Alternative Schools

Hippies are generally supportive of “alternative schools,” those places where errant teenage hippies go when regular school doesn’t work out for them. These schools don’t teach the usual reading, writing and arithmetic. Instead, they teach performing arts, and drawing, and sculpture and the like, giving the students a different skill set more in line with their interests. Unfortunately, these students, upon graduation, are ill prepared for life in the real world, where the ability to understand what you read, and write clearly and concisely, are highly valued. In addition, the skills that these students DO learn - drawing, dancing, playing bongos and such - are not really in high demand and generally don’t pay anything. Thus, the occupational choices available to alternative school graduates are pretty much limited to panhandling and the production of veggie burritos.

Debt

Hippies decry debt, and will do just about anything to avoid it. They feel strongly about this. They believe that owing money to someone else is a form of slavery…just another way in which The Man keeps the people under his mighty thumb. Thus, hippies tend not to own houses, use credit cards, or even borrow money to pay for college. While the rest of us see the advantages of taking on strategic debt – for example, student loans that enable us to earn degrees which lead to higher pay – hippies see only the short term bondage that comes with owing someone money. Granted, indebtedness does tend to hinder one’s freedom…one must work or otherwise come up with the money, month after month, to make the payments. And flying off to Ecuador – or Costa Rica or Peru or Indonesia or whatnot – on a moment’s whim does not lend itself to timely payments of mortgages. Thus, in a hippie’s eyes, the question of taking on debt, for whatever reason, becomes a choice between getting a real job, or continuing a lifestyle devoid of responsibility. As we know, the hippies tend to choose the latter.

Work

Hippies generally disdain work, but if they do work, it’s inevitably under the table. You see, hippies can’t be bothered to pay taxes, or Social Security or Medicare…that’s for losers and conformist members of “the establishment.” Instead, they seek positions that will allow them to bring in some dough without the big, bad government hearing about it. Like part-time flower pickers, or manning the kiosk at the local farmer’s market. One of the best is a waiter/waitress gig at a small café or hippie food shop. Such places have such high turnover – due to the hiring of unreliable hippies – that the owners usually don’t bother filling out paperwork for their employees, which is the perfect setup for hippies: Not only do they get out of paying taxes on their hourly wages, but they get tips, too, which are virtually tax-free anyway due to rampant underreporting industry-wide. Of course, spending a lifetime working for peanuts and paying nothing into Social Security means no retirement income for these folks, but who cares? They hope they die before they get old!

Hippie Art

Hippies love art, and in most cases, they consider themselves to be artists of some sort. Whether their “art” is watercolors or sculpture or poems or drawing or pottery, the typical hippie believes that he or she has an artistic talent that must be shared with the world. They hang their watercolor paintings on the walls of their homes, they serve hummus and pita chips on their freshly glazed pottery, they recite their unique poems to small crowds of other hippies, they display their black-and-white drawings on the bulletin boards in their favorite hippie hang outs. Of course, if they were actually any good at any of these things, they would get paid good sums of hard currency for them. But alas, the typical piece of hippie art has little value in the real world, and can at best command a veggie burrito in exchange. This doesn’t deter the hippies from trying, though…they are a resilient bunch!