Hippie
One who embraces life to the fullest; promotes peace, love and happiness and sticks up for what he believes in. Anyone can be a hippie, not just that dirty dread-locked tie-dyed pothead with the Bob Marley shirt on.

HIPPIES
People who are considered non-conformist. Non-conformist in the sense that they don’t conform to the socially accepted norms. They can be anti-war, many are vegetarian, and  some act in non-violent protests. It is unfair to make stereotypes of these people who just want to live their lives with equality, love and peace.

Hippies sometimes question governmental authority and can often be involved in protests.

I believe in love not war. I like scarves, sandals, and brightly coloured clothing. I love campfires and the acoustic guitar. I recycle, I reuse, and I compost. I question the government all the time. I wear hemp and beads. I have tie dyed and I listen to Bob Marley. I go to folk music festivals and even work for one every summer. I buy local and organic. I do not buy bottle water. I avoid plastic. I care about the environment and am aware of our changing climate. I enjoy nature and the simple things in life.

But so what. Big deal.

I shower every single day. I own Gap clothing. I think Starbucks tastes good. I wear cosmetics and use hair products. I once spent $3000 to spend a week at a Mexican resort. I eat like a vegetarian, until Thanksgiving or another food-oriented holiday rolls around, or until my friends and I go camping and buy pepperoni cheese buns. I drive the 3.3 km to school. My family owns a 4X4 truck and an SUV. We own a boat that we use for only 2 months of the year. I own Lululemon pants that I paid close to $100 for. I have clothes in my closet that I’ve never worn. I buy imported produce. I crank the heat instead of grabbing a sweater. Getting new things improves my mood.

“Mindfulness is the practice whereby a person is intentionally aware of his or her thoughts, feelings and actions in the present moment, non-judgmentally.”

Over the past two years I have made a lot of changes in my life. My outlook on goals, success, and happiness have all changed. I am so glad they did. Two years ago I was in business school with one goal in mind: to learn how to make a hell of a lot of money really fast. I was certainly surrounded by like-minded people. Everyone there seemed to want the same thing: a high disposable income. I was stressed and unhappy and I ended up dropping out.

After calculating how much water my daily showers use I now think differently about my morning routine. I did not shower today.
After reading the facts about e-waste and the new reports about iPod Cities, I feel ashamed of the amount of technology I own. I don’t even use some of it.
And after learning about the Gap’s sweatshops I will now never purchase another Gap product.

The excerpt from Donella Meadows’, Beyond Limits has really stuck with me:

“People don’t need enormous cars; they need respect. They don’t need closets full of clothes; they need to feel attractive and they need excitement and variety and beauty. People don’t need electronic entertainment; they need something worthwhile to do with their lives. People need identity, community, challenge, acknowledgment, love, joy. To try to fill these needs with material things is to set up an unquenchable appetite for false solutions to real and never-satisfied problems. They resulting psychological emptiness is one of the major forces behind the desire for material growth.”

I need to be mindful of my consumption of the things in life that I take for granted. I need to remember that material wealth does not create happiness. I need to think of the billions of people with limited resources who are slaving away to provide me with luxuries that I view as necessities. Sometimes I think, “What difference will it make if I change my habits? Everyone else is still buying at the Gap.” But I have to remember that systemic change begins with one person. It beings with me. If I model a simple lifestyle perhaps others will follow my example. My actions have consequences, whether I see them directly or not. The choices I make affect the world around me. I am not a Hippie, but maybe I could learn from one.

The term ‘Hippie’ can be used as a shrug off to someone or as a label of being ‘free spirited’ or having ‘alternative views.’

Hippies believe in living simply. They have a low environmental impact and care about mother earth.

My mom once told me “Live simply, so others can simply live”. I am constantly working towards doing so.

When I got older and began purchasing my own clothes, I remained loyal to the Gap. I turned to their stores for the simple, basic styles. I have never been one to wear bejeweled jeans or patterned hoodies. Simple clothing can often be difficult to find, so I shopped at the Gap. I have owned Gap pants, Gap jackets, Gap bathing suits, Gap shoes, Gap underwear, even Gap cosmetics.

