When I read the question for this new essay, I thought, well this
one is too hard for me. I decided to leave this one alone, because a
satisfactory answer just wasn't coming to mind for me. It was late last
night when I read it, and, though I was very tired, the question was
such an interesting one that it persisted in my mind and made it hard
for me to go to sleep. This morning, when I opened this web site, some
words jumped out at me: "This web site is dedicated to the hippie in
all of us." That's when I started to realize what it was that was
bothering me about the whole question of which one person should
represent all hippies.

Of course, it might be argued that representing the hippie spirit is
not quite the same as representing all hippies, but if you hold one
person up as the example, I think it really amounts to the same thing:
you have limited the hippie spirit to a single expression as a model for
what a hippie is supposed to be. For me, the hippie spirit is a spirit
that stands for love, peace, the celebration of diversity, and freedom
of individual expression. A man who has long hair, wears beads and
sandals and drives a brightly colored VW bus is recognized everywhere as
a hippie, which is ok, but if the hippie movement as a whole reaches a
consensus that a hippie male must have long hair, wear beads and
sandals, and drive a brightly colored VW bus, then the hippie movement
has become what it started out fighting against. It doesn't really
bother me too much that there is a quintessential hippie stereotype that
looks a certain way, because this certain way represents a balancing
opposite to what was, not that long ago, a rigid template that society
tried to force everyone into regarding appearance. But what we were
fighting was not men with short hair. What we were fighting was a
society that told us that men cannot have long hair.

As I said before, the hippie spirit, for me, stands for love, peace,
the celebration of diversity and freedom of individual expression. I
think this spirit as I have defined it is too big to be represented by
any one person, no matter how much one person may stand for these
ideals.

There are plenty of famous people who stood for these ideals, but to say
that so and so best represents the hippie spirit is to say that all
those who are different from this famous so and so are less of a hippie
than so and so. This would be a terrible injustice to so many non
famous so and sos who also have worked to change the world and gone
unrecognized. Examples that come to mind are protesters who peacefully
resisted tyranny and oppression who were brutalized by police and spent
what must have seemed like forever (however long it actually was) in
jail for caring about democracy and the environment. I think of these
people because I recently took part in the WTO protest in Seattle, and,
for the first time in my life actually saw and took part in an important
part of democracy. One that probably would have given someone who
participated in the Vietnam protest serious flashbacks. I didn't get
arrested, but stayed with many other protesters outside the city jail to
demand the release of the arrestees and welcome those released. Even
though the hippie spirit was truly shining brightly in all these
courageous people, it was not any one of them, but all of them coming
together that made a difference.

It may be said that a movement needs a leader or an example who can
serve as a role model. But maybe part of what is wrong with the world
is that we look too much at others and not enough at ourselves. I cried
last night reading one of the "hippie event" essays by a young hippie
who, speaking of the violence at one of the Woodstock recreations,
described his or her(?) (and my) generation as corrupted compared to
the generation of the original Woodstock.

I am an artist, and one of the principles one learns in art is
contrast. Bright colors seem to shine brighter in small patches
surrounded by gray or black, than they do covering a canvas. Likewise,
we hippies who remain true to our ideals, even though everyone around us
seems to be loosing touch with those ideals, likewise become more
powerful as examples by contrast with those who become corrupted. We
should not look to a leader or a role model for the hippie spirit, but
should follow the hippie spirit in ourselves and all of us become
leaders together, and together lead the world toward love, peace, the
celebration of diversity and freedom of individuality.

Perhaps I have disqualified myself from winning this contest by not
really answering the question, but, believing what I do about what the
hippie spirit really should be, I think it would be a big mistake to
suggest a single individual as an embodiment of a spirit that is for
everyone, not just those who look or act like some famous so and so.
So to sum it up, I believe that if the hippie spirit is to represent
the individual, we should not think of a single individual as
representing the hippie spirit.

Doug Thompson

Jack Kerouac was part of the 1950s underground movement that produced such 
greats as William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, and the legendary driver of 
the magic bus, Neal Cassidy. It is known amongst these men that Jack was 
their inspiration, their driving force, the initial flame that set fire to 
the rebellious hearts of the pre-revolutionary era. In one of Jack's first 
works, On the Road, he discusses his first encounters with Neal Cassidy, and 
his first attempts to teach Cassidy how to write. Cassidy, a well-known 
madman, found writing as an outlet for his antics, and later wrote several 
works of his own. Cassidy went on to inspire such future hippies as Jerry 
Garcia and Ken Kesey. All on part of Jack Kerouac. Because of Jack, Neal 
was inspired, because of Neal, Jerry and Ken were inspired, and because Jerry 
and Ken were inspired, an entire revolution of thought and idealism occurred.

