When I was 15, the family moved from southern California to the San Francisco bay area, and in the next few years the place exploded with music, drugs, sex, and politics.

I was already eccentric and suspected I might be a beatnik. That’s when I tried being a hippie.

I failed.

I wasn’t a fan of cut flowers. I wasn’t blonde and I couldn’t grow my frizzy hair to any impressive length. I was nocturnal. I craved decadence. I wasn’t strong on current events or even newspapers; I may have been the last in my coterie to go anti-war.

But my biggest failing, the quality that seems to have gotten me expelled from the club, is my unwillingness to live in the here-and-now.

I like to dwell on my history. I am motivated by the idea of my future.

In general, I do not enjoy spontaneity.

I know me well enough to state with authority that I derive a large measure of my pleasure from anticipation of a happy event. I often like the actual happening too, but I usually enjoy more pleasure moments during the time before than during the running or replaying.

Of course there have been attempts to correct this condition. I’ve lived in Berkeley for the last 40 years. Yoga and meditation and rolfing and EST and howling and drumming and, well – you know – are not unfamiliar to me.

If I make a plan with a friend, I then look forward to it. I anticipate it with pleasure. It is something of a carrot for me, visible beyond my tasks. If the friend is flaky, then I don’t get the anticipation. I’ve learned that the plan is as likely as not to be cancelled. I cannot trust the plan. I can’t anticipate.

There went half my pleasure. Frankly, it’s not worth my time to only achieve half my pleasure.

I have no need for flaky (I mean spontaneous) folks.