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.

Hummus

Hippies love hummus and can reliably be expected to have a tub of it in their fridge at any given moment. Hummus, in case you are not familiar with it, is basically ground up garbanzo beans mixed in with garlic and other flavorings. For some reason, hippies believe this substance is really tasty and appropriate for dipping bread, pitas and other foodstuffs into it. For regular folks, though, it’s simply a grainy, bland glop of goop that gives you bad breath if consumed, reflecting a fundamental problem with hippies’ approach to food: Just because it’s from another country does NOT mean it’s good to eat.

Finding Oneself

Hippies love “finding” themselves and tend to take a lot of time doing it. To regular folks, these efforts to “find” themselves look an awful lot like wasting time and avoiding responsibility with an ever-growing list of personal diversions. But to the hippies, it’s “exploration and evaluation of finding one’s place in the universe.” Such efforts typically involve traveling to developing nations and eking out an existence, often thanks to funding and other support from mom and dad. For example, moving to India to “study” another culture and religion, or working on a farm co-op in South America for a few months, in order to gain a greater understanding of the plight faced by the world’s poor, all the while getting a nice and tidy few hundred bucks deposited into their bank accounts each month from the ‘rents. Or simply bumming around with a backpack and a Lonely Planet travel guide to X region, thanks in large part to the around-the-world plane ticket bought for them by grandma. While these things may be fun, and possibly even exciting, they aren’t really ways of “finding” oneself because, after all is said and done, these same hippies tend to “find” themselves back in the Pacific Northwest, smoking someone else’s dope and eating their parents’ organic hummus, while they contemplate turning 30 and wonder where all the time went.

Southeast Asia

Hippies love Southeast Asia, and frequently travel to places like Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia to get their kicks. Ostensibly, hippies enjoy the culture and natural beauty of such areas…the beaches of Bali, the jungles of Malaysia, the Buddhist temples of Thailand. Of course, when traveling to these places, hippies can’t help but notice the party scene, which typically involves copious amounts of marijuana, occasionally mushrooms, and definitely cheap alcohol. As well as a rather astounding lack of law enforcement when it comes to public intoxication and recreational drug use. Oh, and a rather sexually-charged environment where other traveling hippies meet up and have relations with each other without the usual social norms kicking in that would necessitate, for example, getting to know a person before copulating with them. Nope, hippies’ love for Southeast Asia has nothing to do with these things…they really just go there for the Buddhist temples. Really.