The Gap is one of those brands that is known to be ‘bad’ in terms of child labor. In 2007, the Gap admitted to the use of child labor in the production of children’s clothing in India. Children between the ages of 10 and 13 worked stitching embroidered shirts in filthy working conditions.

A few years ago I decided I would stop being a Gap customer and vowed to take that step towards becoming a more ethical consumer. However, when winter came and I needed new pants I broke my vow for my own vanity. It’s not even that the Gap is cheap!

Gap jeans are made mostly of cotton with a small percentage of spandex. Cotton, the most widely used natural-fiber in today’s clothing, is still harvested by hand in developing countries who sell the product at a low price since they are unable to keep up with the developed world. China is the leading cotton producer, followed by the United States and then by India. The cotton in my jeans could have been picked in a field over 20,000 km away!

Recently I have renewed my vow: I will not purchase products at the Gap. Maybe I’ll even join the “Don’t buy me Gap this Holiday Season” campaign. My vanity and selfishness has gotten in the way of my mindfulness for far too long.

Hippies do not wear clothes from the Gap.

I’d say 95% of our free time is spent on our computers. Email is how we communicate, Skype is how we call each other, and Google is who answers any of our life inquiries. We are all familiar with terms such as ‘wiki’, ‘blog’, ‘tweet’, and ‘widget’. We share our photos online, we send our Christmas letters online, and we play communal games of Scrabble online. We turn to Google for driving directions, language translations, and to view anywhere in the world from space. It is safe to say we are a techie family.

Technology uses energy. A typical desktop computer uses anywhere from 60 to 250 watts and the average monitor uses about 80 watts. Technology uses resources. According to a UN University report, “the average 24 kg desktop computer with monitor requires at least 10 times its weight in fossil fuels and chemicals to manufacture.” That is more material intensive than an automobile or refrigerator.

Technology is not cheap. Especially my family’s chosen brand. The new MacBook Pro (which us Nessman’s own 3 of) can potentially cost over $5,000 with the memory add ons and software upgrades. But these days, with technology changing so rapidly, these additions seem like a pretty good idea through consumer eyes unless you want to have your model be out of date within the week.

However, the new MacBook Pro is the most environmentally conscious choice in the laptop market. Apple’s newest MacBooks are known as “the world’s greenest lineup of notebooks”. These machines are Mercury, Arsenic, and PVC free. They have a recyclable aluminum uni-body and meet ENERGY STAR version 5.0 requirements. Apple has even cut back on packaging by 34% – 41% to conserve resources and reduce their carbon footprint while shipping these products. My MacBook Pro consumes significantly less energy than a desktop computer. In idle mode with the display on it uses only 16.5 watts.

Apple iPods are manufactured in China. Factory regions known as “iPod Cities” employ mainly females who work 15 hour days and earn as little as $44US a month. They live in dormitories that do not allow outside visitors. An iPod nano contains 400 different parts costing about $75US. Cheap labor is vital in keeping retail prices competitive while still creating a worthwhile revenue.

e-waste facts

Ipods do not last forever. In fact, after only 13 months of heavy use, the lithium-ion battery can lose more than half of its functionality. It is cheaper to purchase a new iPod than to replace the battery, and by that time Apple has most likely come out with a few more models of music players packed with new must-have features. Tossing the old nano in a junk bin and driving down to Future Shop to pick up the new product makes more economic sense. But old iPods often become e-waste. When my computer and music player get out of date and marketing initiatives convince me that I must go out immediately and purchase new ones, my Mac and iPod may be dumped in a landfill.

Technology is essential in today’s world, but I think we must pause sometimes and assess its impact, both environmental and social. The technology I own is probably less than the average North American teenager, but I still feel it is excessive. Reading the news reports on the factory conditions in these iPod Cities makes me view my handheld gadget differently. It has become a given that everyone owns an iPod. I can only think of one person in my immediate social group who does not own one. People nowadays are always connected to some network, but may be disconnected with the reality around them.

