On the Road Blog first impressions

So far (Chapter 6) , Kerouac  has presented many great characters as the protagonist made his way to Denver,Colorado. One of the first impressions I got from this book was the initial listlessness of the narrator.  The author finds his "intellectual" friends lofty and pretentious and no longer finds comfort in Academia, claiming that "life hanging around campus had reached the completion of its cycle and was stultified". He promptly sets off west in search of new experiences and in hopes of better getting to know Dean Moriarty. I find it interesting how Sal admires certain people throughout the novel , he admires Dean for his inexhaustible energy , claiming him to be a long lost brother of sorts. Similarly , he admires Eddie for the same exuberance and travels with him for a while until Eddie abruptly departs. In many ways that is what makes the character interactions in "On the Road" so meaningful ; Ultimately , they are  the fleeting encounters of strangers but encounters that are meaningful on a deep emotional level. Most of the people Sal meets are lost souls just like him,trying to find some sort of self-fulfillment in post-war America.