Letters to the Editor
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I read Carlos Castaneda in college too
And I thought it was complete horseshit back then. But it was kind of cool to read while stoned. So I remember those days too. And there were hippies in every small town in America for a long time after 1971. It wasn't just some San Francisco thing--it went all across the country and in some ways it never really went away.
For all the talk of love and magic, there was a decidedly selfish streak to the hippies, as very well seen in this story. And they were quite brainless as well, so many were fully primed to be exploited--also as well seen in this story. This is a story of exploiting people in name of spirituality, and that's a pretty gross thing.
The problem with the hippies is that they were thoughtless. They did what they felt like doing and they thought things would just turn out OK. They thought with their hearts, not with their brains. And Bush is just the same way today. He's running the Iraq war on no other basis than what makes him feel good. He thinks with his heart, not his brain. And the country is also like that; we think with our hearts, not with our brains. Unfortunately, our hearts are stupid, as hearts always are. Hearts can never be smart because hearts are always selfish.
The hippies were just a little more advanced in their selfishness and thoughtlessness than the rest of society at the time. Now we've caught up and we're a perfectly stupid, selfish country splashing in a hot tub, oblivous to the house falling down around us. We're not thinking of the future, we're not taking care of our kids. We're just consuming things, getting wasted, and jumping fences and invading other people's countries. When other people don't like how we behave, we whine about it. That's hippie behavior all the way through.