1960s

Living From the Inside Out

/ James Browning

03cov_583

Once in a while I find myself wishing to be in a time before now. I have imagined living in Victorian times when history tells us manners and romantic love were in vogue. On other occasions, my fantasy has been living in the age of honor and chivalry written about the Knights of the Roundtable. Both are pure make believe and in truth both times were actually really tough for average folks.

It’s more productive to come back to my life experience. Many people wish for earlier times in their life and I am not immune. The late 60s and early 70s have long seemed like a cool time to visit as long as I could have a different life back there than I actually had.

Most people, from the age of about 16 to about 30 have dreams, expectations, zest and energy. They are still young and the future is before them. Often, there is a certain feeling of euphoria and great expectations. This is the time when people are at the start of their life, still able to think big, before settling down, getting a job, getting married, and entering the hustle and bustle of life.

When you think about the past, the feelings of joy, happiness and expectation associated with it awaken, and you feel good. Then you associate those feelings with the past, and get the impression that the past was a better time. Actually, what you are yearning to is to the feelings of euphoria that you experienced when young, to the dreams and expectations, which are gone now.

My advice to you is to awaken those feelings and thoughts intentionally, and to associate them with the present. No matter how old or young you are, where you live, and under what circumstances you are living, you can use these thoughts and feelings to motivate you. ou can again experience the euphoria and great expectations you had when young, but use them constructively to make them come true. Remez Sasson http://www.successconsciousness.com/blog/motivation/past-better-than-present/

A fairly recent discovery of mine has been changing the direction of my life has brought back some of the good feelings enjoyed in my teens and 20s The reason is not complicated. I am embracing the possibilities of being alive in ways like I did when young. And it’s not just the feel-good neurochemicals that my waxing nostalgic brings. Back in my younger days there were many “things I thought I could be” and lots I was “going to do”. Life seems filled with such possibility again.

One of the benefits of “old days” was the amount of times I spent with people. Today with all the possibilities to entertain myself it’s easy to fall into a hole and not spend much time with others. I’ve found adding more time with friends and making new ones is one of the best uses of my time. Making new “good old times” with others has become my best remedy for yearning for times past.

As a society we do live in challenging times with monstrously huge problems. However the overall quality of my life really does not have much to do with them. I can be socially aware and even active without internalizing the issues. Living from the inside out is a lot healthful than life being shaped from the outside where I have no control.

The chief beauty about time
is that you cannot waste it in advance.
The next year, the next day,
the next hour are lying ready for you,
as perfect, as unspoiled,
as if you had never wasted or misapplied
a single moment in all your life.
Arnold Bennett

Within the Walls of My Being

/ James Browning

I was conceived in a world
beyond my grasp, beyond my
knowledge. A world for me to be
born in…. and to die.
But what about the “in-between” time?
Can I connect birth, live, and death
into a flowing stream of consciousness?
The only decision that is truly mine
is how I choose to spend my days, hours,
and minutes.

Will I develop my “Being” into something
of significance? Will I find contentment
and enjoyment deep within the walls of my
being, or will I wander through life blindly,
unaware of my own purpose? Will I find this
for myself or will I perish? Only I can decide!

Those lines are from a book titled “Visions of You” by George Betts published by Celestial Arts Publishing during the latter part of the “hippie era” in 1972; the year my nineteenth birthday arrived. That time of “freaks” and “straights” is remembered well. The deep south of  Alabama and Mississippi where I grew up was behind me. Now my home was a rented cottage on Ruxton Avenue under the shadow of Pike’s Peak in Manitou Springs, Colorado, which at that time was a past prime tourist town. Rent was cheap and the empty houses and store fronts had been filled by a good-sized hippie colony.

The late 60’s and early 70’s was a special time when I could pick up a hitch-hiking couple and let them sleep the night on my floor with never a worry about anything bad happening. Those were the days we truly thought we were “brothers and sisters”.

Today the real estate in Manitou Springs is high-priced and vestiges of the 60’s and 70’s when I lived there are mostly long gone. But there still are people around the town you can tell by their hair and clothes still hang on to that time gone by.

I’m told the big turquoise ring I wear on my right hand, the bracelet on my wrist and my somewhat longer length of my hair signifies I too am one of those people. I accept the “old hippie” moniker gladly and am proud to be part of a generation that worked to stop a war, moved women’s and civil rights steps forward, were involved politically and brought sex out of the closet. We were naive, but really did believe in something hopeful and beautiful… at least for a little while.

I wonder if the author of “Visions of You” is the same George Betts who today on-line is found to be a professor at the College of Education and Behavioral Sciences in Greeley, Colorado. He’d be about 68 years old or about 10 years older than me. In the press photo for the school Professor Betts looks today mostly like a kindly grandfather. I wonder … is that how I look now? Being not much more than a year from being sixty years old there is awareness within that I became invisible to college girls decades ago and am also entering my “Grandpa phase”. Many might not think of me today as a “hip dude” as we once called guys who were “with it” and “cool”, but once upon a time that was me (or at least in my own mind I was).

I am proud of my life, my accomplishments and the peace that has been made with my mistakes (and I made some doozies!). My days have been colorful, my experiences rich and I’ve lived more fully than most.  There is still more to come; quite possibly the best parts. I am learning, growing, becoming more aware, finding harmony with myself and a spiritual path is unfolding for me. In some ways I’m picking up where I left off back in my early 20’s and that’s a good thing.

Peace, Brothers and Sisters!

He who takes a stand is often wrong,
but he who fails to take a stand is always wrong.
Anonymous