Different Folks

I know nothing about being a hippy.

If I think hippy, I think flares, drugs and silly dancing around some Neolithic monument to the Mamas & Papas. I also have a tendency to lump Buddhism, New Age things, Druids, Black Magic, Whale-Mating music and the more radical green movements out there into my self constructed box labeled ‘Hippy’.

The reality is of course very different but I have constructed this because it’s simple and easier for me, a nice tidy box to shove stuff I don’t understand into. If I see a filthy young man chained to a tree complaining about a new motorway I think Hippy and drop him straight into the box. If I see someone sitting cross-legged humming, I think hippy. If I see a group of naked young women dancing in a field I think, well eventually I will think hippy. 

I have a bias, a construct in my head because I don’t understand and it’s easier for me this way.

If I am being honest I have a few of these boxes in my head: Hippy, Lazy, Gypsy, Fatty, French, the list is endless. In fact, everything is in a box of some sort, some boxes are good, some bad but everything is labeled and thus has a bias in some shape or form attached to it.

If I think gypsy for example, I don’t instantly think of the Cadbury Flake girl or a woman with hoop earrings and a glass ball in front of her. I think filthy caravans, fighting, dogs on string, unintelligible language and an aversion to paying tax. This bias has a real world impact, it would for example help me quickly answer the question; do I want to go out for a pint with some Gypsies?

I would rather fire walk naked wearing a pair of straw shoes, in case you were wondering.

It is a bit worrying though, if I imagine that all of my thoughts and decisions are driven by these biases. Watching a news bulletin and a man comes on to discuss how wrong the current austerity measures are my bias kicks in and without even listening to his argument I have already pegged him as a lazy, public sector moaner. He could have the solution, however unlikely this might sound to you, his argument could be well constructed and he may well be able to lead us all out of this economic mess but my bias isn’t letting me hear it.

So the question is how do I change this and open myself up? 

How do I become more receptive to gypsies, hippies, longhaired teachers, losers or anyone for that matter who doesn’t think exactly like Mike Shanks?

All of my biases are formed through experience or by the experiences of people close to me. I don’t have a bias without this. An example of this is Ryanair – my bias tells me they are shite. This is because I have flown them a few times and on those occasions they were for all intents and purposes shite. But they might not be now, they might have changed, I could walk onboard and be greeted by a friendly smiling steward. I might, but just hearing the word Ryanair has a Pavlovian effect on me, like a hypnotist clicking his fingers - I instantly fall into a deep dark depression.

It’s my lifetime of experience which has formed these biases and I am concerned that by continuing building them up and reinforcing them I am on a direct path to becoming a man who ends up stuck in his ways - unable to think differently.

I need to change and start taking a crowbar to the boxes.

To this end I have completed a deep investigation, a study to prove or disprove one of my biases. I have approached the two simple questions; What is a hippy? and Do I want to become a hippy? with a clear open, unbiased mind. I want science and mathematics to decide if my bias is right or wrong.

It has taken months or hard work and personal sacrifice but I feel I am now ready to share my findings.

As a side note, my research was very detailed and lengthy. I applied lean six sigma project management tools to my approach and now at its conclusion have realized this in itself is very un-hippy. I will therefore dumb the conclusions down and in doing so try to break free, hippy style, from my square corporate bindings. 

I have broken my findings into some clear categories mirroring my own biases about hippies.

Washing

My bias told me hippies didn’t wash, ever. Dreadlocks, beards and body odor were the signature of a hippy and gave normal people fair warning when a hippy was approaching. This is not true, hippies do smell yes, but they also wash, they just do it a lot less frequently. They also do it differently than normal people. Instead of the normal bathroom routine, the seek out sacred streams, the ocean or public fountains to carry out their cleansing activities. Sinks, showers or baths, as I found out, represent a ceramic prison for the soul and should be avoided at all cost.

Clothing

In my box a hippy is either naked or dressed in the most outrageous tie dyed hemp clothing. After weeks of building a statistical database, with a control group of Transvestites, the resulting continuous probability distribution shows that μ, the mean, lands exactly where my bias thought it would. See figure 1.1 below:

Figure 1.1

Without delving into the deep mathematics which have gone into this, what this statistical analysis has proved beyond doubt is that in fact hippies do look utterly ridiculous.

Food

Lentils and veggie burgers? I found this section of my analysis particularly difficult to approach. Food comes in all shapes and forms and if I eat an Indian meal for example it doesn’t necessarily mean I am going to move to the Punjab or start watching awful movies. No, I approached the food problem from the perspective of the impact that food has on the body and thus the only logical, sensible way to measure this was to organize an arm-wrestling competition. The results were startling. In all age/weight categories the hippies lost. I then decided to test the food/strength elasticity and started mixing up the groups. The only group the hippy men performed well against was the under 8yr old female category and even then the results were far from resounding. For me the most startling outcome from this study group was the propensity for hippy-man to faint immediately after engaging in any form of physical activity.

Sex

Hippy-man is the Joy of Sex man. He exists in pencil drawing form only and engages in every form of sexual activity someone with a drug loaded graphite brain can think of. The hippy woman is thin and sexy and for some reason unknown to normal women very happy to engage in sexual activity with a smelly man and a bird nest beard. Personally I find the idea of hippy sex unappealing, hippies should be a-sexual, but I have overcome my distaste for the subject and spent hours trawling through the internet using search terms like ‘hippy chick sex’ to delve deeper into this taboo subject. Apart from my eyesight deteriorating my conclusions are still sadly inconclusive. Yes hippy man is a very unappealing proposition to most normal women but he still manages to score highly on an, albeit simplistic, number of women scale. Normalising for the obvious male reporting bias the results are fairly even across both sample populations. I feel unsatisfied with my results in this category so will continue my internet search and report more conclusively at a later date.

Protesting

The hippy marching towards a corporate glass and steel tower shouting angrily is the epitome of hippydom, put simply, you are not a hippy unless you have something to protest about. The cause or topic I have found is secondary to the need to protest. Since 1961 when the hippy movement was born by Jacob Steiner a German immigrant who was unemployed and in need of sex and something to do, protesting has been central to the movement. It took a dip in the late 70’s and 80’s when there wasn’t much to complain about really but recently with the economic crisis and austerity measures hippies protesting has once again become a common sight on the streets. From my perspective, having a job and not much to complain about financially I find the need to protest somewhat alien but in the spirit of reinvention and my study I have taken part in a march. I wasn’t entirely sure what it was I was complaining about but have realised protesting is fun. It’s a lovely walk through a city centre with no traffic, you get to shout loudly, wave flags and throw things at policemen. All in all a very nice way to spend an afternoon.

With my study complete I have reached a personal conclusion about hippies. Ultimately they are exactly how I thought they would be and this frankly is a very disappointing outcome for me. I now know what a hippy is and I’m very happy not to be one. They do smell, wear stupid clothing, take drugs, live off rabbit food and protest for the sake of protesting. My bias was correct and thus I do not need to change it so I can now hammer down the lid on that box and turn my attention to the next one.

This will be a long journey of self-discovery, one where I have to challenge my own personal beliefs, I may even cry, but after my journey into the lentil pot of hippydom I feel emotionally and physically equipped to continue my quest.

I will have a pie supper and a pint first then turn my attention to the next box in my head: 

Lifestyles beginning with the prefix ‘Trans’.