kerouac, Visions of Cody (1951-'52)