Am I An Anarchist?

I have always thought of myself as an anarchist. I don’t like being told what to do, I disdain the word Boss (I like to say: “no free person has a boss”), I think that government is a huge failed experiment in the endless possibilities inherent in the human condition, I do not trust people who wear uniforms, when I hear media people or politicians saying things like “Americans believe…” I know they are not talking about me, I am not a big fan of capital, sports, pop culture or competition, I think voting is a scam that the mass of mislead people still think actually matters, I feel that soldiers have been terribly manipulated and indoctrinated by those in power, I don’t watch television or identify with any “leader,” I think the president is a limp puppet and every time I see a police officer I have to hold back from shouting out, “Wake up!”

But am I an anarchist?

The last time I confessed to being an anarchist was over dinner with my Republican father. That was a mistake. Fortunately, I had been practicing meditation regularly at that time and was able to not get caught up in the hundreds of angry thoughts that were steam rolling through my mind as my father told me that I was not an anarchistic and that anarchy was a bunch of bullshit. “Anarchy is an impossible dream, it is violent, misinformed and could never work. You are much more intelligent than that son,” my father said as everyone picked at the cheese plate and Caesar salad that sat in the center of the table. That night was one night that I wise enough to realize it is futile to argue with someone who thinks they know everything but really knows nothing at all.

But now several years later I am starting to wonder if my father was right? Shit. I have been reading a small book that I picked up at a zine fair called, “The Anarchist Tension,” by Alfredo M. Bonanno. In this little book Bonanno speaks of anarchy as having nothing to do with what we traditional consider as political and more to do with a way of being, a way of existing in a conformist world. What threw me into doubt about my own anarchistic identity was this sentence: “Instead, the anarchist is someone who really puts themselves in doubt as such, as a person, and asks themselves: what connection do I manage to maintain each day in everything I do, a way of being an anarchist continually and not coming to agreements, making little daily compromises, etc?”

Shit.

I like nice things. I like the home that I own with my wife. I am grateful to have a job where I can help others and make a decent income but for the past year or so I have been struggling with one question that I keep asking myself: Am I living authentically, true to my beliefs, true to who I really am? I keep coming up with the same answer: I’m trying but not really.

All throughout my twenties and thirties I wanted to exist as a writer and an artist. I wanted to be my own agent and not have to go outside of myself to earn a living. This was real anarchy as far as I was concerned. I admired the plethora of artists, musicians and writers who were able to build a life out of their true selves without having to compromise their own identity. This is what I wanted for myself- problem was that I was always broke and had to work at various low paying jobs that I did not really like. I had to have a boss.

After working as a high school teacher who also tended bar I realized that I could not do this anymore. I chickened out. I came to terms with the fact that there was no way that I was ever going to be able to support my desired lifestyle as an artist and writer, so I went back to graduate school and became a psychotherapist (a painful process). And now that I am working as a “professional” in a government regulated, very conservative profession- I can not not help but wonder, is this really me?

Bonanno writes that “for the true anarchist the secret of life is to never ever separate thought from action, the things we know, the things we understand, from the things we do, the things with which we carry out our actions.” So many of the individuals who come to see me for psychotherapy are suffering from deep depressions because they are stuck in careers that they want to get out of but can not. They are experiencing what Sartre called, “No Exit.” They are stuck living a life where thought and action are completely separated. For years they have been trying hard to connect the two but it just does not seem to be working out. Is this happening to me also? Is this the fate of the majority of Americans who live in a capitalist system? Could this be the main cause of mental illness in our first world, highly sophisticated and systematized society?

Maybe so.

But even more importantly- now that I have a legitimate and professional career that demands that I appear in a fairly standardized, conservative and professional manner- am I still an anarchist? Even though I have gained more cultural legitimacy, credibility from people like my parents and financial security have I lost that way of being that characterizes living authentically as an anarchist? Have I become what I always used to refer to as a sell out? Maybe not. Maybe there is a way to function within the system that keeps a person’s autonomy, truth and freedom in tact.

But if I can’t find that way………..

is it possible that I can at least be an anarchist on the side?

