Topic of the Week: Anarchist Coping Mechanisms
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What do you do to stay anarchist? How is that different from what you do to stay... functional/sane/coherent (for lack of better terms)? How are those different things (if they are)?
Some people step outside the anarchist scene, pop culture, games, fiction, tv, etc, and then apply anarchist criteria (however they define that), in a sort of two-step process, as a way to get the benefit of a release of pressure without negating or ignoring the real paucity of our options.
Some people try to find things that work for them as fun/escape/etc that they consider anarchist (making up their own games, making their own media, etc).
What other release-allowing practices have you seen and/or engaged in? What has worked best? What has not worked at all? Have they changed for you over time?
edit: Other options we've seen:
spending most of one's time with other anarchists
spending a lot of time alone and/or in natural settings
criticizing things for not being anarchist enough
drinking and/or doing drugs
While it's easy to get judgemental about other people's coping mechanisms (including being very aware of how they frequently don't work well), I'm hoping that at least some of these comments will share ones that have worked well, at least for you.
Comments
Parenthesis Eye
Mon, 03/28/2016 - 23:03
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I once asked this question to
I once asked this question to an older anarchist friend, and he replied: "What is the alternative here? To become an asshole and start bossing people around instead?"
Anonymous (not verified)
Tue, 03/29/2016 - 00:13
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I don't understand the
I don't understand the question. A deep hatred of society that is reaffirmed in how dumb day-to-day life is, occasionally interrupted with some world shattering man-made horror, a weather event that makes those man-made horrors pale in comparison or some world shattering man-made horror that makes weather events far worse. I think reminding myself that I am going to die while also risking my life doing something stupid here and there helps. I think getting punched in the face helps the most. I feel re-centered after a good beating. Really think about life after that. Existentialist violence. Wish there was a fight club near by. I need beat up again.
Anonymous (not verified)
Tue, 03/29/2016 - 09:38
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I'll punch you in the face
I'll punch you in the face bro. Expressed verbal consent dude bro.
Anonymous (not verified)
Tue, 03/29/2016 - 04:24
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I find masturbating while
I find masturbating while listening to bookfair nihilist podcasts to be a good release.
David Graeber (not verified)
Tue, 03/29/2016 - 08:00
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How to stay an Anarchist
To stay an anarchist I plug the orifices of my body, so as to trap the Essence of Anarchism inside me, which I acquired in a deal with the Devil - I mean, AK Press, in 2009.
As a further measure, I spend all my time (outside of lectures) dwell permanently in the Platonic Realm of Anarchism, which helps keep aforementioned essence alive.
Also, and I don't know if this is truly necessary, but I do it anyway, I make public displays of solidarity with the armed goons who rule over some of the most extreme areas of suffering in the world (EZLN, Rojava), and I call those people 'Anarchists', so it looks like my ideas have a chance of catching on and spreading throughout the world.
It's not great being an Anarchist, but it pays the bills.
What's your excuse?
theunterrified
Tue, 03/29/2016 - 08:07
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Is this a form of admission...
...that 'being an anarchist' is a form of RPG?
Anonymous (not verified)
Tue, 03/29/2016 - 08:37
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no
just that it's a way of life, to no end but personal dignity. your social stratification isn't our prerogative.
Anonymous (not verified)
Tue, 03/29/2016 - 10:00
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Leftist alert! Worky workerist work
My coping mechanism is a 2-stager: in the first phase, when I'm wage-slaving, it's all of the ways that I'm at my very lamest. You're tired and soul-sucked from the boring drudgery/monotony so you tend to stay in, get high, sleep a lot and do low-impact recreational shit like reading, watching tv, and video games. All of this is a form of stupor that allows you to dull your rage enough to maintain your pokerface at work. When the mask slips, it tends to put you out of work pretty quick!
The 2nd phase is when the always looming threat of abject poverty and homelessness has been temporarily beaten back and you've gotten enough sleep and you-time in and actually feel that surplus of creative energy and desire (note: years often pass by without ever reaching the 2nd phase). This is when the seeds of your anarchist projects are much more likely to grow.
It's when I'm compelled to do the things I was only fantasizing about during the 1st phase, like seeking petty revenge against the class enemies who lay these chains on us all. but also working on projects that allow the angry souls to find each other and grow in strength, put up the flag for the beautiful idea and see who answers. That's right around the time that coping can transform in to something much more interesting than just getting by.
Anonymous (not verified)
Tue, 03/29/2016 - 11:02
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I think that there are two
I think that there are two very different questions here: how does one stay an anarchist as far as one's personal convictions goes, and how to stay an anarchist, in the sense of being an active part of the social subculture that congregates around that label.
