Aging Capriciously

It is a time of happiness.  After thinking about times of sorrow, it seems right that we should reflect on the times of happiness in our lives.  It is easy to forget the times of happiness when we are feeling pain or sorrow. As in the sorrows in our life, most of the things that bring us the greatest happiness have to do with people.  Money, possessions, material goods and things never bring true happiness. 

Karen and I have gone on many trips over the years to other countries. We have been to over 33 countries and almost all of the US and Canada.  On several of these trips (but not all) we have been fortunate to make friends with people. Sometimes, it has been with local people we met accidently and other times it was with people we stayed with or did some business with on our trip.  Without a doubt, the trips where we met people have been our most fun, memorable and happiest trips. Sartre is reputed to have written that: “Hell is other people.” Perhaps this is true at times but it is even truer that “Happiness is other people.” People bring us the joy and pleasure in our lives.  People create the warmth and empathy that validate our existence and our undertakings. Things and objects do not validate or create warmth or support. When you are down or feeling depressed, you cannot talk to your car or boat or house. When you want to feel recognized for something you have accomplished, your things will not provide such recognition.

Whether it is your family, your children, your spouse or your friends, there is hardly a day that goes by when you are not thinking about them, playing with them or working with them in some way.  All of these interactions are what life is really about.  It is not about richness in things, it is about richness in people.  The time that we spend with people brings happiness and joy to our lives. True, people can disappoint, hurt and disrespect you, but eventually you move on and look for new relationships or you try to rebuild and make your old relationships better.  The time that you spend building relationships with people will be rewarded many times over. Would we spend so much time on relationships if people truly were hell? 

Think about all the happiness in your life today.  Think about your past happiness.  Who has helped to bring joy to your life? What relationships do you need to spend more time on?  What relationships need to be changed?  Spending time on relationships will be the most valuable time you can ever spend. 

Have you ever been told “It is a time of sorrow?” There are many times of sorrow for each of us in our lives. As much as we may try to escape these sorrowful times, they are inescapable. From birth to death, our lives are punctuated by times of sorrow. Fortunately, our sorrows are interspersed with happiness.  Each of handle sorrow in different ways, but we all share the pain, grief and suffering that goes with it.

Most sorrow comes from loss, loss of people we love or care about. While we might have sorrow over things, it is never as deep or painful as sorrow over people or even pets that we loved.  The loss of a loved one seems to leave a hole that never quite fills. We continue to think about them long after they have gone. Little things bring back the memories and times we shared. Sometimes, we think happily but wistfully about what might have been or what we should have done or said. 

Sometimes the sorrow is deep and sometimes not so deep, but always it will be lingering. Remember the song, “I am a man of constant sorrow.”  I think that song resonated with many of us because life sometimes seems overwhelmed by sorrows.  As we grow older, we face more and more of these sorrows.  We know that it is inevitable that our friends, pets, relatives and loved ones will pass away.  We know that we too shall pass. However, it isn’t our coming death that is most sorrowful for us.  In fact, of all the people whom we know will die in our lives; our own death will probably be the easiest. Our spouses, children or parents will most likely be the hardest.  

I joke with Karen that I want to go first, but we both know it is no joke.  I am being selfish.  I don’t want to deal with the sorrow. The number of spouses that die very shortly after their loved ones seems beyond mere coincidence.  It is hard to continue life without someone who loves you or someone whom you have spent most of your life with.  It may be easier to fact death than to face sorrow. How do you deal with sorrow? What sorrows linger in your life? Do you honor or ignore your feelings of pain and grief?  Do you accept the sorrow that some days bring or do you try to ignore and shut it out?  