Walking Backwards

I have been spending a good amount of my time walking backwards. It began a few weeks ago when I was watching a program on television about habits. The show talked about humans as creatures of habit. We are carved from habits that have been conditioned into us since a very young age. These habits are what allow governments, corporations, parents, bosses and various other institutional constructs to control us, manipulate us and influence us. This idea sent chills down my spine. I had to open a bottle of wine to calm my nerves. So this is what is going on, I thought to myself. I learned that there are huge organizations created to study human habits and how to create and control these habits. Immediately I stood up, turned off my television and put it into the closet. I took a deep breath. Was I having an Orwellian nightmare or was I awake? I went outside and took some more deep breaths. I turned off my iphone. I sat down on my front door step and stared into the nights sky. All I could do was sit there.

Over the course of the next few days I thought about starting a revolution. But who would it be against? I wanted my autonomy back but I have never been much of a revolutionary. I am not the kind of guy who throws stones for political reasons. I want to be but political causes just do not interest me that much. So what could I do to combat the forces that have created my habits and now manipulate and control me? I could drink, have fun, be silly and act out in ways that are not considered normal. I do this already and it only gets me so far. I could spend my days in silent meditation but I can barley concentrate long enough to sit in meditation for fifteen minutes straight. I thought and thought about what I could do to oppose the forces of habit and then it happened. One day on a walk I just started to walk backwards.

It was not a preconceived idea. I was walking forwards and as quickly as wind changes directions- I started to walk backwards. Immediately I felt a shower of relief pour over me. For the first ten minutes of walking backwards I tripped and felt the muscles in the back of my legs tightened up. I had no experience in walking backwards and the only way that I could learn to do it was to continue moving backwards despite how many times I almost fell. After the first ten minutes of walking backwards- it felt more natural. I was less clumsy, tripped less and the muscles in the back of my legs calmed down. I was simply able to enjoy the pleasure of creating a new habit. An abnormal habit. A habit that no one else would be able to control but me.

When we reverse habits we re-wire the mechanisms in our brain. It is like charting out new neural pathways that have not been traversed before. We actually end up rewriting the brain, expanding it beyond the daily, conditioned pathways that we are so used to walking down. I assumed that the more I walked backwards the more I would create new pathways in my brain that had not be preconceived or designed by parents, schools, corporations, governments. Maybe, I thought, the more I walked backwards- the more autonomy I would get back. So for the past two weeks I have been walking backwards as much as I can. I walk backwards almost everywhere I go. At the market, the gas station, restaurants, bars and even at work (when I can). People stare at me and call me a freak, which is only natural since I am stepping out of the conditioned societal way of doing things. My boss has become frustrated by my need to walk backwards, my wife has trouble being in public with me (although we are starting to walk backwards more and more together) and it is difficult to drink my daily bottle of red wine and then walk backwards without falling- but these are minor bumps in the road. What I believe I will obtain as a result of my walking backwards far out weighs what I will lose.

I have learned to enjoy seeing things as I walk away from them rather than always walking towards things. Walking backwards gives one a new psychological framework through which to perceive reality. I value the things that I have more now whereas I used to think more about things that I needed to get, places I needed to go. Walking forwards keeps one stuck in the future, always moving along with the forces of entropy. Walking backwards opposes the forces of entropy, slows time down and allows me to focus more on enjoying the things I have without needing to go forwards and get more. I would not be exaggerating if I said that when I walk backwards I feel liberated.

My boss has threatened to fire me if I keep walking backwards at work. I do not have much money in my savings and I do not know what I would do if I lost my job- but I am not going to stop walking backwards. It is more important to me that I live my life and discover my own autonomy. I need to feel like I have distinguished myself from the self that has been programmed and conditioned by an apparatus that is beyond my control. Advertisers, politicians, teachers, bosses, bureaucrats, police officers are all apart of a societal nexus that has been set in place to keep us in our habitual ways of being and thinking. They keep us preprogrammed and detached from who we really are. If it means that I have to walk backwards for the rest of my life to find out who it is I really am- then I am willing to do this, one step at a time.

The Storyteller

The difficult thing about being a Storyteller is finding the time to write. In our post industrial technocratic society man, woman and child are subjected to a fate similar to the wrath of God against Adam and Eve. We must work by the sweat of our brow, labor away all of our vital energy so that we can afford to maintain a semblance of dignity and pride. It is an unusual condition to be wedged between because most have become so habituated to this way of being (working) that they see no alternative. They have learned to love the hand that enslaves them and decry a life without hard work ( a classic case of conditioning). After all we know that the majority of hard workers are working hard only so that they do not have to be left with the time to take a deep look into themselves. They find their identity within their work because what is deep within them is devoid of substance. This is a catch 22 situation. You work hard and you loose your self but without hard work you loose your house. This is the great modern modern dilema- how to find the time to live your life.

