An open letter to young hippies

Original post is awesome, spot on. when i get romantic about the times past, my husband (who is much older) reminds me similarly. be here now, this is your age. never before has there been such amazing technology, advances in medicine, you can talk to people from all over the world, travel....

 

I know that the Hippie movement of the 60's was inspired by earlier pioneers like Johhny Appleseed Chapman, Thoreau, Walt Whitman, Muir, Ginsberg and many others. They inspire me and I am grateful for the best aspects of the 60's hippie movement.

But when it is all said and done, I agree with your husband. If we have any hope of making a future that is green, human-centered, peaceful, respects diversity and cultural sharing, and freedom-loving, we need to focus on the task at hand.

Ever tried to stitch up a ripped shirt, ever tried to work with a circular saw while looking off somewhere else? Please don't!

 

Great, just great! I'm 63 and I've heard a lot of shit in my life but you my younger brother are handing out some really righteous thoughts. Thank You. Old John.

 

Well said! Hippies are not restricted to the 60s. There are issues to fight in the present just like there was back then.

 

Thanks. Usually I bump this one when there is another "I wish I was there" thread. It's nice when I don't have to.

C/S,
Rev J

 

JC, if a hippy told you the same stuff when you were young, what effect would it have had on you now?

 

Probably none since I was brought up by hippie parents who didn't really shield me from shit. It wasn't like I just heard The Dead, read The Electric Koolaid Acid Test, and smoked a joint then decided "Holy shit! I want to be a hippie! I wish I was alive then!"

C/S,
Rev J

 

Great message! It is annoying when people do that... time passes, the 60's are gone, but that doesn't mean the movement is over, or we can never have things that existed back then again, although I'm sure several aspects would take quite a lot to bring back, hahaha
On a more serious note, some things will change to suite the new time, the new generation as well. But that's okay. One has to live one's own life, not someone else's, one that's already been lived... that's the real irony of it, as the lifestyle is supposed to be about living true to yourself.

 

actually rev, I respectfully disagree with you. a lot of people give me shit because they don't understand my name - I was born 25 years too late to protest those causes. too late to link up arms and take a hit from a firehose so someone else wouldn't. not gonna go 'fuck you, you're wrong', because for the main part.. you're right. but there's a few of us that know what the weathermen were up to, and why the movement and spirit was there, and how the party and the fun, well that was just the high of the trip, but to have that high.. well, you gotta come down sometime.. you gotta pick up the brother you never met before who got a bottle hucked at him cause he has dark skin, and bandage him up, cause the racist hospitals won't admit him, you gotta protest cause your cousin got drafted and you know odds are, you're never gonna see him again, and all the money men don't give a shit. you gotta take your sister that you ain't never met before across 3 states to meet with a doctor who'll help her out. why? because it's the /right/ thing. it's the valley of two bowls - everybody's sitting around the rims with chopsticks longer than their arms.. long enough they can't reach their own mouths... one bowl's surrounded by chubby happy people, laughing and smiling, and the other bowl, everybody's gaunt and miserable.. the only difference? one set only cares about feeding each other, ad they don't have to worry about their own hunger.. the other bowl everybody's concerned about their own hunger, and so nobody eats.

would I love to go back and drift about a bit, have a bit of grass in my pocket and encounter some free lovin? fuck yes, i'd be stupid not to.. but I'd have a record too. because it was about trying to make the world better, not just my own little life.

I actually found your open letter in this thread, and I wanted to tag in my response.

Modern Day Hippies Vs 60S/70S

 

It's funny that this is coming back up now since I sited it on a skateboarding website on why I found a kid putting his location on a forum as "Strawberry Fields" cringy.

C/S,
Rev J

 

ok, that is both ironic and cringy. thanks for the laugh!

 

Usually people call me a hippie because of my attitude and when they hear me talk about what I think is wrong with our society. I go on about how people should just mind their business and let people who aren't hurting anyone live their lives. I think what Rev is talking about are the self proclaimed hippies. It's not a club you join, where you get a uniform fringed top and bellbottom pants with a token nickel bag. It's more of a state of mind, and a hunger for progression and change.

I don't call myself a hippie, but I do so love flowers in my hair and it gives that impression lol

 

so does every girl with a snapchat account.

 

OP makes an excellent point. I've often said the same things about the 50s. People look back on the 50s like some kind of societal utopia--and that's only because they've chosen to ignore Jim Crow, McCarthyism, The Korean War, ever-present threat of nuclear Armageddon, women who were supposed to be seen and not heard, etc.

No way in hell would I ever want to live in any point in the past. Things just keep getting better as time moves on.

 

Hahaha this thread was fun to read back over but dear god did this make me cringe. I was so green and idealistic

I was just reminiscing about this the other day, we DID start a paper and dear god it sucked. It did not change the world

And why did we think a print paper was a good idea. this was 2010

Okay sorry, carry on

 

Abstract: “All they really cared about was drugs, drugs, drugs. They were nihilists and hedonists. They just supported anything that was against the establishment. There was no intellectual foundation. The spirit everyone had talked about—the feeling of love and new age and progressive politics—was dying a miserable death.”

The Death of the Hippies - The Atlantic

 

It's interesting that I wrote that in the pre Trump era and how much worse it's gotten. Lately I've been following the slow death of Qanon on Twitter. It's weird to see a faceless cult developing and from what I see dying. I never thought I would see that in my lifetime. Granted I never thought I'd see someone more corrupt than Nixon as president.

C/S,
Rev J