I am 69 years old. I lived through that era and saw myself as part of it as well. I was partly wrong.
Of great benefit was my sifting through my ideas of social etiquette and provincial style. On the other hand, I eventually saw that some of the exercise was contrary to my comfort zone. So I changed accordingly.
As I explored ways and mores of "the groupy ethic," I found some things not to my liking although they were amply promoted by friends. So I screened changes before jumping into the sea and swallowing the fish.
Letting go of earlier social standards wasn't as easy as one might think. There will always be the wish to find approval by your peers. How wise can it be to pretend disaffection when all we need do is move with independence?
Beauty is skin deep, we're told ad nauseum. Will my revised hair length or nail color change me or merely my representation?
When others look at us, what are they seeing? Is it the outside of ourselves or what lies underneath? If it's the former, then aren't they responding to our deliberate "front?" And if they're responding to our social "disguise," then aren't we manipulating them by encouraging the response we wish?
Most of this stuff was revealed to me in rather short order. I found I didn't want to share myself in group sex---bear in mind that at the time, swinging was the rage. I always felt like a slob, wearing the same old crappy clothing because it was the reining style---belonging to others but not me. Living on peas and carrots and saving the animals of the universe? I'm mostly vegetarian but I like chicken and turkey---do I have to give up my life-long tastes to worship at a shrine I didn't build or even create? Or want?
I liked owning my own set of wheels, I wanted to marry and have kids, I needed to follow my own dreams and not pretend that I'm unimportant to myself when I am--- and from a psychological viewpoint---I should be.
Hippies exist today but more as social dissenters. They are the rebels who don't fit their round shapes into square holes. They long to "legalize" their ill fitting personas by protesting the tried, true and generally accepted.
Today I'm regarded as very different yet I break no laws and promote no causes other than one: I embrace my right to live as I do, with vulnerability and self-reliance to the max. I answer to nobody and bow to no shrine whatsoever. I define all that I wish and I affiliate accordingly, without reservation or fear. I live as "me" and I never suffer from depression which is just another word for "isolation.
My friends are extremely close, all are self reliant and able thinkers and, in a way, of a deeper, more philosophical nature. We're not hippies yet we've arrived and are thoroughly pleased to have come this far without breaking the rules nor did we even bend them. Instead, we lived them and through them and made our choices.
Life is indeed wonderful when we have no debt, no baggage, no guilt and no creditors. We write our own tickets and claim them solely for ourselves...this is our ride to that eventual destination.
Look more deeply into your interpretation of "hippie"---I think you'll find it is more important to define who and what you wish to become and not a surface treatment of how you want others to see you.
What a ride it will be---if you open the windows of opportunity!
