Hippy Ignorance

Having successfully achieved a place on the BA Journalism degree at UCA Farnham I now feel comforted by my confusion at how exactly I managed to do this. No more than three months ago you could find me on the hill of Tyting Farm expressing myself through bongos, guitar, art, and talking with like minded 'freedom seekers'. Seriously believing that we as a commune had a chance of gaining ownership of the land we were on. During this period of time I gave up all thoughts of going back to University, labelling it as simply one more institution I did not want to be a part of. It seemed my life really was going to continue forever on this ideology seeking voyage of so called self discovery. . .

I was living with a range of people from different areas and backgrounds. From the insightful Eco Activist to the stereotypical present day 'hippy' who preaches about free love, peace and a better world for all whilst squatting for no good reason, claiming benefits and accepting a hefty financial hand from his/her parents wherever needed. Unfortunately for the commune I lived on the force was strong in the latter type of person and along with ex Mi5 agent turned apparent 'messiah' after the eviction things began to go just a little crazy. . . Along with this the commune failed to ever gain ownership or rights to the land.

This September I was due to return to UCA to pick up where I left off last year on the BA Animation course. After an entire summer of entertaining the idea that the last useful thing I could possibly do is return to university I had one hell of a change of heart. This, occurring slightly less than a month ago was fuelled by a tough jolt of reality. Following this my best friend practically nailed himself and me to the ground in a swooping attempt to not only get me back to uni this year but also to transfer me onto the Journalism course. I'm glad he did. Although my intentions with the commune were good, like many of the others were there is no questioning in my mind now that this was a dead end mission and clearly going to end in tears.

I realize now that I have far too much to learn and far too many thoughts to explore before embarking on another adventure of this sort. What better place to do this learning and thinking than at an arts University where I can live surrounded by other dreamers and thinkers who wish to put these qualities to good use, i.e. by achieving a degree! I have decided this is actually a far fuller way of life and not so detrimental to my sanity! Trying to convince the world to reject their government, leave their high pressured jobs, grow their own food, live in a self built house and doss around talking about love is actually quite a demanding task and one rather ambitious goal for a mere twenty year old. After all, who is going to listen to an unkempt hippy with no shoes on that is clearly a lost child in disguise.

Now believing that a vast quantity of my time and energy has been put to waste I am trying to get back into the swing of 'normal life'.

I found through living with a vast variety of freedom seekers/anti establishment anarchists that care is needed when deciding to whom you are going to pay attention. The Eco Activist truly aiming for a better & greener world can strike up a most interesting political discussion and will listen to others with enthusiasm. The scrounging hippy that gives Eco Activists a bad name is usually found puffing away their life and benefit money whilst preaching plagiarised ideas, using illicit drugs to 'connect to higher consciousness levels' and refusing anything even slightly resembling an opposing thought. Beware! Some of these hippys can be dangerous. . . .dangerously ignorant. If they won't listen to another individuals ideas they deserve to be ignored. As you can probably tell I am somewhat unimpressed by those I met fitting my latter description.


Back to education for me but admittedly missing a great deal of my left behind lifestyle. . .