Years of Fighting can change a man

Last night I watched the movie Fight Club again. This is probably the movie that has most influenced and affected my life. If you haven't seen this movie before, I encourage you to go watch it before reading further so that you will understand more about what I am referring to here.

This movie had a big role in encouraging me to eventually move out of the safety, security and familiar comfortable sense of "home" that I experienced at Twin Oaks Community, where I was living & working at the time when I first saw this movie in 2000.

This movie also later on in 2003 had a big role in encouraging me to quit my job, leave my gated apartment-home and then-fiance in Phoenix, Arizona and embark on a new unpredictable vagabond lifestyle.

For years after that I would watch this film again for further encouragement in maintaining a kind of insurrectionary anarchist world-view and itinerant personal life.

Interestingly enough, my relationship with this movie and it's influence on my life pre-dated my involvement with Nonviolent Communication. However, even after I was involved with NVC, I was able to draw the connection between the two in that Fight Club emphasizes the importance of emotional intimacy, genuine listening, and real vulnerability & trust. To quote the movie: "When people think you're dying, they really, really listen to you, instead of just waiting for their turn to speak."

For me the experience of being a part of groups of strangers who would vulnerably open themselves up in front of other strangers, cry and hug each-other mirrored what I was experiencing through Nonviolent Communication workshops, retreats, and practice groups. As the quote goes from the movie, "strangers with this kind of honesty make me go a big rubbery one."

This movie is filled with different quotes, lines, and exchanges that I have found quite meaningful, inspiring, and poignant. A lot of them sum up quite well different aspects of my beliefs and world-view, some more than others at different points of my life. Here are a few of them:

"You have to know, not fear, know, that some day you are going to die. Until you know that and embrace that, you are useless."

"You are not your job, you're not how much money you have in the bank, you're not the car you drive, you're not the contents of your wallet, you're not your fucking khakis. You are the all-singing, all-dancing, crap of the world."

"Fuck off with your sofa units and string green stripe patterns, I say never be complete, I say stop being perfect, I say let... lets evolve, let the chips fall where they may."

"The things you own end up owning you."

"Hitting bottom isn't a weekend retreat. It's not a goddamn seminar. Stop trying to control everything and just let go!"

And then there is the description of an idealized future utopian society, that especially appealed to me during my anti-civilization phase:

"In the world I see - you are stalking elk through the damp canyon forests around the ruins of Rockefeller Center. You'll wear leather clothes that will last you the rest of your life. You'll climb the wrist-thick kudzu vines that wrap the Sears Tower. And when you look down, you'll see tiny figures pounding corn, laying strips of venison on the empty car pool lane of some abandoned superhighway."

Watching this movie again, now, a few different things stand out to me.

The movie is obviously now out-of-date. The people in it use pay-phones and land-lines throughout the movie, as well as filing cabinets and stacks of notecards. Digital technology is notably absent in the film. Plus, there is this line in the movie that describes "our generation" -

"We're the middle children of history.... no purpose or place. We have no Great War, no Great Depression. Our great war is a spiritual war. Our great depression is our lives."

I would say that the international war against militant radical Islamism is now the "Great War" facing our generation, and the global financial crisis is now the "Great Depression" that our generation is going through. Of course, how we are experiencing and relating to these things seems very different for us now compared to what the people of the 1930's and 1940's were going through. But, that is a separate topic.

What especially stood out for me watching this movie again now is how incredibly male-centric the whole movie is. The story details how a nation-wide underground revolutionary movement of men forms and develops, while the only big female character in the whole movie is this one woman who has a lot of sex with the main character. The men who join and are active in this movement come together through physically fighting each-other, some kind of stereotypical macho-violent instinct is activated in them that gets them involved. This whole thing I find distasteful and disinteresting.

I do see and value how helpful it can be to get in touch with a more fundamental and foundational part of yourself and your base humanity, and fighting & fucking is one way to do that. However this does not seem to me to be that much of a step forward, nor that substantial in & of itself.

I see humanity as having so much untapped potential that can be utilized and drawn from, if we really wanted to do so. This sentiment is also expressed in the movie with this quote:

"Man, I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who've ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need."

With that being said, then, how is forming groups of guys fighting each-other and submitting to a kind of top-down authoritarian organization (which is how the underground revolutionary movement is structured) any kind of a positive development? Men beating the crap out of each-other and barking orders at each-other has been the basic structure of society for thousands of years. The "revolutionary" model demonstrated in Fight Club is not really any different from that.