In the story, On the Road, Jack and Neal venture out into the American 
unknown in search of something greater, the force unknown. In Jack's 
adventures, he stresses the importance and beauty of the common man. Through 
his words, one begins to realize the value of each individual life....this 
would later become a credo for future hippies. "Love your neighbor. Everyone 
is beautiful." In, On the Road, Jack also emphasizes the marvel of travel, 
and the value of freedom, one's ability to live out of a backpack. To get up 
and go at anytime to anyplace. Through his story, it becomes obvious that he 
values the free-spirited nature of the people that surrounded him. He often 
was awed by people who lived fast. To quote, '...and I shambled after as 
I've been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only 
people for me are the mad ones, mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, 
desirous of everything at the same time. The ones who never yawn or say a 
commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles 
exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see a blue 
centerlight pop and everyone goes, 'Awww!' Many artists worked off of that 
quote and made it into such hippy anthems as, 'I hope I die before I get old' 
and 'Live fast, die young, and leave a good-looking corpse'. Jim Morrison of 
The Doors often notated Kerouac as one of his greatest inspirations.

Jack, on a large part, also introduced America to Eastern religions. In his 
book, The Dharma Bums, he talks a lot about Buddhist religious practices, and 
gods of the Buddhist religion. He was one of the first American writers to 
openly embrace the Buddhist way of life and the advantages of meditation. In 
the late 1960s, during the height of the hippy society, meditation was 
practiced in fields by large numbers of new-age transcendentalists. The 
Beatles became very influenced by the Maharishi, and often meditated....and 
none of this open-mindedness toward religion and religious practices would 
have come about as quickly were it not for the literary works of Jack Kerouac.

Jack Kerouac personified the nature of hippies as they are known today. Long 
before the long hair and flowered skirts, Jack Kerouac was investigating 
higher levels of conscious thought through interaction with people, the use 
of a few mind-expanding drugs, and his venture into Eastern religious 
practices. For these reasons, I think Jack Kerouac best personifies the 
nature of hippies.

-Kelly Downes, 17

Henry David Thoreau is the person that has most lived out the hippy philosophy. In a time when the Mexican War was raging, and slavery was still predominant, he protested strongly. Thoreau was nearly alone, and still he carried on. 
There was a time when he refused to pay his pole tax and was jailed for his action. He refused to send money to a government that was using the funds to fight an unjust war and expand slavery further west. This is reminiscent of the young men who were drafted during the Vietnam war, and chose jail over going completely against their values and morals. 
Everywhere Henry went, he lived and breathed the hippy philosophy. There may have not been a word for it in those days, but he was definitely a hippy. When he had the need to make money, he did odd jobs. He was a very happy, very simple, poor man. When he came to live at the shore of Walden Pond, his only friends were his flute, the trees, and his journal. His life was simplified in such a way that most people can only dream of. While Ralph Waldo Emerson preached the Transcendental philosophy, Thoreau lived it. 
He didn't reach fame until long after his death. Fame can truly change a person, and being a writer in a secluded area was good for Henry. While others, such as John Lennon, used their fame to get their point across, Thoreau led a quiet example for others to follow. He was a simple and common man, but his mind was complex. His philosophy was one that blazed a trail that we all can follow, yet he encouraged us to take our own path. Henry David Thoreau was a true hippy.

love and light,
Tippie Hippie (emma)

I think the person who best represents the Hippy Spirit is the one person 
who first had the radical thought 'hey this is wrong, let's change this!' 
It's the one person who stood up and told his or her friends 'why is this 
like the way it is? let's do something to change it.' And that nameless 
person's friends agreed with him/her and they told their friends who told 
their friends who wrote songs about it which in turn told the whole damn 
world that things were going to change. It was that person or persons who 
started the whole movement and it is they who represent the Spirit the best 
because they didn't follow. They didn't join the ride because they wanted 
to or because it felt good. They are the people who finally stood up and 
said 'lets end war, lets end racism and sexism, lets stop hurting our mother 
earth, lets stop hurting each other!' Others may have thought of these ideas 
before, but these were the people who did something, not knowing or caring 
what their friends or family or strangers would think of them. And these 
people, who may have not gotten really anything done, got the ball moving so 
the people who had the power or abilities to get the word spread could. I 
don't know who this person or these people are, I doubt that history know's 
their name(s), but it is they who are the Hippy Spirit. They have more 
'hippy' in them than Dylan and the Dead and anybody else who were important 
leaders in the 60s/70s. They may have not been involved in the action of 
the movement but they gave birth to the ideas of it. And those nameless 
individuals are in my opinion, the people who best represent the Hippy 
Spirit.