Have you ever had one of those days, weeks or perhaps lives, where you are continually running from one thing to another?  No time to think, no time to eat, no time to breath!  Busy, busy, busy.  Well, that’s okay you say, because some day you will retire and everything will change.  Sounds good, but if you are like most people, it is a pipedream.  Most of the people I know who have retired will tell you that they are now busier than when they were working.  This does not make sense.  How can you possibly be busier when you are not working than when you are working?  This is a good question to ponder.  Let me share with you a typical schedule from one of the “retirement” centers near where we live in Arizona:  The Galloping Seniors Retirement Park:

8 AM                  Yoga on chairs

9 AM                  Dance lessons:  Waltz, Modern Dance (Tango optional)

10 AM                Card Games:  Bridge, Poker  (5 dollar limit on pot)

11 AM                Bingo

12 PM                Potluck Lunch

I PM                   Golf Tee off or balance training

3 PM                  Pickleball  (book club optional)

4:30 PM             Patio Drinks (Alcohol optional)

5:00 PM             Dinner for seniors (low calorie)

7:00 PM             Classic Movie Time or old reruns of Lawrence Welk show

9:00 PM             Bedtime

If you have any left over time, you might have grand-parenting responsibilities, church responsibilities, club memberships, family commitments, gardening, blogging, social clubs, continuing education and the occasional part-time job.  Then you have to factor in doctor appointments for increasing medical problems.  I have little doubt that the reason many old people talk about health incessantly is that medical problems and time spent dealing with them become a dominant use of time.   Medical problems are not optional like Pickleball. 

There is a simple solution to the problem of time.  Don’t retire!  Continue doing what you have done for the rest of your remaining life. Why screw things up with a new schedule when you have spent many years adjusting to the old schedule.  If you were not happy with your pre-retirement life what makes you think you will be any happier with a new post-retirement plan?    I know what you are thinking:  “How can he say that.  I have been working for thirty years with a dream of retirement and living each day fishing and golfing and he wants me to continue to work.  Is he nuts?”   One good reasons is that many studies show that people do not live long after they retire but then who really believes all of these so called scientific studies anyway. 

However, there are several other practical reasons not to retire. One is that you will not have to worry about the government taking your Medicare and social security benefits away.  Think of all the stress this will take off of your life knowing that you are not dependent on the government to pay for your increasing taxes and health care.  Of course, this will probably be offset somewhat by your rising health care costs which shortly before you die will exceed the national deficit.  I am sure you are all familiar with the costs of keeping an elderly person alive.  It goes up exponentially with each week or month aspired to.  Karen says that we should each live to be about 90 years old.  I figure that during my last year on this earth, I will probably contribute at least a million dollars to support the medical establishment.  By continuing to work, I can defer the costs somewhat and feel more useful even as my bones ache and my mobility diminishes.  In addition, when you are working, you get the weekends off.  Have you ever heard of a retiree with the weekends off?  This reminds me of another reason for the lack of time when we retire.

Have you ever noticed that retirees and the elderly move more slowly?  They also drive more slowly.  This means more time is spent simply getting from one place to another.  When we were young, we could go from A to B in zero time.   As teenagers we zipped from one place to another in the blink of any eye.  Now that we are older, we wait for the red light.  We look both ways before crossing the street.  We hold onto the bannister when walking up and down stairs.  We ponder the varieties and freshness of fruit and vegetables at the grocery store. We also take much longer in the buffet lines as we decide which non-healthy foods we dare take today. 

Karen keeps reminding me that I am going to grow old someday, but I am putting it off by not retiring.  When anyone asks if I am going to retire, I tell them my plan is to retire when I am 93.  With any luck, my job will still be in vogue and I can continue motivating students who need to develop career skills so that they can dream of retirement someday.  I hope to counter this dream of retirement by extolling the virtues of working until we die.  Why should anyone feel that they are entitled to quit being productive?  Why should the elderly feel that the young should support their flamboyant and hectic retirement lifestyles?  

Are you dreaming of retirement?  What will you do with your time?  What could help you to enjoy your retirement time more?  What can you do to help insure that your retirement is really a chance to enjoy life more and not fill your time with escapist activities?  The real danger of retirement in my opinion is that we think we can retire from life. 