Then there is another aspect of "Fight Club" that I take issue with now. It is elucidated with these quotes: "It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything" and "only after disaster can we be resurrected".

I have an ambivalent relationship with this sentiment because on the one hand I have experienced this as being the case with my life. It has indeed been the moments when I have lost everything, when everything fell apart, failed, when disaster struck, that I found the urge, energy, and ability to really change my life around.

On the other hand, I also recognize that many different resources, things, people, places, and practices exist out there to assist people in radically changing their lives around in more positive and healthy ways. In other words, people can choose to access these avenues of support at any time, without having a personal crisis spurring them on. People can proactively take charge of improving themselves.

This is directly at odds with the sentiment expressed in "Fight Club" - "Self-improvement is masturbation. Now, self-destruction..."

I would like to believe that he is wrong.

Out Beyond Ideas of NVC And Not-NVC, There Is A Field, I Will Meet You There

A few months ago I stopped considering myself to be an "NVC trainer". However, if I were asked to facilitate an NVC training, I would probably still do it. I no longer consider myself to be an "NVC person" in general. However, I still associate with other folks in that scene, and I usually enjoy those interactions. I have given up on trying to get people interested and involved with NVC. At the same time, I still personally find great value and meaning in the practices, processes, principles, assumptions, and intentions that are all associated with the term "Nonviolent Communication".

This situation of no longer being something while still being something is not new to me. This same thing has recently come about for me regarding the term "anarchist" as well. In common with both of these I am hoping to take something out of it's label, out of it's terminological container, and still keep and use the good stuff inside.

This is all based on a belief that I have now that the term "Nonviolent Communication" more often than not serves more as a hindrance to the actual practice and proliferation of what is referred to with that term. There are eight points that I have regarding this which fall into three separate categories: "organizational", "social" and what I call "evolutionary":

Organizational

1) The request regarding the term.

The term “Nonviolent Communication” is a Service Mark belonging to the Center for Nonviolent Communication. This organization has requested that those who are not officially certified by them refrain from using the term "Nonviolent Communication" in what they do. The process for becoming a certified trainer with this organization has been closed to new people entering for a number of years now with no indication on when it will re-open. If everyone who has affinity with what is called "Nonviolent Communication" were to follow this request then most of the people who are promoting it would not be using that term.

2) The originator of the term

The term "Nonviolent Communication" is strongly associated with the Center for Nonviolent Communication and its creator, founder and main leader, Marshall Rosenberg. I no longer have trust in that organization or that individual doing the job that they have set out to do within integrity of the values that they proclaim. I am no longer interested in being associated with that particular organization or individual. Using the term "Nonviolent Communication" when promoting this kind of work regularly brings a conversation to the topic of Marshall Rosenberg and I am no longer interested in introducing, explaining, or defending the actions of this man. This topic has been discussed at great length elsewhere, and others share the views that I have as well. I consider my time and energy to be more effectively and enjoyably placed elsewhere.


Social

3) Turning off and misleading

The term "Nonviolent Communication" turns off a lot of people and it is often misleading. I have personally come across a lot of people who have negative associations with the words "nonviolence" or "nonviolent". People also often see these words as not relating to them and their lives. Also, a lot of what "Nonviolent Communication" refers to is not directly about "communication" per se, so using that word is not entirely accurate in describing what is being talked about.


4) Disembodied robot-speak

There is a very pervasive and recurring phenomena of people becoming very excited about and involved in NVC and as a result speaking to others when "using it" in ways that are described as being very robotic, formulaic, stilted and unoriginal. A lot of folks find these ways of speaking to be very disconnecting, whereas the whole intention behind it all is to increase connection! Additionally, an emphasis on the words used and the way that things are phrased often encourages people to loose touch with their bodily-felt understanding, to be "stuck in their head" so to speak. Abandoning the term "Nonviolent Communication", and these particular associations and habits that go along with it, could help with emphasizing other approaches based on more fully felt authenticity.

5) Priceless connection

What is called "Nonviolent Communication" is usually publicly presented in the social context of a commodity exchange relationship – the buying and selling of a product. Usually one person or a group of people are selling something, a training, a workshop, a retreat, a private session, a recording, a book or some other kind of written material, and everybody else is either buying it or are expected to buy it. I do not want to judge this kind of relationship as being "bad" or "wrong", but I do want to ask: Are there any other ways that we can be together where we are learning, growing, and deeply connecting with each other and are not expected to purchase something? I have known a number of people who when they saw the asking-price for an NVC event they immediately lost interest in it. I am convinced that there are other ways that we can organize these kinds of experiences without folks having to play the roles of entrepreneur and consumer.

