A Brief Philosophy of the Lone Ant

This morning I was watching hundreds of ants marching in line. Their organization and conformity reminded me of humans. Then there was this one ant that strayed off the path. He wondered around on his own in a kind of confused daze. It was obvious that he was tired of following the pack and wanted to go off on his own- but he was not quite sure where to go. For a moment my attention drifted to something that was going on outside my window. I stood up and accidentally stepped on the lone ant. As I looked down at the squished ant all I could think was “so this is how it goes.”

Fascist Families.

The family unit as a form of Fascism. Someone said this to me yesterday, and I have been thinking about it ever since. I have spent an hour this morning standing on my head and twenty minutes jumping up and down on one foot. During that time my mother has called me twice, “why do you not return my phone call?” My sister has called me wondering when I am going to come and visit and my Father has called me three times in the past two days. He wants me to figure out what I am doing with my life. He has also been trying to get me to quit the writing business and go into real estate. All of these encroaches upon my 36 year old personal psychic space are like thick thorns in my side. They are forms of tyranny that prevent me from developing in ways that are necessary for my health. They keep me standing on my head so that I do not see the world straight.

Is not Fascism a system that is emotionally unequipped to deal with the needs of the individual? If it is- than all of us Americans are living in an unannounced Fascistic system (as opposed to a Democracy) and our families are smaller yet more pronounced forms of Fascism. They keep us wrapped up in a ball of conformity unable to grow into our own- until they become very old our start to die out. Our families give us love and they nurture us but at the same time they prevent our will for freedom to grow into a successful action. We remain martyrs as the family unit keeps us confined in a nucleus which determines our every action? While writing this short passage my sister has called me twice, my mothers voice is scrambling in my head and I am trying to figure out ways to avoid talking to my father. I am confined by a Jewish family, the severity of which makes me want to stand on my head for days. My feet are heavy and I am wondering how today, I can spend a few hours cultivating my own garden without them in it.

When I was younger I used to want to burn down my parents mansion. I conspired all kinds of ways to seek revenge for the soul that I felt like they where stealing from me. If I had known then that I was being subjected to the tyranny of Fascism maybe I would not have taken the whole thing so seriously. Things would have made more sense. If I would have known that the conditions for Fascism arise when there is an emotional disconnect between an individual and his/her family or society- I could have understood that my parents were emotionally “un-evolved.” Maybe this would have given me more sympathy and prevented me from setting my fathers BMW on fire. Who knows? Now that I am older- understanding these things helps me to prevent myself from becoming angry or resentful. It gives me the personal peace to understand that Fascism is a system that robs the spirit from the body, leaving the individual in a state of affliction. So I realize that we are all afflicted with a negative feeling that keeps us from loving, which after all simply means “letting go.”