Our main character is introduced as a depressed character who doesn't enjoy life too much and is looking for change. He hasn't had much luck, having already been left by his wife and been through a bad sickness. Our main character is a bored New York writer who seems eager for adventure and a change of scenery. His luck turns around when he meets Dean Moriarty, another writer who is looked up to almost immediately by the main character and so the journey to follow Dean to the West begins.
This journey is long, tiresome, and looks very difficult, but the narrator is settled on making it there sooner or later. This journey takes the narrator into a type of personality search, but what is he after? Is he looking for an adventure he can write about, is he looking for love, or is he just in it for the thrill of following Dean and finding what it is that he can truly enjoy in life?
Through this journey, the narrator wakes up in a hotel and doesn't know who or where he is, but maybe by the end of the trip he will have a clear answer to his questions. Along the trip, with all the hitchhiking, the new people he meets such as Eddie or Montana Slim, and all the bars he goes to, the readers can tell that the narrator is finding enjoyment in an experience which most people would find very unpleasant. He has almost no money, no sure transportation, and doesn't really know anyone, but the narrator enjoys himself and does nothing but think ahead about his future fun in Denver with Dean and the rest of his friends.
I do believe you are correct in saying that Sal is looking for an adventure when traveling across the nation. It is an adventure that he has been waiting for for a long time; his dream from since he was young. This destiny wish is something like what you said, a personality search, but, I think it might be more than just that. I believe that Sal is really searching for his true place in society and the meaning of his existence within his surrounding community and Dean is his way of finding his place among his fellow man. Destiny has provided Sal with a new guide to the new journey and I believe that Sal will get through his self-consciousness with the help of motivation and will power.
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