Since, I have been working full time as a Teacher I have found little time to write. I long for the days when I posted upon my blog every day and read with great anticipation the comments that followed in return. I was telling my stories and people around the world were responding to what was told. As a Storyteller who has been burdened with the naging desire to write, tell stories and be heard (psychologists tell me this is because my parents did not listen or pay attention to me)- the outlet of a blog has been heaven sent. But now because of the curse of “working by the sweat of our brow”, I have had to labor away all of the hours of my day and night educating young minds about how to avoid getting stuck in this consuming rat race. We talk about ways to make a fortune before the age of twenty so that they can buy an island and live far away from this synthetic life-denying culture that us humanoids have created. We find critical solutions for problems of “work-addiction” and plan strategies for ways that I can escape from this society and join a race of people who live more in harmony with life rather than the preoccupation of working.

You may wonder how this has anything to do with being a Storyteller, and I would respond that it has everything to do with being a Storyteller. In societies that are consumed with progress and work the first species to become exiled our expendable are the Storytellers. The workers or citizens of these corporate republics do not want to be reminded of their servitude, their complete dependency upon forces outside of themselves. This is why Plato exiled poets from his Republic. “The poets will allow the people to see the many ways that the established government must manipulate the citizens into the cave and away from the light of humanity,” he said. This is what the Storyteller does- he/she makes people more human.

But I no longer have the time to write or spin stories in my head. I have been drinking more and sleeping less. All of my usual creative outlets have been plugged up by work. Time seems to have shortened. By the time I am ready to read and write my eyes refuse to remain open and willing to follow the words which exhaustion has caused me to read and write backwards. This is the world that I have found myself within, and yes it is the very dynamic that seeks to exile the Storyteller from the very body it resides within. Sometimes late at night when I am lying in bed, I can feel my body shaking and becoming tense. I grow restless and have difficulty staying still. It takes me hours to fall asleep and I know that these systemic sensations are the result of my inner Storyteller trying to escape from my body so that it can go some place else where it will have the peace, light and time to tell its many tales.

The End.

“Beat It”

“Do you like to sing in the shower?” one of my students asked me in the middle of class. It was an innocent question and little did I know that my reply might cost me my job. The class was being observed by three education bureaucrats, who sat in the corner of the classroom with laptops on their legs, into which they took notes about my class and my teaching abilities. The school I work at is trying to receive more funding from the state so the bureaucrats came to evaluate the school and see if it was worthy of extra funding.

“Of course I do,” I said. “What song?” she asked. “Beat It,” I innocently replied with out thinking first how my response would be interpreted. It was an honest reply after all- I have been singing “Beat It” in the shower for most of my adult life. I did not realize that I may have made a fatal mistake until I noticed the hanging jaws and the looks of dismay on all three of the state bureaucrat’s faces. They looked like three people who had just seen a ghost.

“The song by Micheal Jackson, you know beat it, beat it…no one wants to be defeated,” I sang as the class laughed and made all kinds of comments like “I’ll bet you beat it it in the shower” and “do you have a thriller after you beat it?” Trying to silence the class while digging myself out of the hole that I had unintentionally dug for myself I continued to explain that it gave me great pleasure to sing Micheal Jackson songs in the shower. ”They are just songs!!!” I said trying to imply that the thought of masturbation in the shower never occurred to me. One of my students, of course had to shout out- “I’ll bet it brings you great pleasure…… Teacher.”

For the rest of the class period I was terribly uncomfortable. The three bureaucrats in the corner did not look at me once and seemed to be no longer writing things in their laptop computers. I tried every which I knew how to prove that I was an exemplary Teacher- rather than some perverted pedophile- but I am afraid that the hole was to deep to dig my way out of. Students continued to heckle me about beating it in the shower while I lectured about the bad luck that seemed to bring about Romeo and Juliet’s death. Little did I know that I was also talking about the bad luck which might just cost me my job.

