What does it mean to be a hippy in the 21st Century?

What does it mean to you? A Spiritual path? One filled with hedonism? Rugged individualism away from any form central government? Or just pissing round crystals and energy points.

 

Very difficult

 

To me, it's going against all those fucking societal condits that strip us of our individuality and force us into a corrupt, greedy institution, being an advocate for the environment and animals, enjoying nature, being oneself, and stuff like that...

 

For me its about freedom not the kind of freedom the "establishment" dims free but freedom within my soul. To create my own reality and encourage others to do the same. For me being a "hippy" is about love and not just for those in your inner circle but love for all life and the fact that all life is sacred. Its about learning how to live within your means and finding creative ways to live outside the establishment. It's about speaking truth and lending a helping hand. The only way we can achieve true peace and love is to live it every day and that's what being a hippy is for me. *LOVE*

 

Nothing. Nothing means anything anymore. It is an empty society today, a completely meaningless culture. It's not even a culture, culture is dead. It's all just mechanics now, running our giant machine to generate power for the few.

 

A way of thinking, to love yourself, your peers, that tree over there and that ant, all living creatures. Love of earth and mother nature, the beauty in the little things, like a simple leaf, such a small common thing that holds so much beauty in its fractal nature.
The ability to have an open mind, a clear chain of thought, to accept new ways of living, and thinking and not being judgemental of others for how they act for we are all human beings, we are all a part of this world and this universe.
The love of music; sound, colours.

 

It's not often that I hear this at all, let alone from someone around my age.

 

It means the same as it always did.. ppl now days just have no inclination to do anything but talk about things needing change. They will not get up and go out and protest, let the poloticians see that we arent taking no more of their greedy, power hungry crap.

They do not want to mess with the seniors bc they know the seniors will storm the whitehouse in their hoover crafts, wheel chairs, walkers and canes. Seniors have little to lose and they dont give a foot if it isnt politicaly correct. They will have depends laying all over the lawn and spent oxygen tanks.

It's bad enough that we havent gotten a cost of living raise in two yrs, even tho the cost of living has sky rocketed in the past two yrs. I do believe that congress gave themselves a raise tho. Oh yes and they bailed out all the thieves that stole our money on market street.. yes they, the government have sold us to china.

The Hippies made a noise, they stood up and said hell no. We faught our War. We did our ten yr tour of duty on the homefront.

Hippies are a dying breed. The youth that call themselves today hippies do not have a clue what a Hippie is. They sit on their spoiled, lazy asses in front of their computers and do nothing but complain.

90% of them would run like hell if they were faced with the army of law inforcement that we were subject to.

Look in the miror and ask yourself what you believe in and if you are ready to fight for your human rights.

 

:iagree:

 

What does it mean to be a hippy in the 21st Century?

:sunny:

Pathetic.

People do nothing.

I haven’t been to or seen or even heard of a good party since ’78. They don’t exist. Which means that most of the people here would have know idea of what I mean when I say good party. You can’t begin to imagine.

They’re right. There is nothing going on. Why? People don’t even care. That’s why.

You guys are all like all of those billions of live bodies in the tubes in the movie The Matrix. Not knowing. Just existing.


I even tried to get something happening here on this sight. Got maybe eight or ten people who wanted to maybe get something going. Over 5,000 people viewed the thread. Less than 200 could even bother type something. Only ten wanted to get together and start a hippies scene or movement. Out of 5,200 viewers.

Pathetic.


In my generation people dropped everything and hitch hiked across the nation or earned the money to fly one way across the oceans to get to the scene where it was all happening. People today can’t get up out of their computer chair.

Some hippies.

That's not hippies.

Pathetic.

 

To me it means nothing. Not because of what primalflow says here:

because I'd say that would give extra meaning to be a hippie in these days, but I don't view today society like that at all. It means nothing because hippie to me is mainly a label of a counterculture from the 60's/70's. I enjoy quite a view characteristics that hang on that label but I do not perceive it as a necessity to enjoy the flowers, other creatures or to be openminded and not judgemental to other people. In other words being a hippie in the 21st century means often that you're conforming to a subculture from the past. This does not count for everyone of course (and in the least for 'old hippies'), I'm just generalizing here.

