An open letter to young hippies

The reason why I don't believeee a Hippie movement like that of the 60's
won't comebacck again, is because today we got "computers Hippies".
that movement wasn't done with technology, it was with human warmth,
and lots of music. When the radio to hear good music, and good bands, where more important, now we have the SCREEN GOD, in our image society.

Maybe things are headed more into meditation, so things are done, with a different way, in silence.

The 60's were an experiment, and experiments arer always fun.

 

I know this is an old thread but, if you think that type of trip sounds fun, remember the end of the movie Easy Rider?
'nuff said.

 

Why? Is that an inevitable end of the trip

 

I hope no one is waiting for hippie lifestyle and attitudes to become popular, to get widespread attention from the news media again before making it your own.

The hippie movement was just the beginning of learning and doing and improving society.
Think about new knowledge we have gained in solar and other renewable power, new environmental groups, nurturing crafts and the arts, new healthy foods that were unknown in the 60's, more natural lifestyles, new opportunities for creating community.

But a lot of people here feel isolated, surrounded by negative attitudes, the demand for conformity.

I think the opportunities for living the hippie dream are better than ever if you break the isolation. Hip people should find one another to share love, to gain courage and strength and wisdom.

Growth in numbers will come if we focus on what we can do in our corner of the world.

 

Exactly! ^ i have met so many people online, wishing they live din the 60s. and they all tend to be scattered around the world, not in one place. how amazing it would be for us all to live aorund each other!

 

This is NOT what garden meant.

I think rev said this, not sure.... but I'm paraphrasing anyways:

If you want to experience being a hippie in the 60's, get a few friends together in a "probable cause mobile" (painted VW bus, and btw, they broke down left n' right, and parts where hard to get, still are) and go on a road trip with NO money through the deep south, and see how many times you get called nasty names, get told to move along from a town, how many times you get pulled over and searched, how many times you get arrested, how many times you get beat up, shot at, etc.....

The point is that there's never been a better time to be you, the hippie movement was in response to a strait laced culture that........ sucked. There's still music festivals (lots more, in fact) there's better pot, there's mainstream acceptance of "hippie" ideas, there's cheap video cameras to help protect you from police abuses, and the list goes on. We get in a tizzy when they pepper spray protesters, go look up kent state, the fucking national guard SHOT a bunch of unarmed college students........

The only thing to worry about is an increasingly fascist government. But that's just like the 60's, so you should love it! Get politically active, I guess.

 

Well, maybe not all hippies living in one place, but for God's sake at least find a few kindred spirits where you are. Failing that, go to them! Find folks who help people, who care about the Earth, who think outside the box.
Then figure out what things really express who you are and set some goals.

Being a hippie in this day and age can mean a lot of different things...
I know of one guy who knows how to drill wells and he is going to Africa where people are dying from dirty water and providing clean water for them.
I've got kin involved in marine mammal and sea turtle rescue.
I know people who are committed to green energy.
I have friends into organic gardening and teaching others how to do it.
Politics? Yeah there's room for people who want to run for office and serve or people who work behind the scenes helping those good people get elected to public office.
Others become journalists and simply tell the truth to the public at great personal risk.
Some hippies are artists and crafters.
Some have gone back to the land and created communes, intentional communities where they are more free than folks in the suburbs.
Some of my hippie friends are nudists at home and nudist camps go to nude beaches or in secluded campouts. The Woodstock-era skinny dipping was just a taste of the new freedom people are finding when they discover that life is usually better in just your skin (when you are among people who treat you and your nudity with the respect it deserves).
Many hippies love to travel and learn about other cultures and share what they learned.
Some folks are on a spiritual quest and enrich all our lives by what they know.

I am grateful for what I have learned from my older hippie relatives, and what I have learned from books, Whole Earth Catalog and the Internet. There's a lot more to the hippie thing than reminiscing, wearing tie-die, beads and long hair.
It's okay to try the fashions, but dig deeper and find out what it is really all about!

 

when I wrote that, I totally thought it was in a different thread......

 

Wow! Such inspiration, thank you!!

 

yes indeed.

