The average class at Wellesley gains a ton during its freshman year. It is rumored that Dylan stole "Blowin' in the Wind" from some kids in New Jersey, that Gene McCarthy is divorcing his wife to marry a LIFE correspondent. All news we hear is bad news, or else we wouldn't have to listen.
It's no coincidence that the '67 Summer of Love was also Vietnam Summer. But the hippies are gone, the thrill of rock'n drugs is over, and SDS is now the largest fraternitysorority going. Lehman Hall at lunch is a scene in itself, if you're in need of a scene, and if you're verbal and aware or just lonely and disoriented, it's quite human to want to have a scene. Only you end up in Paine Hall, hassling impotent people and trying to figure out the real issues.
Then the Living Theatre shows up and tells you what you already know, but you can at least feel badly together, and your roommates are talking about T-groups.
A hundred people are standing in line at the Coop, buying the new Beatles record, and when one guy turns around and says, "Why don't just a few of you buy the record and go have a party in someone's room?" all one hundred make him play Paranoia.
Do you wonder why Emmett Grogan, the non-leader of the Diggers, is coming to Cambridge this month?
Is it not strange that Harvard has no real student center? That it does almost nothing to repay the community for its land, its poverty?
When did Harvard last show you a good time?
Genetically, psychologically, it is possible that we are all lovers. A university interested in its society might examine that proposition, or by the year 2001, there may be no need for a blue-ribbon faculty committee to think about the year 3000. Some random real questions: What happens to people when they are not anxious or competitive? Is schizophrenia normal in technological civilization? What kinds of films do black kids in Roxbury make? What is the influence of diet, say macrobiotics, for example, on the mind?
The university might be able to discover itself again, if we approach it as potential discoverers.
For at least two years, and probably more, isolated groups in Cambridge have talked about mechanisms to bring people together, to admit a loneliness which is perhaps central to the phenomenon of having a good brain, and then to move beyond it. If SDS were clever, if the CRIMSON and the other publications were serious, if the clubs had a sense of humor, some combined assault might be made on the Administration for a center, a place where people could come and be. Where ego-tripping would be the only taboo. Where skills and ideas would be shared among friends. Where a minor message begins. I gather some fellows around me toward evening:
We address each other as "gentleman." They put their feet up on my table. And say: things will improve. And I don't ask when. Bertolt Brecht
It is cold this winter, and WARMTH has always seemed too sappy to be attractive, and H-R X is underground. The people who are making it are going on, making it, and the others flounder, as people will. In the corner, an old man speaks of Bloomsbury, and how it changed England, if only for a moment, and a graduate speaks fondly of Harvard, not knowing what we mean, and a girl who isn't too pretty writes a cliched poem about a boy who's not too handsome.
My kingdom of love shall expand. I have loved my body more than anything else. That is why I am identified with and limited by it. With the love that I had given to the body, I will love all those who love me. With the expanded love of those who love me, I will love those who are mine. With the love for myself and the love for my own, I will love those who are strangers. I will use all my love to love those who do not love me, as well as those who love me. I will bathe all souls in my unselfish love. In the sea of my love, my family members, my countrymen, all nations, and all beings will swim. All creation, all the myriads of tiny living things, will dance on the waves of my love. Paramahansa Yogananda
It is almost too late to ask it, but those who feel this urgency must act, unashamed and soon. For we are back in the 1950's again, and will have tan shoes, pink shoelaces, and sockhop love if we indulge our apathy. "Humanity is estranged from its authentic possibilities," R.D. Laing has written. Yes. But it may not be too late to find the ones with whom we will face the night