Saturday, September 08, 2007
Thirty-five years ago
[rambling]
Thirty-five years ago I was five. Must have been 1971. I lived in a log cabin my parents had built a hundred yards or so from my uncle’s commune in the mountains above Boulder. For some reason, it was important to my mother that her kids not be raised in a communal geodesic dome where a bunch of folks hung out, smoked dope, and tried to figure out how to make their own LSD.
No running water. No electricity. No refrigeration. Outhouse. Had to hike in at least half a mile through the snow in winter. (Despite popular belief, it was uphill only one way.)
It seems about 1000 years and a million miles from my life today.
Looking at my kids, I can’t say they’re any happier than I was. And looking at myself, I don’t think I can claim to be any happier than my parents were then. Life’s different. Far more complicated. It’s full of lots more material crap. But strangely, it’s not “better.”
[/rambling]