After school I was called into the Principle’s office where he sat me down with an abrupt and angry gesture of his hand. Immediately he looked into my eyes and said, “the state administrators told me about the sexually suggestive remark you made in class today and the ensuing inappropriate remarks that your comments provoked in the students. The administrators are very concerned about the level of Teachers that I hire at this school because of your suggestive comment. Now we may not receive the money that we need from the state unless you are willing to be subjected to investigation by the state to guarantee that you are suitable to be teaching our children.” I tried to explain to him that Micheal Jackson was one of my favorite performers and that I really did sing Micheal Jackson songs in the shower. I tried to tell him that my reply had nothing to do with masturbation- which was the farthest thing from my mind. He replied, “as a Teacher I expect you to be able to draw the boundaries between appropriate things to say and inappropriate things to say. You are a role model for the students and I trust that you have the skill to think before you speak.” I wanted to say that we should be able to be open and honest about everything rather than walking around on egg shells and deciding what is appropriate or inappropriate for others- instead I put my head down and apologized for my lack of tact.

While walking to my car I could hear students singing “beat it, just beat it,” while they made suggestive sexual motions with their bodies. One of my students yelled at me, “hey Teacher don’t beat it in the shower too much- you might grow hair on your palms.” And then there was a loud sound of group laughter. I got into my car and wanted to get away from the school as soon as possible. In my head were the final words of the principle who said, “Myself and the board of directors are going to re-evaluate whether or not you are going to be kept on as a Teacher or given a suspension until the investigation. I know that you are a good man but I question your ability to be a role model.” As I left the school property and turned onto the main road heading in the direction of my house- I started to cry. “Why was I always the one???” I repeated over and over as if I was seeking an answer from the universe. Then to calm my nerves I turned on the radio, which ironically enough was playing a cover version of Micheal Jackson’s “Beat It.” It was being performed by a high school choir from Nebraska.

Man Of Miracles

I’m a mess. This morning I awake with my left foot swollen to three times its size and my wife crying in the bathroom. Our electricity is going to be shut off in three days because of unpaid bills and our cat is suffering from fierce scrape wounds to the nose and head. Last night at dinner my wife and I spent two hundred dollars because we drank and ate so much so that we could forget about all the difficulties present in our life. It was fun but now we are both hung over and broke. My house is cold and my job is starting to give me chest pains. If only I could jump into a hole and bury my head. I am a mess,

…..my father sent me an article today about debt. I have more debt than a mountain has weeds. Sending me an article on debt is like sending a cat and article on language. A cat has no words to speak and I have no cash to pay off my debts. I wrote him back a letter telling him that if he wants to help me with my debt, send cash, otherwise let me be. My car has two big dents in it and every time you push on the brakes there is a sound of metal. My wife is frustrated with me for the large amounts of stress my way of life brings to her. If I was only able to find a way to have balance and be happy, she keeps telling me. The roof of our home allows rain water to fall on the floor and currently some workers are banging away beneath my desk trying to fix an broken floor beam. I feel as if inside of me there is a boiling pressure cooker than at any moment could pop. I am a mess,

…I have rent due and not nearly enough money to pay it. My refrigerator is filled with aging food and my liver is aching from all the booze I have been consuming. Panic attacks have been a daily occurrence and usually before bed at night I think about death. I am filled with unmanifested dreams and am always feeling like nothing is good enough. My wife cries in the bathroom all through out the day and the only solid pleasure I seem to be able to find is masturbating to porn on the internet. My chest is always tight, my mother is always concerned about my well being and I am three years away from being 40. I am a mess,

…I nap a lot ion the afternoons and have a hard time climbing out from bed. I do not remember my dreams and I often eat burnt toast for breakfast with a boiled egg. I am addicted to email and have been writing people that I do not even know for help. Yesterday, while driving across the bay bridge I had a terrible panic attack which made me feel like death was sitting upon my shoulder. I tried to jump out from the moving vehicle, but once again my wife saved my life. I have experienced very little success already I have been afflicted with two chronic diseases, one which could be fatal. My wife and I seem to fight constantly and I can not stop looking at other women because it is another form of fleeting pleasure for me. I spend all my money on books (that I never read) and food and often dream about prostitutes and flying through the sky. The mattress I sleep upon is old and almost undone and my bedroom collects dust like a garbage can collects trash. I am a mess,