 

re: the old hippies disillusionment with young hippies, I wonder if you are being a bit over optimistic expecting the people who want to have the same experiences that inspired you to be inspired by a 50 year old white largely middle class and largely white culture?

In the 1960s it was all new, things like synthesisers and even using guitar feedback and distortion had never been heard before, the drugs were unknown to most people, the idea of youth culture was still really young and it had NEVER even questioned the establishment, people didn't have things like the internet and didn't even know about all of the ideas and thinkers, a lot of it was deliberately marginalised or even banned, of course politics was completely different then as well....

We have so much more information now so what shocked and inspired hippies in the sixties is just nothing, only the rich universities had computers and there were only about 10 people on the whole internet

There are still people changing the world and challenging assumptions and ideas with writing, music and so on but why would they be hippies?
The cultural taboos and barriers that the 60s hippies were attacking have mostly disappeared, everyone has seen everything.

Hippy lifestyle is just as accessible as well it just isn't for everyone. I bet there weren't that many more hippies living in hippy communes in 1966 than there are now it's just that it isn't so interesting because it's not something that has never been tried.....

 

Cloaking Device, I applaud you.

Hows the weather in Hangzhou?

Yes, indeed, you are right about so many things.
If you met me and I met you, we would be close friends in so short a time. Alas.

I do agree with you and let me tell you that I lived in the right place in the middle of the moment. I am 60, soon to be 61. I can't teach other people how to party or how to make love and if I could teach something more ultra extreme to all, then, I would. But only for those who seek the key.

There is more that anyone can imagine. And there really are lifestyles that are more wonderful than people can imagine.

As you say. No one has to do anything. However, Can anyone say that they are living their most splendid life, right now? Their dream life? Well, many hippies did just that. Did they do something that others did not? Did they learn something that others have yet to learn?

You are wise.


-------------------------------

Also, I learned programming in 1978. Nine years after a 64k computer landed men on the moon. By '81 I had an Apple II e (e for expandable), a 64k computer, with a big 64k expansion card plugged into it for a big total of a 128k. At the time as high as you could get. Do you like it? And I had a dial-up modem (modem = Modulate - Demodulate, as in FM radio, F. Modulation.) The world was green screens, and still dumb terminals with dial up to phone number subscriber mainframes. Dig that.

Then came BBS and Compuserve. I did that.

I was doing html websites with images before Netscape was invented. The first real web browser. Few people could see images. This was 1995. This was in San Francisco.

This was before they invented the term "Cutting edge" or "Solutions". A few year before e-Commerce.

By 1999, I was building commercial websites on Madison Avenue in New York City, working at a major New York Ad Agency, and working at the New York Stock Exchange for their web-master.

Just some fun stuff. Today I'm laying out Encyclopedias. Cute. I work 1/3 of the year. 2/3s of the year off. Smart hippie.

Could people learn from me? You tell me. Oh, Mighty Cloaked One.

Smiles to you.

BTW.
What does it mean to be a hippy in the 21st Century?

 

this is the most accurate statement i've heard in a long time.

 

Thank you for your very kind words Scorpio Kenny. I don't know if I deserve them just for writing a few thought on a BBS

I am sure that people are living lives now that they didn't even dream about or knew existed, fighting the good fight and so on. From my understanding of the 60s, even by the middle of that decade a lot of the people who inspired and pioneered that lifestyle were disillusioned. I know that Jack Kerouac ended up hating the 60s because so many people were just following his ideas rather than his call to follow your own ideas...

I also think that despite all of this information and so on life can still be incredibly limited, maybe more so since it's harder for young people to find jobs and so on now

I'd be interested about what you think about the organisations like Wikileaks and Anonymous as someone whose seen mass computers and internet grow from a baby? What they are doing seems every bit as important....

