The 1960s were about releasing ourselves from conventional society and freeing ourselves.

The line frames “the 1960s” less as a calendar decade than as a cultural project: a collective attempt to break with inherited norms around politics, sexuality, art, and personal identity. In Ono’s mouth, it also resonates with her avant‑garde practice—Fluxus, conceptual instruction pieces, and performance—where liberation often meant refusing conventional categories and authorial control. The repetition of “ourselves” emphasizes self-determination: freedom is not granted by institutions but enacted by individuals and communities through experimentation and dissent. The quote thus functions as a retrospective thesis about the era’s countercultural ethos and its belief that changing consciousness and social forms were inseparable.