Hippies do not own MacBooks and iPods, let alone multiples of each.

I used to have very long showers. My mom used to time them and then add up the weekly minutes as a way of making me realize how long I actually spent in there. Most weeks it would be over 120 minutes … over 2 hours spent in the shower.

The average shower uses 80 litres of water. With a shower a day, 560 litres of water go down the drain a week … just from me.

I own a dishwasher that uses 25 litres every cycle.
My washing machine uses 65 litres per wash.
Every time I flush the toilet I am using 8 litres of water.
My parents have a sprinkler system.
My house has a pool.
Running water is a huge part of my every day life.

The UN suggests that each person needs 20-50 litres of safe freshwater a day to ensure their basic needs for drinking, cooking and cleaning. More than one in six people worldwide don’t have access to this amount of safe freshwater. My shower alone uses almost more than double that suggested amount!

Living in Nanaimo, my water comes from the south fork of the Nanaimo River. Here there are two dams that collectively hold approximately 20 million litres of water. This water is transported to the city boundary through two 20 km pipelines to where it is treated with chlorine before it continues its journey to me. While 75% of Nanaimo’s water reaches customers by gravity, the rest is distributed using pump stations. ”Nanaimo is currently using up to 80 million litres per day during peak summer flows.” (City of Nanaimo, 2009)

Water use has been growing at more than twice the rate of population increase in the last century. In the past year I have made changes to my water consumption habits. I take shorter showers and even turn off the tap while shampooing, I am conscious of the running water while washing dishes, I switch off the sprinkler system when my Dad’s not home, and I only put on full loads of laundry.

I do not need to shower daily, but I still do. It is recommended that women wash their hair only every 2 to 3 days, while I wash mine daily. It is a hard habit to break. But I am working on it.

No one could ever rightfully accuse me of being a ‘dirty Hippie’, let alone being simply dirty.

hippie |ˈhipē|
noun
(esp. in the 1960s) a person of unconventional appearance, typically having long hair and wearing beads, associated with a subculture involving a rejection of conventional values and the taking of hallucinogenic drugs.

Hippie
a person who smells really bad, smokes a lot of pot, and bitches at everyone to save the world while they sit on their ass. A Hippie hasn’t taken a shower in 60 years.

Hippie
Non-comformist, tie dye shirts, living in trailers, name children Hope, Sunshine, Marley, Blossom, Clover, Birch etc.

HIPPIE – Someone who has a loose grasp on reality. Someone who has flooded their mind with drugs and actually believes peace on earth will happen, while foreign countries that we aid regularly build weapons against us.

Hippies live off of the earth and believe they are one with nature. Hippies can be easily entertained by a few joints and an acoustic guitar.

Hippies believe in redistribution of wealth from hard-working executives to the millions of lazy sorry people. They believe in welfare, not work-fare, and giving to those that have not earned a damn thing. Hippies are technologically challenged and have a limited grasp of simple machinery.

Some say I a Hippie while I am far from it. My Hippie characteristics are few. When I am called a Hippie I am offended since these definitions are what most people have in mind. Some may think of a Hippie as simply being someone who is environmentally conscious or someone who lives simply. But I am unfortunately far from that definition as well.

I was not around in the 1960’s. I have never taken hallucinogenic drugs. I am not stinky or dirty and I own and use deodorant daily. I am not a free loader, a dropout, or a lost soul. I am not a dopehead or a dreadhead. I believe in peace on Earth, but that’s because I try to be an optimist. I don’t wear Birkenstocks with old work socks and I do not have dreams of naming my children after trees, weeds, or legendary Reggae artists. I do not make my own clothes. I am not a vegan. I am not technologically challenged. I am not granola even though I do make my own. I shave my arm pits and my legs. I don’t wear long flowing skirts, nor do I dance at inappropriate times. I don’t drive a Volkswagon van and I don’t use lingo such as “dude” or “rad”. I am feminine, but not a flaming feminist.

Simply put, I am not a Hippie in any way, shape, or form.