John Perry Barlow

Word came yesterday that John Perry Barlow’s run is finally complete; the last several years have been a damned rough road for him and, in that sense, I’m grateful to hear he was able to just lay his hammer down and let go in his sleep.

I’ve said a little, and reposted some things over on Facebook. And I’m certainly gratified to see some of the “younger folk,” who know Barlow primarily, if not exclusively, from his terribly important work with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (the internet ecosystem in which we function and thrive today would, in many ways, not exist without the vision and labor of JPB and his cyber-compadres) posting up on the Twitter machine and vowing to continue to carry the fight forward in his memory. Aside: I think that’s so terribly important now. My cohort and I are old, with some hard earned life lessons but without the energy it always has and always will require to carry the fight to the entrenched power.

But I wanted to take a moment here to recall, and pass along some thoughts he shared a while back.
See, my history with Barlow dates back  to when we were both young and frisky, running wild in and around scenes involving a gang of colorful outlaws that was becoming known, even then, as The Dead Family. I was never a fully pledged member of that brotherhood; I had an instinct for preserving my options and independence that kept me from completely buying in, at any level. But it’s fair to say I had a cordial and respectful “peer to peer working relationship,” if we can even try to characterize stuff that was happening in the 1960s and ’70s with 21st Century terminology.

Whatever you choose to call it, I knew Barlow when we were both playing the role of free-range, hard riding, young blood “neo cowboys.” It was a period when a lot of interesting exploration occurred, fun things happened, dangerous territory was occupied, and mistakes were made.
Some of us have survived. Some didn’t. Most of us who remained learned a lesson or two — some of us more slowly than others.

So, all of this is by way of getting around to sharing with you something Barlow posted up a decade or so ago, when he turned 60. To clarify, the introductory remarks are from that vantage point. They set up a list of, as he characterized them, “Principles of Adult Behavior” that he had first drafted half a lifetime earlier, when he hit the then overly mysticised age of 30. Took me a hell of a lot longer to get my brain lined up with all this (I started out with some damned screwed up ideas about what life is about — had a lot of unlearning to do first in order to make room to get my head screwed on properly). But I am comfortable today saying this reasonably well encapsulates a great deal of what I know.

So long, Barlow. Happy trails, and fair winds.

FINALLY, A LITTLE GIFT FOR US ALL…

I didn’t think I would live to 30 either. I was shocked, shocked I
tell you, to find myself on the eve of my 30th birthday, weirdly
alive. In this, I was quite out of step with most of my friends to
that point, more than half of whom were already back in the sweet realm of infinity and love. Chickenshits. If you’re going to
volunteer in the first place, go right into the Special Forces.

In any event, it occurred to me that, past 30, I could no longer
defend my peccadillos on basis of youth. I would have to acquire some minimal sense of responsibility. While I didn’t want to be a grown-up, I wanted at least to act like one in the less toxic and stultifying sense of the term.

So, I sat down around 2 am on October 3, 1977 and I drew up this list of behavioral goals that I hoped might assist in this process. Now, thirty years later, I can claim some mixed success. Where I’ve failed, I’m still working on it. I give these to you so that you can provide me with encouragement in becoming the person I want to be.
And maybe, though they are very personally targeted, they may even be of some little guidance to you.

Anyway, this is what I wrote that night:

PRINCIPLES OF ADULT BEHAVIOR

1. Be patient. No matter what.
2. Don’t badmouth:
Assign responsibility, never blame.
Say nothing behind another’s back you’d be unwilling to say,
in exactly the same tone and language, to his face.
3. Never assume the motives of others are, to them, less noble
than yours are to you.
4. Expand your sense of the possible.
5. Don’t trouble yourself with matters you truly cannot change.
6. Expect no more of anyone than you yourself can deliver.
7. Tolerate ambiguity.
8. Laugh at yourself frequently.
9. Concern yourself with what is right rather than whom is right.
10. Never forget that, no matter how certain, you might be wrong.
11. Give up blood sports.
12. Remember that your life belongs to others as well. Do not
endanger it frivolously. And never endanger the life of another.
13. Never lie to anyone for any reason.
14. Learn the needs of those around you and respect them.
15. Avoid the pursuit of happiness. Seek to define your mission
and pursue that.
16. Reduce your use of the first personal pronoun.
17. Praise at least as often as you disparage.
18. Never let your errors pass without admission.
19. Become less suspicious of joy.
20. Understand humility.
21. Forgive.
22. Foster dignity.
23. Live memorably.
24. Love yourself.
25. Endure.

I don’t expect the perfect attainment of these principles. However, I post them as a standard for my conduct as an adult. Should any of my friends or colleagues catch me violating any one of them, bust me.

John
Perry Barlow

October 3, 1977

Hold me to these please.

And thank you so much for all the love you’ve given me, despite all of my efforts to resist it.

May the Good Light shine on you,

The Ancient Barlow

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John Perry Barlow, Peripheral Visionary
Co-Founder & Vice Chairman, Electronic Frontier Foundation
Berkman Fellow, Harvard Law School