Retire from work, but not from life.
— M. K. Soni

A mentor of mine told me that if I was going to write a blog, run a consulting firm or do anything in life, I should focus on the positive and not the negative.  I can hear his advice echoing each day in my mind.  Focus on the positive.  Focus on the positive. There is enough negative in the world.  You will help the world more by bringing more positive thoughts, hopes and aspirations into the world than focusing on the negative.  This has not been an easy task for me and one I still struggle with.  I tend towards the pessimistic side of life.  I see the stupidity as easily or even more easily than I do the intelligent things that go on in life.  It is like the one rotten apple that spoils the barrel.  It is easier to pick out the negative headlines than it is the positive headlines.  “Hey, don’t the negative headlines sell newspapers?”  Who would tune in every day to the news or Tele if they were bombarded with a constant stream of positive news?  In a way, that is a funny question.  Wouldn’t you think we would all like to be bombarded with “good news?”  Apparently, the reporters, talking heads and other commentators don’t think so.  I wonder what the reality is.   Would the public quickly stop buying newspapers and watching news on the web and TV if they were given as much good news as they currently get bad news? 

Nevertheless, the key issue here is a personal one.  Do I join the crowd and talk about the evil and bad things we all do and provide sage wisdom on how to repair the world or do I share advice and positive information that I hope will help you to use your time and money more wisely.  If we all used our time and money more wisely, wouldn’t the world be a better place?  Think of the mistakes that you have made in choices affecting your use of time and money.  Who we spend our time with and perhaps who and what we have spent our money on to a large extent defines our lives.  What if we were guided by the positive in everything we did and bought? 

Many years ago, when I was even more opinioned, a professor in the department where I was a graduate student proudly announced his purchase of a new sailboat.  It was quite a large boat and very ostentatious. I dared to question him about such a large purchase when there was so much poverty in the world.  He tartly replied that it was “my money and I can do with it as I please.”  Some thirty years later, this comment still evokes the question in my mind “Can we really just spend our money and time as we please or do we owe the world anything?”  I am not sure I could answer that question to your satisfaction.  I am not even sure that if you or I said no, it would make us better people than someone who said “heck yes.”  Does it matter how we spend our time and money if we are not hurting anyone else?   Perhaps, it requires a wisdom that is well beyond me to answer this question.  However, I hear the word of John Donne that:

I have little doubt that our actions all affect others and their actions affect us. We live in a world that is more united and interconnected than we tend to realize.  The butterfly beating its wings in China most assuredly has an impact on the weather half way around the world.  Whether or not the changes and effects of our actions is noticeable or whether they make a significant difference is one of those unknowns that may well be unknowable.  However, everything both science and spirituality teaches us is that we are interdependent and that our actions have mutual and reciprocal effects. 

Thus, the question and issue that I return to is does being more positive than more negative create a better world for all?  Maybe the more important question is what does negativity do or do not do for us?  Does being negative change anything? Does it make you feel better?  Do you really enjoy a barrage of negativity all day long?  Would your day be more productive and happier if you could focus more on the negative?  I would love to hear your comments on this question or any insights you may have.  Simply post your comments in the section below. 

“There is a time for sowing and a time for reaping, a time to give birth, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to uproot what is planted.  A time to tear down, and a time to build up.  A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to embrace, and a time to shun embracing; a time to be silent, and a time to speak.” – (Solomon, Ecclesiastes 3:1-8). 

This psalm from Solomon is perhaps the greatest quote on time ever. It is undeniably recognized the world over for its profound wisdom.  It reflects a world where everything has a place and a purpose and the role of time is an overarching foundation for the purpose of life.  Today we weep for a lost friend or spouse, tomorrow we rejoice over a marriage or birth.  Today we fight a war for justice and tomorrow we negotiate for peace.

We think we control time. We believe that we control life and even our own destinies.  The reality is that we have control over some things and some (perhaps the vast majority) we do not.  Solomon’s wisdom counsels us to accept the ups and downs of life. It speaks to life as a flow wherein everything has its place. It counsels us to develop our own wisdom as we progress through life and face its inevitable joys and sorrows.  Do not be saddened by the burdens of life, for tomorrow is always a new day and it will bring new times and new opportunities. You have as much to be optimistic over as you do pessimistic. Optimistic people are happier and live longer.