I'd like to write more but I have to go out in a second

Smiles back at you

 

With regard to Wikileaks and Anonymous, note that I don't know the first thing about hacking, yet I feel that that is the tip of the iceberg. For instance, your government and my government and others do way more hacking and spying then Wikileaks and Anonymous could ever even remotely dream of doing. The only difference is that the public gets to read their stuff. Hacking and raiding systems has been going on for years now. It's only important in that it is a chapter in an on going saga. It is a historical first though, and it's about public exposure.

I could make millions as a computer security specialist in this day and age.

I hear you about Kerouac. He was a beat and the older generation, and many of them didn't want to deal with all of the new seekers arriving on what had been their scene. In the Summer of 1967 their small cool neighborhood got buried with tons of people from all over the world. Some people hated that. Some people dug it.

Yes, we have all kinds of wonderful new toys to play with. Right now is the coolest time for that. However, humans are tribal, social, interacting animals. What happens when we live apart from one another in isolation and with little human interaction and connection? This is counter-humanity. This is not us. Is this our present and are only future?

For me. I'm still in touch with my commune buddies. In person, by phone, and through this web site. Family. Tribe. We had times together and we still do, today. I have real social connection.

I feel sorry for others today who don't know this feeling.
Humans are a million years of tribal. We are.

There are always pioneers somewhere. Too few. Nearly all today are disillusioned.
Which is better, in your estimation?

:sunny:

What does it mean to be a hippy in the 21st Century?

 

For me it isn't so much about trying to make a change on a grand level. I believe in peace on a global level. But there isn't much I can do about it from where I sit. But I also believe in peace on a local level. I believe in doing what you can do.

I can't stop the bombs from falling in Afghanistan but I can work in or near my own neighborhood.

Currently I work with disabled people. Monday through Friday I help a 9 year old autistic boy who can't talk at an inner-city after school program. Saturday and Sunday I help 2 quadriplegic men get dressed, fed, and in their wheelchairs.

Even though I work mostly one to one with the Autistic boy I still interact with the other kids. Sometimes I have to step in and help them to resolve conflicts non-violently. I hope that the tactics that I teach them will stick and prevent more violence from happening.

Perhaps this is what it means to be a hippie in the 21st century. It means that rather then pissing in the ocean you clean up a mud puddle. If everybody on this site did one little thing to help somebody else today. One thing. It doesn't mean painting the white house black. It doesn't mean blocking the runway so a bomber can't fly off. It doesn't mean hacking a computer system or compromising a security system. That to me is just an ego move to see your groups name in the paper. What I'm saying is hand out meals to the homeless. Volunteer at your local library or youth program. Support organizations like Amnesty International or Axis of Justice.

Every body has skills and talents. If you are an artist you can find a way to use your art to create change. If you are a musician you can use that as a soapbox to create change.

Everyone can do simple things to create small changes that add up to larger change. That is what it means to be this now and to wear this label.

Stay Brown,
Rev J

 

politics, human rights, freedom to be yourself and love yourself. That's what it is for me at least.

 

Religiously listen to 60's and early 70's music, smoke tons of pot, hot glue things to things, be a lemur, eat your greens, sit under trees. you know, wise guy stuff.

 

I was thinking that it depends on how you define a "hippy".

For some, I think they define hippies as social change agents.

Others, more of a spiritual way of life

and others, lazy, pot-smoking, no-do-gooders.

For me personally, it is me trying to embrace this compromise or say balance, in this main-stream life. It is about acceptance of others, of yourself. Standing up for what you believe in, but at the same time knowing that more often than not others will not change. "You must be the change you want to see in the world." (Mahatma Gandhi)

What I appreciate about this site, is that it helps and encourages me to try and reconnect with my inner self. Too often, society and social norms, channel you into this robot, and I have always seen hippies as not getting sucked into that whether collectively or individually. The thing is, I have always associated hippies with happy people .... eace: