The picturesque appellation of American slang to these young fugitives from the whole educational-economic system--"dropouts from the rat race"--implies a mentality of negative criticism of modern society which usually is sterile. Such persons take as alternatives an aimless existence of drifting, hitchhiking, drugs, sex, petty theft, or other things. Sadhus, faqueers, monks, nuns, and hermits may also be fugitives, yet their reaction is positive and affirmative. They have replaced the lost aim in life by what seems to them to be a higher one, by the cultivation of the soul, by the labours of self-purification and holiness or by the exploration of the spiritual consciousness. Some even devote themselves to the service of humanity in some form. All accept, at least theoretically, a moral restraint absent in the other group.
-- Notebooks Category 13: Human Experience > Chapter 3 : Youth and Age > # 87
