'Drop Out' would be a decent title for my biography. Having spent my entire adult life doing my best, i realize it's not easy. Timothy Leary said, " 'Drop Out' meant an elective, selective, graceful process of self-reliance, a discovery of one's singularity, a commitment to mobility, choice, and change." For Leary it was another step on the ontological ladder of awakening, but for the 60's culture it was a call to physcial as well as metaphyscial change.Millions of flower children dropped out of the surburbs and cities to return to the land only to find out why their grandparents had quit being small farmers. It was, and always will be, a lot more hard work than romantic interlude. Some stayed and became the forerunners of today's organic foods and local distribution networks. Many were called, as they say, few were chosen by the tests of endurance and commitment to succeed.
Awakening for the 60's counter-culture included resistance to the war, millions marched, many thousands left for Canada. Awakening now must include resistance to those same destructive forces that now threaten to consume the earth. Everbody has a unique life and circumstances, each, hopfully, draws their own line on how to resist those forces. Leary's ladder led to an independent worldview, to learning, to change and to action.
All action starts small and grows. One step, or maybe step 1, is into the cash economy. Ask for a cash deal everywhere, especially here in BC where i live, pay cash for any and every service. Get paid in cash, if you can't, think of changing things so you can. Become a plumber or a gardener or a roofer or a million things that exist in the underground economy. Buy local and spend cash, an easy way to spit in the Empire's drink. Another rung up might be growing your own everything, self-employment, vegetarianism, pedal power. We live in desperate times though and unfortunately there's very little overall effect, beyond awakening individuals, accomplished by baby steps.
Do i know what to do? Hell no. But i've thrown 'em a few curve balls in my day, and i've still got a change up or two left in me, look foward to throwing 'em. i do know it feels good to have less, to want less, to 'Drop Out', as far as possible, from the capitialist system that is consuming our mother earth, to read, to learn, to resist.