6) Like-attracts-like

What is called "Nonviolent Communication" is popular among one particular demographic of people, namely, white women who are middle-aged, from a middle class background in a first-world country, and who hold views that are considered to be "liberal" or "progressive". There is nothing "bad" or "wrong" with this particular demographic of people, some of my best friends come from that demographic! However, I want to point out that there are many many many other different kinds of people in the human race besides that one particular demographic. I am concerned that the NVC scene, like every other social scene out there, has a like-attracts-like dynamic taking place. I am convinced that people are subconsciously drawn towards being around other people who are similar to them. In order to open up all that goes under the label of "NVC" to the rest of humanity I see it as being essential to go beyond residing with this one particular label and this one particular social scene of people that goes along with it.

Evolutionary

7) Evolving into something else

As more and more different people use what is called "Nonviolent Communication" the practices, processes, understandings, etc. associated with it will naturally over time change. Things will be tweaked and adjusted, other practices, modalities and traditions will be synthesized with it, developments will be made, in short, what is called "NVC" will evolve. As NVC evolves in different directions according to the contributions made by different people eventually what some people are calling "NVC" will look very different from what was originally called "NVC". Some people may no longer wish to call their developed version "NVC", while others may wish to keep that label. Some people may not recognize what other people are calling "NVC" as being at all similar to what they are calling "NVC". What I wonder is: At what point does the term "Nonviolent Communication" lose it's descriptive value in fostering common understanding between people?

8) People learning together

The learning-context in which "Nonviolent Communication" is usually presented is that of the teacher/student model. If the students persist in not having a sense of their own power, this eventually becomes the demagogue/follower model. This approach overlooks the fact that everybody's knowledge is incomplete, that everybody's perceptions are limited, and that everybody makes mistakes. With this in mind I would like for us to discover and implement ways for people to come together to learn with each-other. We all have stuff to share, things to contribute, and areas where we can learn and further grow in, no one is above or below this. I'd like to see this done together cooperatively with everyone's contributions being valued.


What to say instead?

If the term "Nonviolent Communication" is no longer used, what do I suggest be used to refer to what it refers to? Personally, I do not recommend any one particular term to replace it. Any one term used could eventually develop the same kind of problems that the existing term has. What I would like to see is a new approach of openness and versatility: different terms and phrases used for different people and purposes. Some terms would appeal to and make more sense to some people than other terms that are more useful for other people. A diversity of words and labels can be used to connect with a diversity of people. The key thing is that we continually check in to make sure that we understand each-other and feel connected with each-other, regardless of the particular words used.

Thoughts on "Self-Determination"

This morning I presented a short talk for the last day of "Advocacy Week" here at Camphill Soltane. The word "advocacy" here refers to the "Self-Advocacy movement", of which a conference dedicated to that subject took place shortly after my speech.

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I want to say a few words about "advocacy" and "self-determination" here.

I do not personally have that much experience with "advocacy" in the sense that it refers to the "self-advocacy" movement. The concept of "self-determination", which is the theme of today's conference, I do have some experience with - but in a different context from what most people here have.

From about the time I was sixteen to around the time I turned 30 the concept of "self-determination" was in the front of my mind as a value that I held as dearly important to me. For about about fourteen years it was something that I thought about almost every day in some form. Why was this?

What happened was this: when I was a teenager I began to question things. I saw that the people in charge - my parents, politicians, bosses - did not know everything and that they made mistakes. I saw that because people did what they wanted, other people sometimes got hurt because of these mistakes or lack of knowledge.

Not only that, I began to look around at the world around me. I began to notice homeless people on the streets and I wondered why they were there. I noticed the wars going on in the world, including wars that are country is involved in, and I wondered why that had to be the case. I began to wonder if watching television comercials and sitting in traffic jams is really the most healthy thing for people to be doing.

Based on these questions that I was holding, I discovered this one particular philosophy called "anarchism". This philosophy says that everyone should be equals, with nobody placed above or below anyone else. It says that nobody should be forced to do anything and that everyone should be given what they need to survive. According to this view stuff like businesses and governments, politicians and bosses should be gotten rid of, and in it's place people should freely come together to share things, make decisions, and work out problems.

