Have you ever really listened to the rest of the song that line was plucked from?

Everything he was talking about came true. Tom, My whole life has been built on what I was warned about back then, and not just by Bobby Zimmerman. The writing was clearly on the wall, you just weren't paying attention. I've been preparing myself throughout 'the 70s, 80s, 90s, and 2000s' for just what is happening now.

I never believed the world was going to come to an end, I still don't. But I knew perfectly well it couldn't continue the way we were promised, either. I never bought your program, I'm not about to sign on now, I've seen where it leads, and you're welcome to it.

We were burning the candle at both ends, squandering our resources, (or neglecting them because they were unprofitable),living as if there was no tomorrow, going into debt (consumer, corporate, national, environmental), in other words, the American Dream, the Consumer society, Business as Usual.

The business majors and marketing mavens were determined to red-line us into the 21st century, until the motor seized up and the gas ran out. I knew it couldn't go on forever, and I was right. And your tribe still doesn't get it.

"Twenty years of schoolin'
and they put you on the day shift..."

Every thing I've done in my life, how I educated myself, my choice of career, the sacrifices I was willing to make and the principles I refused to give up, my relationship to my work, my lifestyle, my personal habits and philosophy, even my selection of a mate, were based on doing just the opposite of what people like you were telling me every day I had to do. And I did it all while playing strictly by the rules, and by not exploiting or using anyone else.

Am I safe? Of course not, no one can be safe for ever, about everything; shit, after all, does happen. But I am convinced I did the right thing, knowing what I knew at the time. My experience tells me so. I can look around me and my contemporaries and there is simply no denying it. And you actually wonder how people have been able to make different choices than you did.

I can't guarantee I will be protected from the Collapse of Civilization, but I know I'm better prepared for it than most of the people I know, and the ones who are in my boat all thought about things pretty much the same
way I did. The strategies I picked to confront the future as I saw it in 1970 were not only the most productive, they were the most easily realizable. I got lucky in a lot of things, but I could have blown my luck with a lot of bad choices, too. And it wasn't just luck I didn't make them.

The hippies were right, Tom. The ones who screwed up were the ones who cut their metaphorical hair and willingly stuck their necks into the noose of a spiritual and intellectual necktie. Dig it.