We may not always be able to control time but we can always choose how we want to spend our time.  We choose our attitudes and we chose the meaning of time to us at any given moment.  I can decide to do what I think is important today or I can spend my day in trivial pursuits.  I can work today to make the world a better place or I can bemoan the lack of good TV programs and its excessive commercialism.  Some days I will be successful and others I will not be in controlling my time.  Perhaps today is a time for failure and tomorrow will be a new opportunity.

What is your time for today?  Life is often a series of cycles, do you live and accept your cycles or do you try to force your time according to some schedule? Do you accept the ups and downs of life? What downs are the most difficult for you to accept?  

Is the day running out and you still have a lot to do?  There does not seem like there is enough time in the day to do everything that needs to be done.  How often do you feel that your day has run out and you have not accomplished anything?  The thought of time running out is intriguing for it suggests that time is like a lake with no inlet but only an outlet.  The water runs out like the time in our day until there is none left.  But how can this be true?  What is time anyway? It is certainly not like water. 

I begin some days with great intentions to work, exercise, write, get some chores done or start a new project. Something interrupts my momentum and it can be all down hill from there.  A friend calls unexpectedly.  I run out of something and have to go to the store to find a replacement. The car breaks down. The weather is good, bad or terrible. There are a million things that can turn my best plans into rubbish.  I started off on the right foot, but the left foot never hit the ground.  Slowly the ticking clock gets closer and closer to bedtime.  Time to quit.  Time to leave.  Time to go someplace else. The plane is waiting. The taxi is waiting.  My friend is waiting. 

Some days my momentum never starts.  I don’t even start off on the right foot.  I have all of these good intentions but I just do not have the energy. Perhaps life seems overwhelming or I feel depressed or I ate too much the day before.  I want to crawl into a hole and hide.  I feel like a failure and the day has not even begun.  I need to get kick started.  I need a coach or something to get me motivated.  As my day begins to run out, I may try to put on a last minute burst of work to get some things done, or I might just say the heck with it.  I will do it tomorrow.  Time runs out and I have not even left the starting gate.  I was picked to win the Kentucky Derby and I can’t even run around the block today.  The other horse have left the gate and I want to go back to bed.  

Maybe, how we feel at the beginning of the day is life sending us a message. “Take it easy today; you have been stressing yourself out too much.”  Or, “Get in gear, you are full of energy and today is a great day to get things done.”  We need to allow life to talk to us and to follow our natural rhythms of ups and downs.  Not every day is a barn burner or “I just climbed Mt. Everest day.”  Life is a series of energy cycles. Allow a cycle of work, play and rest to become part of your life.  Maybe we would all live longer and enjoy life more if we had more “down” days.  Maybe it is time to forget about the clock ticking, the friend waiting, time to leave, and time to quit.  Do what you feel like today.  Go with the flow as we said in the sixties.  Too much time running out makes life miserable. Take control and turn time off. 

Does your life seem to follow natural cycles of play, rest and work?  How do you think your life would be if it did?  What would you have to change to create a more natural cycle time in your life?  When was the last time you had a day just running out and you really did not care? 

We take it for granted that we know what it means to repent.  John the Baptist wandered around the Holy Land telling people to “Repent ye sinners, the end of near.”  Throughout history, one prophet after another has warned us to “repent, repent.”  A sarcastic observer might argue that there is more sinning going on than repenting.  I perceive two possibilities here.  One is that we do not truly know what sin is or how to repent from real sin.  The second is that we don’t believe or perhaps really care if the end is near.  I would like to explore the first of these possibilities today and save the second for some other time.

Two weeks ago, Karen and I went to a Blue Grass Gospel jam at the Methodist church in Lewis. Lewis is a little, emphasis on little, town about 4 miles out of Frederic. They tell me that once upon a time a famous person stayed at a famous hotel in Lewis.  I can only think that it must have been a long long time ago.  If you blinked once, you would not see Lewis as you head up 35 to Siren and points north.  Nevertheless, I should not disparage Lewis since they have a wonderful group of people who get together every few weeks to do a Blue Grass Gospel jam.  This night there were 21 participants. The gender breakdown was 8 women and 13 men. Of the total, about seven or eight were young kids.   Eight of the performers could sing as well as play and there were instrumentals on guitar, mandolin, fiddle, bass, Dobro, harmonica and of course banjo. 