Absolutely essential to this philosophy is "self-determination" - the idea that everybody should be free to make their own choices, have their own lifestyle, and determine their own future however they want to do that. This idea is at the core of the "self-advocacy" movement too, the only difference is that self-advocacy focuses on people with disabilities and anarchism focuses on all people everywhere, in every aspect of life.

My passion for anarchism started out as a kind of teenage rebellion, and it grew and continued on to be a burning desire throughout my twenties to create a worldwide social revolution. The choices that I ended up making, the places that I went and the things that I did was all focused around this desire. I saw myself as being a kind of revolutionary and I wanted to change the world.

As the years went by and I had more different experiences, met more different kinds of people, and read more different kinds of things, I began to notice some stuff. I began to notice that when people make their own choices without an authority telling them what to do that they do not necessarily make better decisions. I noticed that people can hurt themselves and hurt other people just as much without an authority present as they can with one there. I began to change my beliefs towards thinking that self-determination is not the most important thing to be working on.

There is a phrase that people say sometimes, perhaps too often, without people thinking about what it means. The phrase goes: "With freedom comes responsibility."

What this means to me is that with our ability to make choices and take action, we also have to think about what effects these will end up having. Will what we choose to do end up helping people or hurting people? Will we end up helping ourselves or hurting ourselves? Will what we want to do help us just now, or will it help in the future too?

Many different times I have seen people, insisting on their right to make their own decisions and to be free people, end up hurting people by the choices they make. Many different times I have seen people hurt themselves because of the decisions that they make too. I myself have at times hurt other people as well as myself by the choices I have made. In other words - free decisions, making your own decisions, does not mean that it will be good decisions.

On the other hand, just because one is a boss or somehow has authority over other people does not mean that one will make good decisions either. History is filled with stories of different people in authority hurting, killing even, many many thousands of people because of the decisions that they made. So what does all of this mean?

What this means to me now is this: I now think that what we need to work on improving is our own wisdom and maturity. I see this as being the most important, because with this regardless of whether someone is making decisions for themself or for other people - people get helped.

When I say the word "wisdom" here I mean the ability to think through things to see what effects your decision will have. This means having the ability to see who will be affected by the things you could do, as well as being aware of how they could be affected. I also mean being able to tell what would help people the most in a decision you could make, what would be the most healthy, as well as what would be the best things for the future as well.

When I say the word "maturity" here I mean, for one, remembering that whatever emotions or feelings you have in the moment will at some point go away. No matter how happy or excited, or angry or sad, that that too will go away. Maturity involves not letting your emotions make your decisions for you. It also involves taking a bigger picture view - it means that you remember that hopefully you will still be alive in ten or twenty years from now, and that what you decide on now will have affects on you then. It also means remembering that people other then you exist - they exist now and are affected by you now, and they will exist after you are gone and will be affected by you then as well.

Advocacy, or anarchism, or "self-determination" in general, can at times focus on the importance of wisdom and maturity, but they do not have to. As I see it no philosophy or movement can completely talk about it either - because wisdom and maturity is something that we work towards, that we grow into - it is always a work in progress.

I do not trust any person who says that they have all the answers - whether it be one person talking about their own life or an authority figure talking about large numbers of people. This is because part of being human means that we have limited knowledge, limited awareness, and that we can make mistakes. Therefore part of embracing our humanity means opening ourselves up to learning more. This is the kind of free choice and social change that I am interested in working towards now - the art of learning together.

A world where everyone's needs matter

Recently I visited Pittsburgh, PA and Columbus, OH and hung out with a bunch of different folks who either now or have in the past identified themselves as being "anarchists". This has been interesting for me in that on the one hand I no longer consider myself to be an "anarchist" and there are a number of different things about "anarchist" culture that I am personally very uncomfortable with. On the other hand, anarchism, and particularly the philosophy of anarchist communism, is simply just common sense to me. It always has been.

Here is the Wikipedia definition for "anarchist communism", in case you don't know what the hell I am talking about here:

"Anarchist communism is a theory of anarchism which advocates the abolition of the state, private property, and capitalism in favor of common ownership of the means of production, direct or consensus democracy and a horizontal network of voluntary associations and workers' councils with production and consumption based on the guiding principle: 'from each according to ability, to each according to need'"

(if the phrase "anarchist communism" here gets in the way of you understanding, or wanting to understand, what I am saying here, then please just pretend like I never used that phrase. You may substitute in your mind a different phrase that helps you hear better what I am trying to say.)

