Cowboy of the road

I've lived in Louisiana for most of my life, so I've heard my fair share of stereotypes about being a Southerner: We all eat alligators like Bobby Boucher of "The Water Boy," and we have some hick accent filled with "y'all"s left and right. Well, I will openly admit that I say "y'all" here and there, but I promise I don't eat alligators on the grill. I'd say Jack Kerouac met a man during his journeys who has a much thicker accent than anyone I've ever met in Louisiana:

"I heard a great laugh, the greatest laugh in the world, and here came this rawhide oldtimer Nebraska farmer with a bunch of other boys into the diner; you could hear his raspy cries clear across the plains, across the whole gray world of them that day. Everybody else laughed at him. He didn't have a care in the world and had the hugest regard for everybody. I said to myself, Wham, listen to that man. That's the West, here I am in the West. He came booming into the diner, calling Maw's name, and she made the sweetest cherry pie in Nebraska, and I had some with a mountainous scoop of ice cream on top. 'Maw, rustle me up some grub afore I have to start eatin myself raw or some damn silly idea like that.' And he threw himself on a stool and went hyaw hyaw hyaw hyaw. 'And throw some beans in it.' It was the spirit of the West sitting right next to me. I wished I had known his whole raw life and what the hell he'd been doing all these years besides laughing and yelling like that. Whooee, I told my soul, and the cowboy came back and off we went to Grand Island." -Chapter 3, pages 18-19

This exerpt emphasizes what Kerouac literally coins "the spirit of the West." There's a certain amount of optimism out West that dates back to when US citizens journeyed into the unknown for riches and land. Nowadays the West is the home of Hollywood...and of course, Texas. There's also a degree of optimism out West, that anyone can make it big if they just work towards their dreams. This man Kerouac encounters seems to embody the spirit that leads to this kind of optimism, and hopefully of success: Not worrying what others think and leading life the way he personally feels he should live it.

It's very interesting to me that Kerouac felt such a strong connection to this man that he was truly interested in knowing everything about this man's past. I can probably count on my two hands the number of people I've met that I've wanted to learn as much about their pasts as I could, and I most of those are now best friends of mine. To be able to feel something like that for a random stranger is very rare indeed.

So my question is this (Well, it's really three questions, but they more or less ask the same thing.): What happened to this spirit of self-expressionism, of self-individuality? Why do so many people seem to be indifferent to those around them? Why aren't there more people like the "rawhide oldtimer" who just live according to their own rules, free of the so-called pressures of others?