MetaChat - HURF DURF HIPPIES

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10 January 2007

HURF DURF HIPPIES →[More:]*♥☮ Turn on, tune in, drop out ☮♥*

A common misunderstanding of the phrase, by people not familiar with the context in which it was first said, is that 'turn on, tune in, drop out' refers to 'turn on the radio/television, tune it in, and drop out of your job/society/school', i.e. become a 'waster', a slacker.

Leary explained in his 1983 autobiography Flashbacks: "'Turn on' meant go within to activate your neural and genetic equipment. Become sensitive to the many and various levels of consciousness and the specific triggers that engage them. Drugs were one way to accomplish this end. 'Tune in' meant interact harmoniously with the world around you - externalize, materialize, express your new internal perspectives. Drop out suggested an elective, selective, graceful process of detachment from involuntary or unconscious commitments. 'Drop Out' meant self-reliance, a discovery of one's singularity, a commitment to mobility, choice, and change. Unhappily my explanations of this sequence of personal development were often misinterpreted to mean 'Get stoned and abandon all constructive activity.'"

from here

post by: Wedge at: 23:20 | 5 comments

and here's some interesting trivia...

«The [peace] symbol itself is a combination of the semaphoric signals for the letters "N" and "D," standing for Nuclear Disarmament.»

posted by Wedge 10 January | 23:24

I've always interpreted it this way, but I was pretty familiar with Leary and others from the era. From their perspective and mine it was never about drugs. Drugs were just one tool in toolbox for turning on. Other methods involve "...sound, light and color...", Gysin's Dreamachine, repetive sounds and tones and more.

It's interesting to me that not only did many of the original non-drug tools and toys - as well as many of the 2nd and 3rd generation tools and toys - never really adopt a more widespread appreciation or enjoyment.

It's frustrating to me that people - particularly the "mainstream" - aren't more readily entertained by their own imaginations, their own iridescently white blank canvases just waiting to be tapped and explored.

I don't know what it is that makes more plebian fare like mill-worked Hollywood blockbusters more valid as both art and entertainment and not the very real and personal stories and imaginations that each of us creates. But I'm a professional daydreamer and irrational idealist and 90% of everything is crap.

posted by loquacious 11 January | 00:33

thank you for the thoughtful response. i was miffed (and motivated to post) by the number of, umm, squares (for lack of a better term) posting in this thread who mistakenly believe that "hippie" and "junkie" are somehow synonymous, or that hippies are naive hedonists, or that potheads are braindeads, and etc. really, that sort of "pragmatic" nihilism is fucking wack imho. the world would be a better place by several orders of magnitude if people adopted more of a "hippie" (or green, socialist, buddhist, taoist, etc) mindset.

also, fuck shaving

posted by Wedge 11 January | 01:21

and bras. fuck bras

posted by Wedge 11 January | 01:44

Amen!

posted by Specklet 11 January | 12:47

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