The "common sense" aspects of all of this goes like: "of course we all would want to share everything, not put anybody above or below another, and all work together voluntarily to figure out how we all can get our needs met." Any other system has simply never made any sense to me in a very core way.

Thinking about this, I also immediately feel fundamentally different from anyone else who would have affinity with this philosophy. My reason for this is because I also agree with this quote:

"The individual, and groupings of people, have to learn that they cannot reform society in reality, nor deal with others as reasonable people, unless the individual has learned to locate and allow for the various patterns of coercive institutions, formal and also informal, which rule him. No matter what his reason says, he will always relapse into obedience to the coercive agency while its pattern is with him." - Idries Shah, Caravan of Dreams

What this means to me is that I think that even if the miracle of an anarchist social revolution is achieved, everything that the critics of anarchism say will happen will happen. This is because people still carry within them the same personal and interpersonal dynamics upon which the structures of authority, domination, hierarchy, class, etc. are built.

This has been the case in my own life and in the case of different anarchist/counter-cultural projects & scenes I have personally come across. I have seen time & again how when an impasse is reached & the pressure is on, "when push comes to shove", that authority/obedience - in short, domination - is resorted to. This is done either by reaching for the roles & power that is offered by the larger social institutions surrounding us such as property ownership, laws, social norms. Or, it's done by recreating them anew within the social relationships themselves, such as giving up on your personal desires because of social fear, submitting to the rule of the heavy talkers, establishing a new informal alpha male elite, among other things.

The principle of "from each according to ability, to each according to need" mentioned above also stands out to me, particularly in light of the Nonviolent Communication perspective on fundamental human needs and my personal experience working with people with developmental disabilities.

Basically, what this all teaches me is the incredibly vital importance of sorting yourself out internally. This means doing the work, so to speak, to get really clear on and make a heart-felt connection with your own core motivating intentions & values that surround and underlie both the work that you do and the people whom you live with. Without doing this personal work & getting your heart back, the principle of "from each according to ability, to each according to need" won't work, it all will remain simply a vague nice-sounding slogan that is said.

At the same time, taking a path of simply just "working on yourself", "personal growth", and "creating a different kind of life for yourself" without an emphasis on profound broader social change as well does not appeal to me either. This is because, in my eyes, the world we live in is absolutely insane and genocidal to all life.

It does not make sense to me to ignore the world around us as we retreat either into a nuclear family structure, a self-help sub-culture, or an intentional community counter-culture that is primarily focused on profound personal change. Disregarding the suffering/oppression of those around us will inevitably result in those people who are pain-crazed and desperate enough interfering with your life. When people are in pain and craving relief they will do whatever it takes to get attention, and the world we live in seems fundamentally designed to create lots & lots of suffering for lots & lots of people all over.

In other words, no matter how wonderful a social bubble is created where health, growth, and positive relationships prevail, the rest of the world ("the real world") will sooner or later come crashing in. We still live together on the same planet. This also needs to be taken into account.

So that's the dilemma - how to support profound personal change, redoing your own fundamental personal programming, while at the same time supporting profound social change, rearranging our relationships & institutions in ways that address all the needs of everybody.

A third factor then enters the picture - how to do all this profound personal & social change stuff while at the same time actually surviving in this world - that is, getting your food, shelter, medical care, etc., needs met in sustainable ways that do not support or reproduce the old ways. This usually ties in with the previous question of how does one relate with the rest of the world, ie, "the real world", because often these needs can not be met now without interacting with everyone else.

Often I find myself faced with the sheer intense enormity of these questions, particularly all of these questions all at once, and my response is simply to shut down. It just gets to be too much. With that, it is easier to just ignore it all, to put everything aside and simply just live my life. But we still continue to live in this world, still continue to live with people, so really truly ignoring it all in the long-term simply does not work.

I also often find it challenging to try to reflect on these questions within a group of people, because either: a) what I am trying to say & address is either not understood or considered interesting enough to really think about b) the people listening already have some kind of pre-formulated ideology or system that they are trying to sell or c) one of the three factors that I mentioned above gets routinely overlooked or not sufficiently considered.

So this results in a certain kind of seemingly dead-end that I do not know what to do with.