Anonymous (not verified)
Tue, 03/29/2016 - 22:11
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Drinking heavily.
Drinking heavily.
SirEinzige (not verified)
Wed, 03/30/2016 - 20:56
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Thinking heavily
Thinking heavily
oxner (not verified)
Wed, 03/30/2016 - 20:09
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drugs, drugs, drugs, drugs
drugs, drugs, drugs, drugs
<3 Atak (not verified)
Thu, 03/31/2016 - 07:23
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hugs, hugs ,hugs, hugs
hugs, hugs ,hugs, hugs
Luke From DC (not verified)
Wed, 03/30/2016 - 21:56
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Stay in the streets and fight
Even though I am now 50 year old, I still get my ass out in the streets several times a week. Actions against fracking and tar sands, anti-gentrification/pro community action, stuff like that happens all the time here. Then of course there's trying to bring some seriousness to all the big national events that go down.
Maybe staying out on the sharp end not only helps me stay committed but stay reasonably young as well?
Anonymous (not verified)
Thu, 03/31/2016 - 17:34
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You must have brain damage
You must have brain damage from banging your head against a brick wall for so many years.
Luke From DC (not verified)
Sun, 04/03/2016 - 14:33
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Some fights go long
If I had to bash down a brick wall, I would use a battering ram instead of my head, they are not hard to make
Keep in mind, it took 150 years to expel the Crusaders from Jerusalem, and decades to expel the French and the Americans from Vietnam. Native Americans still resist colonization and theft of land and resources even after 525 years, and the conflict between the UK and Ireland is over 900 years old.
Anonymous (not verified)
Thu, 03/31/2016 - 06:07
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I wear my cope so my crotch
I wear my cope so my crotch doesn't get so hot and sweaty
Anonymous (not verified)
Thu, 03/31/2016 - 06:14
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Coping is swell, but don't
Coping is swell, but don't throw the life jacket to the shittiest parts of you.
Anonymous (not verified)
Thu, 03/31/2016 - 07:30
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Radical intoxication
Radical intoxication
Anonymous (not verified)
Thu, 03/31/2016 - 17:29
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Let's get to heart of the
Let's get to heart of the matter: what is everyone's favorite kind of beer??
Holy shit the Stone mexican chocolate stout is killer.
Anonymous (not verified)
Thu, 03/31/2016 - 08:00
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Really? You need to find ways
Really? You need to find ways and means to STAY ANARCHIST? How fucking pathetic. Maybe you should worry less about your fucking identity, and more about your ideas and behavior.
Anonymous (not verified)
Thu, 03/31/2016 - 08:13
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Missed the point.
If you think you don't have a coping mechanism is this fucked up world you need to seriously examine yourself, because you do.
Anonymous (not verified)
Thu, 03/31/2016 - 09:22
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of course, everyone has
of course, everyone has coping mechanisms for dealing with this shithole. but that is very different from saying you need a way to "stay anarchist". do you not see the diff? though i guess "being" anarchist means different things to the scenesters.
Anonymous (not verified)
Thu, 03/31/2016 - 09:24
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poor little identity being
poor little identity being challenged by the brutal "real" world? get over the identity and let your behavior indicate your anarchy.
Anonymous (not verified)
Thu, 03/31/2016 - 10:17
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It seems as though the
It seems as though the question is what gives you the drive to keep doing anarchistic things without getting burnt out? Not really anything to do with identity.
Anonymous (not verified)
Thu, 03/31/2016 - 12:22
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I write and recite poems...
I write and recite poems...
But, go outside,
escape the direct rays of the streetlights
and the porchlights
find a pocket of near natural dark
watch the clouds roll past it
through the black latticework of twigs and branches
against the sky puce
with the city's light pollution
bouncing off the city's smog
listen to the river
the musicless babble
antianthropocentric chaos of water over rocks
or the wind
or whatever you got out there
listen to the fucking traffic if you gotta
just go
and be
in a place with a thing way up there in the sky
a lighter smudge on the light pollution
but the clouds are rolling and sometimes its lavender
and expanding, like a bloom
a curving vaginal orchid of cloud
sometimes inside there, you can see it, there
white blue and perfectly round
watch it come and go
for a minute
two minutes
until you can't anymore for whatever reason
then wait
just wait
until the wind to reveals it to you
white and full and glorious
looking down on you grinning
and then let loose
AAAAOOOOOO!
Fuck you wage slavery returning
AAAAOOOOOO!
