Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums
Pg. 227

“Well I don’t care all I want is to be alone up there this summer. You’re saying that now but you’ll change your tune soon enough. They all talk brave. But then you get to talkin to yourself. That ain’t so bad but don’t start answerin yourself, son.

Ray is talking to Happy the muleskinner about his trip over the summer when he will be alone. Happy is telling him to go, take it all in but stop when necessary. For if Ray needs to stop and leave, not for him to stay out there just to prove he can. Go until you know the time for him is right to sop.

Pg. 235

“In fact I realized that they were upside down and I was upside down! There was nothing here to hide the fact of gravity holding us all intact upside down against a surface globe of earth in infinite empty space. And suddenly I realized I was truly alone and had nothing to do but feed myself and rest and amuse myself, and nobody could criticize. The little flowers grew everywhere around the rocks, and no one had asked them to grow or me to grow.”

Ray is on top of a mountain standing on his head looking at the other mountains realizing that he is entirely alone now, defending for himself. He was in complete serenity and enjoying it, he had come a long journey to get to this point where he was alone in total comfort. The mountains surrounding him were all the peaks that had alarming names, while he was upside down it seemed as he looked at the mountains the looked like “bubbles” they seemed harmless and new because they were in a different perspective.