 

Watch a video where Terrence McKenna interviews Ram Dass. Terence McKenna keeps saying "the 60s failed but the 90s will be another 60s," Ram Dass keeps saying "it didn't fail, its effects are still reverberating."

 

I get a kick out of this. All these bright & intelligent kids wanting to be hippies. They wanna live "back in the day".

Excuse me for a moment.


What the fuck is wrong with TODAY?!?!?!?!
Hellllll...oooo...oooo! Listen up kids! You don't need the past. It's already here.

Compare-
Vietnam - PG1, PG2, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.
American politics in the late sixties - American politics now.
The 1970s' fuel shortage - Todays' fuel prices getting jacked our of sight.
The price of gold in the 1970s - The price of gold today.

You couldn't see the forest because of the trees.
You don't need "back in the day". The past is here. It's back. Time for you kids to quit trying to live the glory of the past and start creating a future today.

 

I often heard from 50/60yo peoples that the good thing about 60s and 70 was that it was easy to find a job (in France at least) which gave them some freedom (they didn't necessarily have to graduate to get some work).

Anyway, I agree with OP

PS : somebody talked about "the electric prunes" somewhere, I guess he didn't mean the band (i hope anyway ^^)

 

I know there are not as many jobs as 30 or 40 years ago, but didn't war and hostile establishment force hip people to help one another back then?

We could wait on the economic recovery or government to help us (and I hope both things happen) but why not help one another now?

As I suggested recently, Creative Loafing is a counterculture newspaper and we can use its classified ads for jobs, shelter, etc. to help one another!

 

Great letter. I think most people just want to go back to see what it was like moreso than be counterproductive but, idk. I kinda like this day and age..just the way things work bother me a bit.

 

I think that the idealism, hope for a better life, excitement at learning new things is what captures the best of the hippie movement in the 1960's, but some of their inspiration came from the beatniks, the coffee houses of the 50's and even the nudists (a decade which is generally characterized as conformist and square). And some of the beatniks got their inspiration from the activists of the 1930's, the poets and authors of even earlier generations.

So we should not feel bad that our desire to be "hip" is not entirely original, but we can and must make it our own.

We have the added advantage of the surviving hippies who live on to inspire us, the knowledge about healthy foods, their environmental knowledge and their experience with communal living, social activism and radical thinking "outside the box".

We must take all this to the next level and fight back against the constant onslaught of propaganda from corporations, right wingers (and even some left-wingers who are a little locked into their own biases).

Sometimes the best way to "fight" something is to offer a clear working alternative.
And when it comes to green energy, healthy foods, natural living (even occasional nudity if you dare), new literature and arts, learning from other cultures while cherishing our own folk roots, social justice, there's just way too much to recommend what typifies hip people not to attract lots of favorable attention. But the constant media misinformation and entrenched stale ideas of the establishment will not go away quickly.
We are in this for the long haul.

But having said all this, digging up those old photos and videos from the time of the 60's and early 70's Flower Children is just pure joy and inspiration.
We also know that some things went terribly wrong and the USA and the world is not yet where it needs to be. It's okay to grieve a little for what might have been, but we need to be taking notes, making plans and overcome those setbacks.

And maybe some of you need some pure hippie bliss!
Attend Bonaroo or a Rainbow Gathering. Plant an organic garden this summer. Find a secluded lake or beach and go skinny dipping with a friend. Take a vacation from your suburban prison and go to places like Little 5 Points in Atlanta and check out the concerts, are there any progressive causes where you live? Food pantries? Sierra Club? Other environmental groups? Alternative health providers?
Your local situation will dictate how to find kindred spirits, but the best way to honor the 60's hippie movement is to create a 2012 summer of peace and love and keep rockin' on!

 

I wish I lived in the '70's.

 

I did. I was your age in the 70's :2thumbsup:

 

It's not about wishing to be apart of society. When I wish back to then I just wish I could've been at Woodstock or at all these great shows and seeing all these great performers perform live and to dose it up when it was good times and nobody knew any better

 

I just love the music, acid, and weed. And from stories I've heard those were the days. Today sucks. Nothing to do.