Fuck you eight months of accumulated debt
AAAAOOOOOO!
Fuck your prison industrial complex
AAAAOOOOOO!
Fuck off, fear of crime,
fear of rejection, loneliness, isolation
Fuck the fuck off!
AAAAOOOOOO!
Fuck you hegemony,
Fuck you civil society
Fuck you discipline and punish
Fuck this carceral city
this state of class peace
fuck your mechanistic harmonies
every single way you lock us down
without even needing to lock us up
AAAAOOOOOO!
Fuck it all and listen to your lungs echo
unbaffled off the urban landscape!
Give yourself this modicum of sovereignty
whatever your weak lungs can push out
into the banal night
however inadequate, trivial and pathetic
take it
walk it home in your heart
cherish it
because we are creatures of habit
and experience
if the grand gesture is longer available to us
if decisive moves are violently denied
then
our only hope
our plots and schemes
our conspiracies
and secret wars of liberation
must be waged
by an accumulation of the very smallest acts.
Anonymous (not verified)
Thu, 03/31/2016 - 13:14
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i like your poem crazyhead :)
i like your poem crazyhead :)
Anonymous (not verified)
Thu, 03/31/2016 - 17:33
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I like it too!
I like it too!
Anonymous (not verified)
Thu, 03/31/2016 - 19:55
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incredible poem, i feel more
incredible poem, i feel more energetic and lighter after reading it. way too many imperatives, you haven't hit the grand style yet, but definitely on the way
Anonymous (not verified)
Thu, 03/31/2016 - 13:10
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I am a wornout shoe at this
I am a wornout shoe at this point but you know I just try to be kind and try to help the world, or be more spontaneous.
F (not verified)
Thu, 03/31/2016 - 16:04
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how do I stay negative in a positively fucked-up world ?
Nihilism and Anarchism -for me- are semantic descriptors, words that are meant to name a negative orientation of agency. They are strictly subjective in nature, employed in diametric critique toward any conceivable position or Thing. The former is applicable to the objective context of the indefinite relational continuum, the latter to that of stateless -or autonomous- society.
In the name of order and to maintain a degree of personal integrity, I have to balance the immanent negativity by fooling around with rearranging positions; such -I find- is the humane-condition, or Life. We're charged to evolve, to assert a position. These electric positions, mingling parties are magnificently -albeit fleetingly- manifest as living phenomena. Alas,hen the partiers are concretely categorized into immortality they become spooks, they're bestowed authority. A spook of authority can turn monstrous. Thus faced with such atrocity, one feels the primal urge to fight or flight. Where pure fight is a sure suicide, a mere violence, and to flee is impossible, there is no immediate choice for the Anarchist-Nihilist. Thus -on haunted field- I meditate for potential meaning and choose a martial approach, to engage the spook in the spook-realm. Seeking the warmth of morning sunlight, I am destined to emerge again among the source which now carries me here. The universal amniotic fluid of ethereal nothingness endures to receive all things-fulfilling.
:-) all time-space and distance is illusory. There is only light-frequency or vibration.
Every body -each rock and tree- resonates a voice, communicates, speaks with me.
Shall I to gather stones and some seeds?
By ability, each according to her unique need.
We have to ask and to listen.
And there are focal-points, portals through which beauty-source arises intensely magnified.
Ceremonial observance tends the flame
For the heavens and Earth, my home is alive,
A breathing creature -as my body-
Yet, I'm not especially attached to IT
For tomorrow, death becomes.
:-) being is an illusory concept
Any semblance of integrity is fleeting
Absolute chaos is the perfect order
Institution corrupts absolutely everything
Yet, it is the ambiguous sense of integrated being which forms the essence of relationship.
:-) to set on a pilgrimage, a walkabout, a quest,
To wander, to journey, to travel from home through the wilderness,
Paying homage to relations, to encourage and admire beauty,
To remember source,to recall the serenity, is a dance for joy
To undermine the hierarchial authority
Anonymous (not verified)
Thu, 03/31/2016 - 17:32
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I backpack.
I backpack.
Sometimes I lock myself in my house and hardly come out for weeks.
The world is really brutal. Try not to hurt anyone.
Anonymous (not verified)
Thu, 03/31/2016 - 17:43
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While you may get discouraged
While you may get discouraged with the way things are moving so slow you do not really go from being anarchist to I'm not anarchist anymore. Mainly because once you've been exposed you cannot unlearn the truth. Secondly, the problem being the system is still there aggravating the hell out of you and everybody else that is its victim. You can take breaks but you'll always end up back where you left off.