Motivating me with all of this:

I know that I want myself & others to feel truly free, being keenly aware of our actions, reactions, and choices made.

I want both myself & others to have healthy, happy, mutually supportive social relationships where everyone, the whole world over, has their fundamental needs seen, valued, and considered.

And I want all of this to be very much practical, tangible, based in the real world that we all actually live in where we can all actually do this.

I continue on, as always. The only difference is that now I am a little less keen on finding a label and saying "this is it!", or finding a particular group of people and saying "these are the ones!" It all seems much bigger than that.

Stay Down: A reflection on my experience of 2009

When I look back on my experience of 2009 in many ways the main underlying theme of the year for me, personally, was that of recovering from and integrating all that I experienced in 2008 - and to some extent the last ten years (1999 - 2009) as well.
(for a brief re-cap this music video pretty nicely sums up my experience of 2008. This song accompanies the title for this entry here.)

In a number of ways I feel as if I had quite a few traumas, unresolved pain, and just a general sense of "what have I done?" left over from the last ten years that I had to work through. And this year, 2009, was the first time since 2001 that I was living at one place for the entire year, thereby providing a nice, safe, stable living environment conducive for me to do this kind of inner work.

The first five months of 2009 I was primarily focused on traditional organized religion as a way to support me in finding more stability, grounding, and healing in my life. Primarily Buddhism, Christianity, and the Baha'i Faith were the religions that I was exploring. The Baha'i Faith, which is the religion that I was born into and raised with, I became so involved with during early 2009 that I came very close to officially re-joining as a member. I did not end up re-joining it, however, for I was clear-headed enough to be able to realize that there are a number of different statements and beliefs coming from the Baha'i central figures that I fundamentally disagree with. I yearned for a deep sense of devotion, belonging, community, and faith, and for a while I was attached to the idea of the Baha'i Faith being my means for getting all of that in a sustainable and ongoing way.

An interesting thing is that during the time-period in which I was doing the prayers, meditation, and other devotional acts within the Baha'i Faith I did indeed feel more grounded, healthy, and spiritually nourished than I have felt for a long time. When I stopped doing them I felt differently. Different, not necessarily worse, for other needs were then focused on and met.

The period of time after this (May, June, July) I was focused very heavily on doing Nonviolent Communication work in the form of empathic listening, self-empathic inquiry, and self-reflection using NVC for guidance. It was also during this time that I discovered the work of Stephen Schwartz that goes by the name of "Compassionate Self-Care". This had a profound effect on me, enabling me to go through an experience of mourning, and from that find a level of self-acceptance and self-valuing that was deeply supportive for me to move forward.

Another factor that was helpful for me regarding all of this was the existence of regular ongoing empathy partners throughout the year, that is, people with whom I regularly met with in-person or on the phone to give and receive empathic listening with. This is something that I have very much wanted throughout my life, but have not had due to the instability in my life for so long. Now with one steady stable home-base and a daily/weekly schedule present in my life, I have been able to establish these kinds of ongoing regular supportive relationships.

Speaking of relationships, the whole second half of the year contained within it a big element of - being in love. In June I entered into a new romantic relationship with a coworker at Camphill Soltane. The experience has been deeply nourishing for me. The person is a very calm, grounded, and secure person, and being around her I believe has aided me in developing these same qualities within myself as well. With this, it is not a particular belief system or series of spiritual/self-help practices that has supported me, but a real human relationship of depth, meaning, intimacy, and partnership. I feel profoundly grateful for this.

The experience of being a part of a community, engaging in meaningful work, having ongoing mutually-supportive relationships with real people in my daily life - has been quite profound for me as well. In many ways living/working at Camphill Soltane is nothing new for me for I have been a part of communes before, I have done the circuit of esoteric spiritual ideologies, and being around different weird & crazy folk has been my bread & butter. So that has helped to prepare me for all of this and life at Soltane has been no "shock" for me as a result.

This is not to say that it has not been challenging for me at times. I have struggled at times with great frustrations and judgments. Sometimes I have managed my own inner-energy poorly, resulting in me feeling quite "burned-out". But at the end of it all, it all seems manageable to me, with lots of learning & growth to be had from the experience.

Although I have been living and working surrounded by people, many of whom are often quite loud, dramatic, and seemingly unpredictable, the real work for me this year was primarily internal, as you have probably already guessed by now. I began the year by reading the book "Walking in the Shade" and ended it by reading The Golden Notebook, both by Doris Lessing. These two books each in their own ways document a certain period of time of Doris Lessing's life which she describes as: "I was writing my way out of one set of ideas, even out of a way of life." Through my own ongoing year-long process of self-examination that was my experience of 2009 as well.

