How did you get into the hippy lifestyle?

I followed the music and the concept of nature-loving in; discovered there were all really cool, kind, loving people; decided that I grooved on all the positive vibes and love and energy; preferred being outside Babylon than within the safe and secure walls... and just went for it

I believe that's a four step program

 

I'm really not a hippie by any means. I'm quite destructive. I do however like and appreciate nature and all that stuff..
I came here for random stoned conversations.

 

I fell in love with the music first and foremost. My parents and I had a 40-year age gap so I was raised on everything from the 1920's to the 1970's. My dad grew up in the hippy hayday in San Francisco and was a self-proclaimed flower child. He used to tell me crazy concert stories like Janis Joplin falling off the stage drunk or loaded on drugs and the loyal fans in the front row hoisting her back up to continue the show. When I learned of all the cultural, spiritual and just flat-out loving and welcoming diversity of hippies, I knew right away that I was one, even though I was born in the 80's when the heart of the movement had long passed over.

 

Adolescence in the 70's, grew up in lockdown with abusive mormons, freedom was air and I grew up with a pillow over my face. When the TV show "Kung Fu" came out, Kwai Chang Caine was my hip icon pointing the way over the fence. There was a kenpo school in town and the founder of the style was a mormon, I conned my adoptive parents that it was an all mormon operation, they thought other mormons would now knock some sense into me. Not too high on smarts, sending your punching bag to karate school just before he hits his growth spurt.

I found my voice. My big rebellion was just saying "no", no, you're not going to beat me, and no, I'm not having anything to do with your cult. Left home at sixteen, been a vagabond ever since.

 

It was gradual. I grew up in a trailer park in the woods, always was a nature and animal lover and abstained from the meat of wild animals even as a small child. I didn`t think it was fair to kill wild animals when we had animals raised for food already. Always had a thing for 60s and 70s music, my parents told me that as a baby I would bob my head to Carol King`s "I Feel The Earth Move". At age 12 my Dad showed me the movie Yellow Submarine, around the same time I was reading up online about animal abuse and the environment. At age 13 I became a vegetarian (though after 7 years I`ve now converted to Pescetarian) and got my first records (The Beatles "Help!" soundtrack and "The Monkees"). After a while as I got deeper into the music and learned more of the hippie movement. I realised that I agreed with much of it and in fact already acted apon many of the ideals of the movement.
Now whether or not I consider myself a hippie, I don`t know. I`m not much for being stereotyped and don`t want to confine myself to a label. Not to mention I wasn`t there.

 

I was born into it.. My parents were beatniks...

 

It started here.... I was 8 years old and this song changed everything. Hard to explain, but I have an affinity to this era, it's music, art, expression, the drugs (of course) acceptance of things that were different. I was to young but felt that I should have been there, sometimes I feel like I was there... I'm still living it. As I said, hard to explain.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UN2VNFpiGWo

 

I was raised to be kind to everyone, to be peaceful, to love animals and nature, to educate others, to have an open mind... I've just always held many hippie viewpoints. I think I took it even farther than my mom expected though....ha. I'm much more of a hippie than she is, but she laid the basic foundation that helped me to become this way myself.

I think my life circumstances and upbringing have naturally helped me as well. I come from a multi-cultural household and I am very ethnically mixed (Native American, French, Irish, Palestinian, German, Canadian). My parents met in Japan and I have lived outside of the country at different points in my life (including Cairo, Egypt). This traveling started early on. My family has never been typical in any way. There are 10 of us (sometimes 11 or more, people come and go). I have relatives of every race and major religion.

I was born and raised in New Orleans, so that also prepared me to expect the unexpected. Nothing really surprises me.

From the time I was a baby, I felt a strong connection to nature and animals (more than to people!) My ultimate dream is for the entire world to be happy, love everyone else, live in peace, and become one big earth family.

 

How? Full hit of windowpane at 28 certainly helped. When I survived the constrictions of the 40s-50s and observed the beginning of the

freedoms that Kesey and others were 'taking'--it was pretty natural.

( quit drinking for 22 years after that hit and lost my dangerous and stupid alcoholic ways, not to mention gaining some powers of

introspection. More hits were to follow.)