Jack Kerouac believed that the purified poet, the poet who has purged all non-poetic aspects of his character, is much more useful to society than one who knows himself perfectly. The concept of a self detracts from an artist’s ability to see the potential of reality, and he must transcend its limits.
Lucien Carr was the muse of the beatniks in the very beginning. "Lucien Carr’s extreme behavior was illustrated by his fondness for what he and his friends called the acte gratuit. In essence, the acte gratuit was an act motivated purely by a desire to transgress established norms – to fight the depersonalizing forces imposed by society, the same about which Dostoevsky wrote and against which Raskolnikov rebelled. The acte gratuit celebrated the beauty of experiencing creation, regardless of its ends (just as the New Vision “celebrated the transcendental act of making art more than beauty the product”). Each such act was a form of debauchery, “the release of man from whatever stringencies (sic) he’s applied to himself.” "The acte gratuit was a powerful tool in the search for self-knowledge, which Rimbaud prescribed. It was a means of exhausting “all the poisons, to keep only their quintessences.” Lucien Carr used these acts as a method to attain transcendence. The fact that this method had failed Rimbaud did not dissuade Carr. He sunk a yacht – not his own – just for the experience of standing on the deck of sinking ship. He chewed up a wine glass after downing its contents. He tore apart a suit Burroughs was wearing because he saw a hole in the sleeve. At a restaurant, he threw a huge steak onto the floor, just to see how the waiter would respond. He convinced Kammerer, who suffered from ulcers, to swallow an entire teaspoon of paprika. He attempted suicide. Although these examples were typical of Lucien’s behavior, they were not exactly unique: what made them different were that they mirrored Carr’s beliefs. It was through these acts that Carr made himself the “art” of the New Vision, and the centerpiece of the Libertine Circle."