In the SF Bay area in my group thinking was the primary thing we did. I read during the day and smoked and listened to music at night. My group pretty much didn't drink at all. Nothing. We had lots of sex though.
I have told this story, but I was 24 at the start and in my junior year in college. I got a late start. I had an epiphany that year as to how ignorant I was. I remember the time, day, location and weather. Winnie the pooh day.
I thought to myself, I not only don't know the answers I don't even know the questions. And I thought to myself specifically I do not know why Plato is such an important person. I remember it like it was yesterday.
I was managing a 6 plex sort of stuck away on a side street and only rented to my hippie friends. It was always quiet and orderly and all the people were very nice. No one drank. I sold a little pot, played low ball in the local clubs, usually the Victory or Joes or Garden City.
I had a large comfortable white couch by the front door and as it was San Jose it was warm most of the time. I left the door open and listened to music and read for the next two years anyone I could think of that I thought was smart.
For a long time I had little idea what anyone was talking about:
I remember a lot of the books: Catcher in the rye, all of Herman Hesse's books, Bertrand Russell (auto biography (three volumes he lived to 96) , biographies of Albert Einstein, Thomas Mann's books, Goethe, Watts, Marshall McLuhan, Nietzsche, Dostoyevsky, Alfred North whitehead, Andre Malroux, Baudelaire, Aldous Huxley, Nietzsche, Marshall McLuhan (he is really interpreting James Joyce), Sranger in a Strange land , Lord of the rings, The Republic by Plato, to Kill a Mockingbird (had read earlier) , the Stranger by Camus and Tin Drum by Gunther Grass, Jean Paul Sartre.
When I finished I was transformed into an existentialist.
I had a wonderful life full of fun and wonder.
This was some of the music I listened to. Still soooo good:
youtube.com |