….my sister is an alcoholic who thinks that Arabs are going to take over the country. All around me are signs of affluence but I struggle for every dollar I earn. I am underpaid and overworked and like all lower income people I am taken advantage of time and time again. I am tired of it all and seek out a solution. I think about suicide, killing sprees and self mutilation but none of these answers would I be capable of performing. All day I have been looking for another job, but there is nothing I am interested in doing. My back hurts from writing out my soul so much and I am suffering from chronic diarrhea and palpitations because of my nereves. All I want to do is eat and drink to forget about the pain. I go from meal to meal as if I trying to erase the desperation that I feel in between. There are wars being waged, poverty all around, starvation and injustice walking through the air and I am a mess. Such a big mess that I have no clue as to how to clean it up,

….I have thought about buying guns, mops, towels, and blankets all to clean up the mess that I am. I have thought out self help solutions and consulted with great gurus. I have prayed, meditated and walked on pilgrimages for miles a day. I am out of shape, winded when I walk up stairs, afraid to ride my bike because of various cardiac issues and wondering around my home like a zombie who has been beaten by the struggles of the world. If this was not enough I see ghosts, spirits and can look deep into peoples souls. I know what you are thinking before you think it and I am aware of the truth. I can see through time and I know what the future will bring and so I try to preoccupy myself with various forms of pleasure and sleep so I do not have to think about it. In one more day I will be done, done with this way of living. I will change and do what I have to so that I am not all messed up. I will use a broom or mop and clean myself up so that you will see all that I can be. I will get a haircut and seek out the help of psychologists and chiropractors. I will brush my teeth put on my best face and find a decent job. I will stop complaining about my situation and accept all of this as the way life is. I will stop envying the sucess of Brad Pitt or Johny Depp and try to enjoy my job as a Teacher, my bank account with a small balance and my freezing cold home. I will think positively and learn to identify my good feelings from my bad ones,

….in one more day I will become a man of miracles…. but today just let me be a mess.

Stop Telling Me What To DO!

People are always telling me what to do. Do not do this, do not do that or it would be better if you did this or why not like that? It is getting tiring and I get it from all sides: wife, parents, sister, boss, government, police and in-laws. It seems as if I may be incapable of making decisions on my own without first being told what to do. In fact, I am so habituated to being told what to do that I believe that I have become fearful of thinking for myself, because I am afraid I may fuck up. After a lifetime of being told how and what to do I have reached a point in my adult life where I have no idea what to do anymore. Instead of doing something I have resigned myself to a life filled with doing very little– in the hopes that I can avoid having people tell me what to do. I have become what my mother feared would happen to me- a passive participant in the days of my life.

My father is infamous for his need to control. It is impossible for a person to go to the bathroom without my father telling them how this should be done. My father’s intentions are good but his words have hurt more people than a burning building. Growing up under his tyranny has caused what is a fatal blockage in my own decision making process. All of my life, and still to this very day- I am a grown man who is a little more than a reaction to being told what to do. If you ask me what we should have for dinner, I will reply- “I don’t know. You decide.”

Most lessons in life seem to be hard to learn. We have to err, to mess up, to fail in order to slowly understand how to get it right for ourselves. This is what I call the process of education (far more important than anything we learn in school). When we are always being told what to do (because someone wants to control our behavior) the process of education is stunted- blocked. What you get instead is an individual afraid to think for him/herself, to mess up on her/his own- to find his/her own way. This is what I call conformity, and these sorts of individuals become loyal corporate executives, lawyers, doctors, politicians, employees- you and I.

As a result of a lifetime of being told what to do I have become a stubborn non-conformist. I have fulfilled no ones expectations of me and am afraid of the idea of doing so. I have worked in offices, restaurants, mortuaries, shoe stores, record stores, schools- trying to hide from the shackles of a career and going through jobs quicker than the time it takes most people to eat lunch. I do not pay parking tickets, I do not respond to creditors, I do not listen to the police, I do not pay my taxes (especially when the money is being used to fight a war) nor do I do anything else that I am told to do. Instead I do nothing. I eat, sleep, write, paint, go to work at a job that I am soon to quit (because they will not stop telling me what to do). Even though my wife, father, sister, mother and society all still try to tell me what to do- I have learned how to shake my head, smile, say “okay” and then proceed to do nothing at all.