High tech hippie

May 5, 2019

Yesterday I found myself in the apartment of a young woman who lives near Golden Gate Park and the Haight Ashbury district. When I mentioned the Summer of Love in the Haight Ashbury in 1967, she looked at me blankly. She had no idea what I was talking about.

In fairness to her, she is 24 years old, and has not lived in San Francisco for much more than a couple of years. Still, I had assumed that anyone living in San Francisco would have at least a rudimentary awareness of the glory days of the hippie movement. I was wrong.

I first met “Kathy” two years ago when she lived downtown in the South of Market area. Now I was doing a followup interview for the nationwide health survey for which she is a respondent. After she completed the questionnaire, we chatted about her life in the city. She works for a Silicon Valley company, and realizes that the relatively high income that she and her co-workers earn has made San Francisco unaffordable for many longtime residents who are being forced out of the city by the high rents that she and her peers can afford to pay. Kathy appreciates her good fortune to be young and well compensated enough to enjoy the amenities of beautiful San Francisco, but she also feels guilty about the effect that her industry is having on the cost of living for everyone else.

Kathy believes that the technology companies could do more to be part of and contribute to the community, rather than being so focused on making money for themselves. She especially is concerned about the large homeless population of San Francisco, and she wants to do something – donate money? volunteer? – to help.

I admired her sincerity and idealism, but didn’t want her to feel bad about her role in the gentrification of her neighborhood. So I said that it’s understandable that she’s focusing on her career and her social life as she looks forward to marrying her fiance later this year. I suggested that there’s nothing wrong with enjoying being young in an exciting city, and that there will be plenty of opportunities for her to give back to the community in her thirties and forties when she is more settled in her personal and professional life.

But after I said goodbye to Kathy and wished her a wonderful life, I began to question the unsolicited advice that I had offered her. Was I encouraging her to be selfish, rather than honoring her desire to be of service? It is natural for young people to want to make the world a better place, and in a time of great income inequality and catastrophic climate change, we need the energy and altruism of youth to address the social and environmental problems that we have bequeathed to them. Kathy may not have heard of the Summer of Love, the epicenter of which was a few blocks from her apartment, but in her own way her heart wants to contribute to the equivalent of a love-in with flowers in her hair. She may not look or act like a hippie, but her instincts are similar: kindness and generosity of spirit.

It occurred to me that I might have been projecting onto Kathy my regrets about how I spent my own youth. In the summer of 1970 I had volunteered to provide recreational and cultural opportunities for children living in San Francisco housing projects, but I became disillusioned by the depravity of the denizens of those dysfunctional apartment blocks. And in the 1970’s I devoted a great deal of time, money, and energy to promoting what I believed to be world peace through the advancement of our Japanese Buddhist movement, only to discover that our leadership had been corrupted by power and egoism. Part of me wishes that I had not been so idealistic and naive in my twenties, which could explain why I hoped that Kathy might enjoy a more fun-loving youth than I was able to experience.

But in spite of my misgivings about my foolish youth, I must admit that I learned a lot from my mistakes. My intentions were the best, even if I was less than wise in my attempts to fulfill them. And Kathy is smarter and wiser that I was at her age. So I imagine that she will enjoy a rewarding life while finding ways to honor her desire to help others.

Kathy may not be a flower child, but she’s a very hip chick.