There was plenty of coffee and snacks and people were all friendly. Many of the spectators sang along with the performers and clapped in rhythm to the tunes. We had attended one of these before and it was a fun time for all. This jam started at 6 PM and ended at 9 PM.  At the start of the jam, a young father with his wife and two children did the opening set.  The wife played bass fiddle, the man a guitar, daughter did fiddle and son did banjo.  They were very good.  The only dissonant note was the introduction.  The father started off by noting that the world was now more evil than ever and that we should soon expect to see the coming of Christ who would end this evil world.  Thus, we should all praise Jesus and be ready for his coming.  I did not follow this logic or should I say line of reasoning. 

My thoughts were not exactly on getting ready for the end of the world.  Neither do I think that this world is so evil that it needs to be ended anytime soon.  In fact, I wondered what his two teenage children were thinking about his morbid gloomy thoughts.  Teenagers are not usually noted with thinking too far into the future so no doubt they would be caught unprepared were the world to end soon.  I also wondered why he would start a family if he were so preoccupied with the evil in the world.  Why bother bringing any kids into such an evil world?  This kind of morbid gloomy thinking seems to riddle those who want us to repent and it seems to miss the point.  It is like they have missed the point of the message, Repent, Repent!

The way I see it we all need to be humble (we all sin, make mistakes, screw up and hurt others) but we can all be redeemed from this “sin” by asking forgiveness and something the doomsayers never seem to mention but we must also make amends to those we hurt.  To be honest, I also take issue with the idea of sin that is often portrayed by many religions.  The older I get the more I think evil really exists and evil might be a good metaphor for sin,  However there is a large list of “sins’ that I think get lumped into this pot by organized religions and many of these self-proscribed “holy men.”  Let me list a few things that have been called SINFUL and that I doubt should be on the list:

Now you might agree with some of my above list but I will bet my last dollar that some of my list causes you to shake your head and say “How can he say that.”  The answer my friend is blowing in the wind.  It is simply that there are many things that are immoral and perhaps unethical but they are not sins.  Sins as defined by the Catholic Church that I grew up in are things that cause you to go to hell or purgatory.  Purgatory is for venial sins and hell is for mortal sins.  Everything on my above list would no doubt cast you straight into hell or at best purgatory if you died an unrepentant Catholic.  Repent, Repent!

However, if you need to go straight to hell and do not pass purgatory but go directly to the fires of eternal damnation for cheating on a test, I would say that the crime does not fit the punishment. This is a serious issue being challenged by a group of people who has noted the problems with punishment in our public schools today. The issue has been called the “school to prison pipeline” and it involves an overabundance of punishment that is taking place in our schools that does not fit the crime or that is unfair in terms of who receives it when. I have been a teacher since 1976 and you can believe me when I say that there are major problems in all of our school systems today but the solution is not more punishment or treating students like sinners.  Repent, Repent!

A second problem I have with the Repent, Repent crowd is their gloomy emphasis on the evil bad sick world with live in.  OSHO states that “to be blissful” is the greatest courage.”  Jesus might have preached the coming of a new world but he also went around healing people and finding ways to decrease the burdens people had in their life. Jesus not only brought admonitions about living for today, he also brought a law to love each other and to help bring joy into each other’s lives. Those with repentance on their lips would be much more tolerable if they also preached joy and happiness and brought a light to see the good and justice in the world. In the Bible, it was written that God would save Sodom and Gomorrah if just ten righteous people could be found. I have a difficult time believing that there are not at least ten righteous people in the world today.  If God is going to wait to destroy the world until there are no righteous people, it should be around a long time. As a matter of fact, with all the repentant sinners around there should be thousands of righteous people, unless they are all hypocrites? 

