This is the story of America. Everybody's doing what they think they're supposed to do.

The line reads as a dry, almost resigned summation of a national pattern: people follow scripts—social roles, economic expectations, family duties—because those scripts are presented as what one “should” do. In Kerouac’s orbit, that idea often sits in tension with the Beat pursuit of spontaneity, freedom, and authenticity. The quote suggests that much of American life is propelled less by conscious desire than by conformity to inherited norms, producing a collective story made of individual compliance. It can be heard as both empathetic (most people are trying to do right) and critical (the “supposed to” can flatten individuality and obscure deeper longing).