Hippie's

I love to explore the human race, all the different cultures and back grounds!
So I have decided to get down and try to get some answers to some of my questions!
What is it to be a hippy?
I have asked a whole bunch of people, on face book, on dust, by email and in class.
It has been very interesting to see some people that I would not imagine, pull out of the conversation and not wanting to be part of it! I wonder what are they afraid of? Why would one not want to answer a simple question?? Its almost as if they feel threatened! Oh well!!!

Now, well all know that hippy movement in the 1960ties that started off in the USA, with Woodstock, and that spread around the world. Wanting peace, making love, taking drugs I guess...Im sure there was a lot to fight for then, that the movement was soo big that one really could be and was a hippy!
But today, what is it to be a Hippy???
I have been called a hippy, and sure, I kinda like that, somehow if feels cool to be a Hippy! But really, am I a  Hippy?
When I lived in Paris I used to work in a cloths shop, and we sold all that kind of cloths from India, colourful, different, tie dye, and the people who came to buy them were far from conservative!
But I quickly realised that some of them were actually just following a fashion, like any other really!!!
So there is such a thing as fake Hippies??
Then I have also done a 2 day market at Nimbin (Well known, tourist destination, Hippie Town in Australia), and for sure there I saw some real Hippies.
But can I tell you, some of them too were actually fashion victims. Real Hippies, real fashion victims!!!
(and they were not very friendly either)
So there is the real deal not real either???
So Once again I ask myself, what is it to be a hippy???
We all know, or think that "peace and love", a nice Volkswagen Combi, some flowers in your hair or a flower dress, elephant pants, or big shades are the classic style of a hippy!
But really if that classifies a hippy, then almost the whole plant are hippy's!!!!
I saw a 60year old conservative lady with a flower dress...Im sure she was NOT a hippy!!!
Nor was the young hip girl in trendy cloth wearing BIG shades a hippy!

I think the term now gets used to easily, when we want to talk about the people who are not conservative, who sure don't follow the conventional style that the world has come to think is the "NORM"...I think it too often gets used in a very derogative way; so many times have a I heard "bloody hippies"!!!!
Yet we talk to fast maybe as no one seems to really know what a true hippie is!

So here are a few of the answers that I got:

•  Hippy means many things to many people.
• a child of the earth, a gentle soul who cant handle stress, conformity or structure, a daydreamer.
• words that come to mind: freedom, open minded, free thinking, free spirited, all things natural, confidence, happiness, creative, uncorrupted.
• someone who values life over money & materialism, chooses to live a different life compared to the "majority". Non conforming to the masses. One who seeks beyond the physical. Wears a flower in their hair!! Peace symbol, lots of colour and combi!
• A way of dressing and living. One that travels with a back pack, that is content living day to day. Without ever loosing hope and a smile! Smooth drugs. To be in connection with nature.
• People mix everything up!!! If you are not in the "NORM" you are something else and to label you Hippie suits them well! So if you like animals, don't stress out about things and even dare to wear a flowery dress, well your a hippie!
• Although I think that hippy actually means many thigs to many people.
• For many years I'd wanted to visit Nimbin, and I got to, on my honeymoon in 2000. I was so disappointed that I think I actually cried. That's not what hippy means to me. That was a dirty town with people drinking and smoking dope on the street, in the morning!
• Hippy to me means an earth loving person. One who feels in tune with nature, the seasons, the sky - probably my definition is pretty much the same as what neo-pagan means.... a bit of a peace, love maaan thing - but with no drugs, just natural
• About 25 years ago I knew quite a few people who lived just outside of Nimbin, and I used to visit fairly often. A couple who were good friends of mine had bought some land and moved there, intending to farm. The fellow was a very natural person and a good and knowledgable farmer. A country boy who was socially a progressive thinker, but in tune with the land. However, he was planning to move into horticulture, something he really knew very little about. The venture never got off the ground. It all fell apart for them. I think the 'hippie' culture of the place and some of the vultures who masqueraded as hippies sucked the true spirit out of them. Because they were genuinely giving people, my friends allowed people to camp and live on their land. As far as I could see, these people gave nothing back, not much practical help to finish buiding the main house or to tend the crops. All talk of peace and love and the environment, and that was all...
• I was working as a trade union organiser at the time, a job which I later left because I was motivated to improve people's working lives, not to be part of the system. I worked hard, trying to make a difference to people who weren't paid much or who were experiencing problems at work. This is what the word 'hippie' means to me: sitting around a campfire with some guys who smoke all day, don't work and live on other people's property, being told that I should be ashamed of myself for living in the city (Brisbane) because I don't do anything to help the environment. Then one guy unwrapped some gladwrap from something and threw it in the fire. My friend the farmer was a gentle man who was what a hippie ought to be, but I don't like that word any more. 
• I think of "hippy" as someone in a dope-smoking flower child summer of 1969 time-warp (so you would have to be about 60 to be a real hippy). Ferals are a more recent variant (first seen in the early 1990s and I think still current), some people like the term "alternate lifestyle" which is more broad and vague

So I have come to the conclusion that the term "hippie" is used for all sorts of things, and that really today there a very few of them, and the one that are what we think to be hippie's are maybe just people living an alternative life style, out of the "box" that society has created to be some sort of "norm"...I now think that it more than often gets used in a derogative way just by those who feel threatened by someone who has the will and power to live a live that suits them better, even if it means being different!
Also today it is in fashion to look a little hippe, like those flower head bands that today's young girl wear! But trust me, looks dont mean a thing!!!

So my conclusion is; be who ever you want to be, don't worry about tagging things and just live and let live!