Anonymous (not verified)
Fri, 04/01/2016 - 16:11
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i was an anarchist, but now i
i was an anarchist, but now i'm a social democrat. i'm feelin the bern!
Anonymous (not verified)
Sun, 04/03/2016 - 00:42
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Anarchy IS my coping
Anarchy IS my coping mechanism. What better way is there for dealing with this shit then saying, fuck it?
Anonymous (not verified)
Sun, 04/03/2016 - 08:19
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Bullshit. Or you've been an
Bullshit. Or you've been an anarchist for less than a year and haven't yet experienced burnout
SirEinzige (not verified)
Sun, 04/03/2016 - 08:41
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You're confusing anarchism for anarchy
If you engage in spooky positions, solutions and struggles you will most likely burn out from that those types of surrogate activities. This may be surprising to you, but some people do not bring anarchy into the legitimate problems of life. Anarchs don't burn out.
Anonymous (not verified)
Sun, 04/03/2016 - 09:38
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I agree with the first part.
I agree with the first part. But when y'all say you have no coping mechanisms other than anarchy, it is definitely bullshit. SirEinzige, one of yours might be elitist anews posting (regardless if you're right)
theunterrified
Sun, 04/03/2016 - 10:03
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In what way...
...is Sir Einzige an elitist?
Have I missed something?
Anyone?
SirEinzige (not verified)
Sun, 04/03/2016 - 10:35
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Good question
Maybe you'll get a proper answer from them as opposed to me.
Anonymous (not verified)
Sun, 04/03/2016 - 23:19
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I read your blog. It's
I read your blog. It's thoughtful, sincere, short, dense, leaves most things unsaid (and yet theres so much there). I like how its not thinking out loud, but after thinking, like it's ready.
I was curious about the elitist claim too. How can a blogger be elitist?
Generally when it comes to writing, profound ideas require clear prose, and superficial ideas require a swamp. But the posts are short and better than most milieu writers so that's not really a valid criticism as i see it.
Anonymous (not verified)
Sun, 04/03/2016 - 09:11
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Considerably more, and yes I
Considerably more, and yes I've experienced burnout from specific activities. Maybe those activities need to be reevaluated? Or maybe the pace was just too much. Figure out what you can do that you can live with, instead of going gung-ho for a year or two and then just withdrawing into a conformist cocoon. One can be active without turning into an Activist.
Anonymous (not verified)
Sun, 04/03/2016 - 10:32
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I just use FULL consumerism.
I just use FULL consumerism. Makes me forget my humanity, feelings, dignity and all that sassy stuff for libuhrulls. Everyone's equal and the same over the counter. Always smiling... Everything niiice and clean... Our futures guaranteed. In plastic packages.
Anonymous (not verified)
Sun, 04/03/2016 - 13:59
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I've learned almost all of
I've learned almost all of the plants and fungi in my region (excluding grasses and most mosses). Smoking cannabis & nature walks help me cope with Leviathan. I used to do anarchist graffiti (slogans, stencils and billboards) for the thrill and release of adrenaline, it would keep me going for a few days, shoplifting too is nice for that. I've had to give that up because the more often you do it the higher the chances of your arrest become, and I had just had a kid and his mom wasn't down with the illegal stuff anymore.
It took me a really long time to find something to help me cope with my Society induced depression, but it ended up with me mushroom hunting. I went out in the fall during the rains and really fell in love with the woods again. I was looking for a particular little mushroom, but was blown away by the beauty of all the different fungi that were popping up everywhere. The next year I was ready, armed with two field guides, a basket and a bunch of little paper bags. I climbed hills full of nettles, blackberry brambles, I've reached out to take hold of a plant to keep me from falling only to find that I grabbed devil's club. I've seen foxes, owls, salamanders, skunks, coyotes, otters and a lot more. I finally conquered my phobia of spiders. I've been completely lost for hours in the forest, I've been Aubrey Beardsley's "Tannhauser". What really helped me with the transition from sneaky illegal shit was I was finally able to have an answer to the question : "is civilization uglier than nature is beautiful?" My answer is: nature is more beautiful.
Anonymous (not verified)
Sun, 04/03/2016 - 23:29
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where the song of necessity
where the song of necessity sings
Pedro (not verified)
Mon, 04/04/2016 - 09:03
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I study my family's lineage
I study my family's lineage and follow it back 5 generations to my great great great grandfather, Mikhail Bakunin and soak in the warm glow from inheriting his dominant genetic anarchist genomes which I will one day act upon, sometime in the future,,,,,,,, I'm 35 years old now, still waiting,,,,,,
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