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Allen Ginsberg wrote in his poem Vomit Express, that the poor fly at night for cheap fares, not used to airplanes, throwing up airsick. Dizzying and disorientating, this idea of vomiting reminds me of Sartre. In Nausea, Sartre explains this constant feeling of vomiting is a nausea toward itself’s existence. The helplessness vertigo in the face of the absurdity of life, of existence: that is a void, everything is a lie. Nothing, but emptiness. Because the recognition of itself’s existence comes with responsibilities, to take responsibilities with your own existence, with your own life.
I have always used traveling as my coping mechanism: the fact that I could not stand staying in one place for more than three months. Over the ecstasy of landing and gradually becoming familiar with a new place, then comes the boredom, the boredom of everyday, the boredom of routines. So I flee, from one place to another, always on the road.
Parallel with the feeling of nausea Sartre terms, the feeling of vomiting, for me, is the disorientating experience of traveling, of fleeing to elsewhere, of escaping here, of avoiding life, of confronting my own existence and void of meaning. Escaping from one city to the other, over the ecstasy of the honeymoon phase. There is here. Here it is there. Everywhere is the same, same boredom, no adventures, but life has to continue, so where?
Vomit or nausea, they are the same. It is the persistent ache in your spine, in your bones, as you grapple with the weight of freedom. No matter where I flee, nausea permeates every corner, existence saturates every moment. Usually existence hides itself. It is there, around us, in us, it is us. You can't say two words without mentioning it, but you can never touch it. Existence is so full that it reveals itself to me. It is a profound boredom, profound, the profound heart of existence, the very matter I am made of. Meaning is a construct of the self. I alone bear the burden of my freedom.
Thus, Eat, sleep, eat. Exist slowly, softly.
Vomit Express by Allen Ginsberg
I'm going down to Puerto Rico
I'm going down on the midnight plane
I'm going down on the Vomit Express
I'm going down with my suitcase pain
......
I'm going down to Puerto Rico etc
Start [read] poetry at the university, meet kids,
look at their breasts, touch their hands, kiss their heads
seen from the heart, maybe the four buddhist normal truths
"Existence is suffering", it ends when you're dead --
I'm going down to Puerto Rico etc
Go out, walk up on the mountain, see the green rain
imagine that forest, finds, get lost,
sit cross-legged and meditate on old love pain,
watch every old love turn to gold.
I'm going down to Puerto Rico etc
See raindrops and the jungle rainbow, dancin' men;
brown legs walk around on the mud road
far from US smog, war, again
Sit down, empty mind, vomit my holy load
I'm going down to Puerto Rico etc
......