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Here again I was different --- straight looking
having cut my hair and beard back in Illinois
now I was not accepted here. Could feel the non-acceptance. One of the key hippy philosophical premises was tolerance. Hippies faced intolerance where ever they went, so one would think that they themselves would have been more tolerant. But from my experience, the defence against intolerance was to be equally as intolerant in return, something that comes with an insecure identity. To me this meant that they adopted new values without discarding, ferreting and rooting out the old conditioning.
Not an easy thing to do in any case, but an essential flaw nevertheless --- in the viability of the movement.
What I learned by looking different all thru Europe, the Midwest and then in the most unconventional place on earth, like cultural and racial minorities may learn, is that you could read people by the way they reacted to
you, without them ever saying anything. One wouldn't have to know people for weeks or years before learning that they had some deep seated prejudices. One could feel it see and perceive the vibes instantly without a word being said.
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