Sometimes my anxiety reaches a level where I feel I can barely move. I obviously do, I move, I fight, but I just want to curl up and recover.
It’s normally always the same shit that triggers it, feeling forced to be employed, earn money, to live a certain way in this world ever shaped by power hungry assholes. It’s either direct, or the anxiety of others indirectly attacking as lost from little choice, little alternative.
I think of those immediately who have it worse, way worse, and there are looooads of us, and appreciate that I have to try and do something to change this, even if for just a small bunch of us. I believe that if we can influence the lives of each other in small ways, in the way we act, in what we stand for, in how we try to understand and how we support, then we can shape our immediate world, and that starts to change the way the world works.
I can feel as I write this post I am mid fight, mid anger.
Today I felt attacked through something that caught me off guard. It’s clear then I have my guard up all the time. Of course I do, as I know deep inside what I believe, I’ve known for as long as I can remember, and I feel I have to guard that, as people will attack, they always do.
After the attack has gone, I dip low, for moment, I feel backed up against a wall. I want to slide to the ground and give up, and at that point I find something in me that just won’t allow it. I just will not stand for it. I’m not f**king accepting this bullshit!
Change is scary. After a long time feeling like I am on loan to someone else, I’m taking myself back!
As I begin to look at myself, in those moments in the tug of war for myself, I look down at myself in my arms and I look f**ked! What has happened to me since I was gone? I need to rebuild, to understand, to work hard…again. It’s always so much f**king work. It get’s really, really tiring. I feel so exhausted inside sometimes. I think I have got really, really good at hiding stuff, even from myself. But I am ripping off the protection cover, and the whole thing is cracked to shit.
Being judged, being called a liar, being forced, being lectured, being misunderstood, being accused, being poorly defined, not being trusted, these all really f**king annoy me. I get it, people have their own shit, and it’s easy to just take it out on someone else than deal with your own shit. People can be d**ks. Still, I practice empathising in those moments. It’s hard. It takes work and I don’t always have the energy for their shit.
I’ve noticed since accepting anarchism, accepting that is what I am… it was accepting it after all, as it wasn’t like I thought yeah great, lets get into something that’s going to potentially cause me another f**k load of hassle…so, since accepting anarchism, I struggle to see how to operate in the world. It’s very disorientating. I look for support structures, places, spaces, words, thoughts, ideas, examples, guidance, the experience of others. I am beginning to understand why Ursula K. Le Guin’s novel The Dispossessed was recommended to me, thank you for that. It’s not surprising how much this is referenced in Scott Branson’s Practical Anarchism. To practice anarchism in a world that is the enemy to this practice, is hard, very hard. We need more books like this and similar ways to practice.
I’m reminded of the film Event Horizon. It’s a kinda shit, but crew members start going “mad” after learning something the ship has showed them. Sounds like propaganda doesn’t it.
How to know you’re in it? While there is a profit motif, we are always in it.