I think I should be prepared to meet my maker any time.  Being prepared seems like a reasonable way to live.  However, I will not live as though I and everyone else in the world are going to die any second in some kind of apocalyptic holocaust. There is too much beauty and goodness in the world for any kind of a God that I can imagine to destroy the entire world because of a few sinners. The good people in this world vastly outnumber the sinners. Only by the farthest and most skeptical measure that could be imagined does the evil in the world outweigh the charity and love that surrounds us.  If you don’t see this, then you need to start giving out more love and charity to others.

“There is an unchanging law of giving and receiving in the universe. Jesus’ doctrine, “Give and it will be given unto you”, is based on this law. Mostly Jesus’ teachings are taken at their surface value; however, these words of wisdom have a much deeper meaning from the spiritual point of view and are based on universal laws.”  (Sabeen Shalapy).  Ms., Shalapy has a wonderful site where she shares her views on gratitude and living a more fulfilling life.  She preaches love and not doom. Perhaps we need as much preaching about giving and loving as we do about doomsdays and repentance.  Love, Love and more Love is needed in equal measure to Repent, Repent and Repent. 

Are you working to help spread more joy and happiness in the world?  Have you succumbed to the negative warnings of a few doomsday prophets?  Do you see the beauty and love that surrounds you?  Do you believe in the cardinal virtues of Faith Hope and Charity?  What can you do today to add a measure of love to the world? Can you at least hope for a better tomorrow? 

Time can and often is represented by a symbol or object. Some of the more notable symbols include: pendulums, the New Year’s baby, count down music, sun dials, rust, cobwebs, dust, the Grim Reaper, tarot cards, astrology signs, old shoes, antiques, and there are many more. These symbols or objects have all become associated with the passage of time for various reasons. The Grim Reaper represents death while the New Year’s baby represents birth.  Rust and cobwebs both represent something old.  Count down music, sun dials and hour glasses represent the passage of time.  Each object has a history and its own association with time.  Merely seeing one of these objects creates a myriad of associations within our minds as to time and its relevance to our lives.

Perhaps one of our most familiar and lovable associations lies in our fascination with antiques.  Some people love antiques simply because they are old.  In the original Star Trek series, Captain Kirk loved old books. This perplexed Lt. Spock since he felt that e-readers and the computer reader were much more practical. Spock was way ahead of his time but now even the old retirees and baby boomers are today using Kindles and Nooks.  Spock could not fathom the need to associate with a symbol of the past. Spock was not only practical (as most of you can attest who are using e-readers) but Spock was also not nostalgic. Of course, Spock was not supposed to have emotions.  

Most antiques represent some type of emotional association for us.  The old desk that was just like our grandfathers desk.  The egg beater that was just like the one our mom used to make us pancakes with every Sunday morning after church.  Antiques remind us of the past and of our own transience in the present. They bring the past to life and help us to live it over and over again. Our Grandfather and mom can live on in the antiques we surround ourselves with.  Symbols have meaning in the present due to the emotional attachments they help to recreate. 

What are some symbols of time that are important to you?  What symbols help you connect to your past? What are some antiques that you most dearly love?  What meaning and emotions do these have for you? Why? Do you value old things more or new? Why? What if there were no antiques in the world?  

May 1 is in many parts of the world a day to celebrate.  In some countries, May Day recognizes the role of labor and the worker.  Elsewhere, it is an opportunity to celebrate.  In England during May they would dance around a pole called the Maypole. It is a dance that some believe was celebrating spring and the nearness of summer.  Others speculate that the origins of the dance stemmed from ancient pagan fertility rites.  Maypole dancing was described by the Puritans as ‘a heathenish vanity’ and was accordingly banned (Wikipedia). Today, you can dance all you want and not have to worry about being burned at the stake as a “heathen.”  Isn’t progress wonderful?

