With all this talk of Millennials being the “New Age Hippies,” I think its important that we all take a look at the roots of the hippie movement: Bob Dylan is an American music icon who has forever changed the idea of what it means to be a “good singer.” But Bob Dylan is so much more than just an obscure, scratchy voice. A storyteller, a poet, the voice of a generation: he was a man who saw the world as an outsider looking in. His observant music has timelessly captured the contradictory nature of human beings. He was a true genius in his field. So, take a step back to the 60’s and take a look at this list of quotes. You might learn more here than in your 1:10 microbiology class!
“People seldom do what they believe in. They do what is convenient, then repent.”
Part of going to college and being a young adult is figuring out what you believe in, what you stand for. Once you figure that out, live by it.
“He not busy being born is busy dying.”
We are constantly existing in time and space, here and now. The past isn’t real. The future is only a projection that never really works out the way its supposed to. The only thing we have is the present. Get born.
“What’s money? A person is a success if he gets up in the morning and gets to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do.”
We all come to college with this idea in our heads that we have to get a degree, make money, make something of ourselves. In the end it won’t matter how much money you made or how big your house was. What matters is that you are happy, that you got out of this world what you wanted to. Wake up and love your life… or change it.
“All the Truth in the world adds up to one big lie.”
The human narrative we call history or science is just that: a narrative, a story. In the words of Shakespeare, “There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” At the end of the day, our whole world is strung together by bits of language and ideas. An attempt to understand the elements we live within. Just around the corner, our whole narrative could be proven false.
“Don’t criticize what you can’t understand.”
One person’s idea of “right” is not ultimate or universal.
“Ah, but I was so much older then; I’m younger than that now.”
I will caption this quote with another quote from one of the greats, John Lennon, “The more I see, the less I know for sure.”
“You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.”
“DESTINY is a feeling you have that you know something about yourself nobody else does.”
That funny little feeling that just beneath the surface there is a tree growin’ outta your heart. Water that tree and keep it alive!
“Even the President of the United States sometimes has to stand naked.”
Status doesn’t truly exist. Underneath our clothes and our words and our position in society, we are all just vulnerable little humans standing in front of the mirror, naked.
“There’s no success like failure.”
We learn something from every experience. Go forth, and fail.
“There is nothing as stable as change.”
Going away to college, I think we all come to realize this. Life comes at you a million miles per hour and you just gotta keep on keepin’ on. Holding onto the past or what could have been is detrimental to what is. Embrace change and let go of things that need to be let go of.