Remarking on his quest for peace and love, a reader asks Matt whether he was a flower-power hippie in the 1960s.

Matt responds:

In the Sixties I was in an unwrinkled morning coat, pressed-to-a-knife pants, a Homburg, and so on:  the epitome of orthodoxy, charging along, blindfolded to most things that were going on, completely focused on what I was doing, which was dealing with people who had lost their loved ones.  That is what consumed my every thought and emotion in that era of our history.

In retrospect, that part of my life was a great gift to me, because at the time of great drama in people’s lives, I believe we lose a lot of our inhibitions and role-playing, and become the real us.  We try to look for something bigger than we are, something that can make sense out of senseless things.  I believe that we may have the possibility of being in two realities.  I have no reason to say that, except in my meditation I’m one place and my body is in another.

I think the manifestation of the peace and the coming-together of the Sixties was probably the beginning of the fermentation, and I hope that the fine wine that has been permeating all these years will come up as sweet nectar.  I see people coming together, not all singing the same song or dancing the same step, but still having a helluva great time, living as we should be living:  as inhabitants of this planet, as temporary keepers of the keys, dedicated to our own heritage and culture, but accepting and respecting others around us.

Thanks for your question,
Matt