In the USA, Memorial Day (usually at the end of May) celebrates the sacrifices of our soldiers and veterans to help keep America and the world safe. We also celebrate the end of May as the beginning of summer.  It is a time when beaches, parks and outdoor venues open their gates. Students see May as the “end” of school; a time to graduate, look for a real job and of course attend graduation or prom parties.  Have you noticed how graduation now seems a much bigger deal than it did years ago?  High School teens have elaborate graduation parties, rent tuxes, expensive gowns, limousines and go to places I could not afford until I was in my forties.  Time keeps marching on and customs all over the world keep changing.  This May will never be like last May for any of us.

What customs do you have in your life associated with May?  How have they changed over the years? Were the changes for the better or worse? What is special about May this year for you?  

Where have all the hippies gone?  Long time ago. Where have all the hippies gone? Long time passing.  Gone to corporate lawyers.  Gone to Wall Street bankers. Gone to the suburbs.  Long time ago.  Long time ago. When will we ever learn?  When will we ever learn?

No doubt many of you will remember with some nostalgia, the Vietnam War Protests, the Free Love, Free Speech, Civil Rights and Women’s Liberation movements of the sixties.  The goals (even if they were never articulated as such) of the hippies and protesters of the sixties was to create a just society that was more clearly aligned with the principles and values of the founding fathers.  In 1776, the pragmatism as well as the culture dictated that not all “Americans” would share in the dream of the right to pursue life, liberty and happiness. Not all members of America were included in this founding father’s dream and by the early sixties; this smoldering situation was ready to burst into flames. America was rife with injustice and inconsistencies and a generation brought up on the ideas and values of American freedom and justice for all were ready to fight and march and protest to change things.

Looking back nearly fifty years, I remember my first wife Julie had been attending the University of Wisconsin at Madison in the sixties when it came to several students’ attention that the local Eagles club was excluding Black people from membership.  My wife joined a protest with several other students who picketed the Eagles Aerie.  Some years later, we both joined a group called PACE, which stood for People Acting through Community Effort.  We researched banks and organizations that had instituted Redlining in our community and we helped to organize boycotts and protests of these organizations.  So where have all the hippies gone? 

I often wonder when I look at the past few decades of greed, incredible debt, huge deficits, 10,000 square foot homes and increased intolerance towards the poor and immigrants where the hippies have all gone.  Who was it said, “I have met the enemy and he is us.”  Did we simply run out of energy or was the seduction of power and wealth too strong to overcome? Did all the hippies morph into bank officers and corporate CEO’s or were they brainwashed into moving to the suburbs and watching NFL football every weekend? 

If I go onto Amazon.com and look up the subject of “sixties” under books here are the first few titles of over 17,000 books on the subject that you will find:

The images and titles of these books no doubt bring back memories to many of you. Hippies, protest marches, psychedelics, peace signs, changing times, pot and hope are only a few of the icons we raised.  These are now the stuff of “once upon a time” and old faded memories.  I wonder where all the hippies went?  Are they sitting around reading books on the sixties and wondering how pot bellies replaced beach bodies?  Or are they all applying for social security benefits and hoping to find that foursome on the golf course in the sun? 

For me, the dream of the sixties became the exigencies of the seventies.  I went back to school in 1971 after serving in the military during the Vietnam War from 1964-1968. I got married, had a baby and became focused on supporting my family and “getting ahead.”  I became the “me” generation and wanted to be rich and successful.  The only true metric of any value seemed to be to make more money.  I wanted to be known for something and to be SOMEBODY. I also wanted to be secure from debt and poverty. 

To this day, I can’t say with any honesty that I have escaped these desires.  I vacillate between Gates and Buffett and OHSO and Tolle.  It is like being torn between two competing dreams both offering the path to happiness.  What is the real secret of life?  Does it lie in material fulfillment or spiritual fulfillment? The world is a large labyrinth with paths leading in both directions.  I find myself often lost in this maze of admonitions, directions and proverbs. Did the other hippies get lost in here as well? 

Were you ever a hippie or protestor?  Where did your hippie go?  Why is being a hippie now considered wrong by some people?  What values did hippies have that we should admire?  Should we all be part hippie? What is wrong with protesting against injustice? Why are so many people against the Occupy movement?  Would we rather the young generation simply tolerate injustice and get along with business as usual?