Many different core pieces of my old identity dropped away this year. It was this year that I stopped referring to myself as "(I)An-ok", that I ceased to consider myself as being "an anarchist", and that I no longer saw myself as being some big drop-out/commune guy. No big new identity, label, or grand agenda arose to replace all of that - and that feels pretty good. Many of my core values are still the same, although a lot of the outward forms and content are different. I simply no longer feel the drive to be quite so ostentatious about all of it.

System Blindness

Wonderful thinking on justice, systems, relationships, living your life...

System Blindness from Restorative Circles on Vimeo.

Ten years after the day that changed everything

Ten years ago today were the Seattle WTO protests, a real turning-point for the anarchist scene, and as a result a turning-point for my life as well. Before that point most people outside of radical and counter-culture circles had never heard of "anarchism", after it, all kinds of folks were talking about it. Suddenly mainstream media venues were talking about "anarchists", as were my relatives (totally unprovoked by me!). More important than that, within the anarchist scene in general a new sense of hope, optimism and possibility emerged that we can and are going about changing the world.

After November 30th 1999 the momentum from that carried on to other big protests and events as the "anti-globalization movement". Summit protest after summit protest around the world the excitement continued on until September 11th 2001 when suddenly everything changed and the ground we were standing on shifted. The "anti-globalization movement" then lost steam and in it's place arose the "anti-war movement", which simply was not as much fun. It was a long dark night of the soul living under and protesting against the second Bush administration and it's blatantly militaristic and authoritarian approach. That all continued on until essentially last year, 2008, when Obama and his rhetoric of "hope" and "change" took many activists who were simply worn-out by the years of Bush.

From the anarchist perspective, specifically, by the time that Obama emerged from when the Seattle WTO protests happened it was by and large an entirely different crowd of people who were around. Most of the people who were actively involved as "anarchists" then had essentially moved on, and an entirely different, younger generation, came in to take their place. The new generation of anarchists had known of the Seattle WTO protests as recent history, much like how my generation of anarchists had known of the anti-nuclear and Autonomen movements of the 80's.

From my perspective, by the time last year came around I had largely burned myself out on "anarchism". I had for a long time had a critique of protests as being an effective strategy/tactic for social change, while despite all of the similar critiques out there protests remained the main thing that seemed to inspire and mobilize anarchists out there. When the Republican National Convention protests happened in September of last year, the combined effect of police repression against activists, lack of a coherent public message on the part of the anarchists, failure to inspire people outside of anarchist-activist circles towards radical action, and the fact that this protest event was so anticipated, planned for, and worked-towards for so long - my final reserve supply of enthusiasm for what is called "anarchism" had run empty.

Another aspect of the whole thing was that I had always seen anarchism as being equally positive as well as negative in it's focus. "Positive" in the sense of presenting an inspiring and moving picture of a beautiful new world that we can create afresh, as well as pointing to the power that each of has individually as well as collectively to radically transform our lives for the better. "Negative" in the sense of openly critiquing and rejecting the existing structure of the world today, it's historical precedents, and the various mainstream movements to change it, from a comprehensive and fundamental stand-point. For a long time I have seen most people identified as "anarchist" as focusing very heavily on the "negative" aspects, that is on the critiques and denouncing, while focusing very lightly or even not at all on the "positive" side of things. Having such a lop-sided perspective eventually leaves very little emotional/spiritual "fuel" for people to keep going, I believe.

Over time I have come to adopt more of what could be considered to be a Buddhist Tolstoyan perspective (although I don't identify as such), part of which could be summarized with this quote from him:

"The Anarchists are right in everything; in the negation of the existing order, and in the assertion that, without Authority, there could not be worse violence than that of Authority under existing conditions. They are mistaken only in thinking that Anarchy can be instituted by a revolution. But it will be instituted only by there being more and more people who do not require the protection of governmental power ... There can be only one permanent revolution - a moral one: the regeneration of the inner man."

It's an evolving ever-changing work-in-progress, I admit - my beliefs, the various movements for social change, as well as the world in general. Ten years after the anarchist scene was so radically catalyzed by the Seattle WTO protests we all seem to be at some very different places than we were before. I wonder where we will be after the next ten years.