‘But you’re an anarchist, Ollie’. That was said to me many (18?) years ago. I don’t remember what triggered it, probably me surprisingly respecting a rule. When I say ‘surprisingly’, not really. But to that person maybe, at the time. The thing is, I do respect a lot of rules, but I sure have a tendency to respect the ones that make sense to me and be more lax about other ones. Order is not really completely my thing (as you may have noticed if you have read a few of the pages on this site), though I may need it more than I want it. But chaos is not what I’m looking for or thriving through. Now I am not entirely defined by what people say of me (I was wrong to possibly think so at some time), but it’s always been interesting to get (not ask for…) people’s point of view, to confront them with how you perceive yourself or want to be (there’s a further debate about ‘wanting to be perceived one way’, but that’s more in the domain of manipulation in my view, ideally my aim is to be perceived the way I feel I am, which I believe makes it the way I actually am…..but again of the many ideas of blogs/pages, there’s one about perception not being everything or perception vs intention and the trappings of thinking only one of them matters). And so, while I didn’t go at length to investigate anarchy, I think superficially I’d have to agree. Certainly from a romantic vision of anarchy. I’m definitely bad at authority (giving or taking), a very very short stint of being other people’s boss left me only frustrated and disappointed (with people and with myself), maybe it came too early and I think I’d be better at that now, but it also led to a very interesting training session that went some way to showing me some of my qualities, but also shortly after how the reality of people made it a bit illusory, perhaps I could have been a good actor, but when it comes to real life, I’m too wary of upsetting people or trampling on them. Will you get anything but digression in this post? God knows….see chaos. So I’m not good at being subservient either, so I am also grateful that, through most of my working life so far, my bosses have given me a degree of freedom and very very rarely imposed things on me. Add to that my luck in certain situations when I felt I couldn’t handle some tasks and they happened to go away or be cancelled, and I feel lucky. But yes ‘no God no Master’. Well I’ve been raised in a very catholic family, I don’t even know if I truly believe in God, I am very much a doubter or most things though I believe a bit more in humanity/humanism (considered doing a page on that too, but not sure I will find enough to write, though as you see, I am mostly free-ranting anyway!), in spite of all evidence. Oh yes, another person at work (a very controlling one) also recently said I couldn’t be controlled and also use the anarchist word. And they’re right, when it comes to control, I am not very controllable (you may think you can do it until some point while I observe, but don’t push too far, these days I have learnt about boundaries), and I am equally not interested in controlling other people. No hierarchy, everything coming to order naturally is my ideal. Sure, practically it rarely works, but I like to think there is enough common sense for people to live in harmony. In democracy, everyone votes. Is it power to the people? Possibly. But there’s taste for control/power in the people elected/put in charge. In anarchy, nobody needs to vote and there are no struggles for power. Yeah, so that’s never going to work with human beings, is it? I guess not. Anyway, so if you think anarchy is taste for chaos and disruption, it’s not. They say that’s an intermediate phase before actual anarchy. But if you think I’m going to join protesters and ‘casseurs’? Nah, that’s not what anarchy is about, it’s a completely convenient mislabelling of things that subverts anarchy. I can be disruptive, but never at the expense of another human being or their property (I’m not a great theoretician either, so I’m not going to debate property, I’m mostly writing random tentative shit on the web, you know, and views get refined over times, I am also not much into actual politics, more about individuals and the understanding of the human being). I’m sure I could find other things to say, and maybe in the many thoughts that occurred the few times I thought of this article (I don’t take many notes of detailed thoughts when they occur, perhaps I should, but it all happens in the head at various times), but the idea really in this one was to stress out that yes, I may well be an anarchist, but if you view ‘anarchists’ as people who want chaos, breaking things and not care about other people or any rules….then we don’t have the same idea of the word. And maybe my ‘anarchism’ only ever goes back to ‘individualism’ as per the previous blog….see, I’m talking nonsense (not entirely, but I’m aware that actual theoreticians would know I do, so don’t take these pages TOO seriously, it’s just a way of expressing myself).
Edit: oh yes, I wanted to add something that I’ve been thinking about, not maybe directly related to the topic, but since this is the (sort of and probably only) ‘political’ page you will find here: Enlighted Despots. A long time ago, I thought maybe that was the best form of government, maybe people aren’t clever enough and need someone to take some decisions for them. But it’s bullshit. Make people more intelligent by educating them (and not forcefully brainwashing them, but really opening their mind, showing them all the possibilities while highlighting the importance of both respect and liberty (oh yes, the limits how do we define them, they may be fluctuating) in dealing with others). At the end of the day, an ‘enlightened’ despot is still a despot, and so a dictator who wants to control and does not support contradiction. And that’s not something I can live with over the duration. Love, loyalty, they come with no strings attached, otherwise, they’re something else. Yeah, the last few years have taught me a lot, even if it may all be too late and sometimes it’s hard to be fully consistent, no human being is without contradiction.