TOTW: Reflections

This week we are pressing the pause button and taking a moment, a moment to look at ourselves, our perspectives, our experiences, our actions. A moment of insight, of renewal. A moment to redress. In this TOTW, we're reflecting.

This is no easy task. We're told to be careful what you say and who you say it to. Be careful what you read and what you write. Be careful not to reveal too much, to go too far. Be 'appropriate', we're told. To these well-intentioned, well-behaved people we say: not today/this week.

How do we reflect? Where do these thoughts, conversations and writings take us, and where do they take place? Do you reflect alone, among friends, strangers? Does it look like a meeting, a retreat, a bonfire? A sombre meditation, or a wild dance? Is it a profound new beginning, or a wasted afternoon?

When does reflecting become overthinking? Is now the time to reflect, or is it the time to set our faces toward the future, and push on? Finally, what does it mean to reflect, if, after all, we are only 'our memory, that chimerical museum of inconstant forms, that pile of broken mirrors'?

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Perhaps I've become too spontaneous and reliant upon heuristic. When I think of reflection, I conjure sympathy, empathy, failures and feelings. My mind paints a picture of raising a hand to a friend and seeing the same as a response.

shards to step on barefooted, or to slit your wrists with, or to chew and swallow

And here at the Anti-Corporate Institutional Wank of Mind
We find ourselves reflecting
Finding out that, in fact
We came back
We were always coming back

a lifetime comprised of wasted afternoons, nights and mornings

analysis paralysis. a physical tensing of my whole body at the onset of the memories of my mistakes and misunderstandings, of any sort of memory big or small, a complete wave of embarrassment that erodes my fragile calm. wasted afternoons, and plenty more besides. nevertheless reflection is important for growth and change. and so i must slowly learn to accept what has passed, to move forward with an understanding of what went right, what went wrong, what i can do different next time. to pass through the hall of mirrors, and take some lessons with me. not to become trapped forever in the endless cascade of reflections.

I leave in my wake, ponderings, eternal ponderings which extend out, ouT, oUT, OUT, into the chaos, echoing and bouncing back, feedback for my solipsistic ponderings, *chuckles*

the place seems important. for instance, if i'm in my room i'm probably *not* reflecting, even if i'm thinking. outside is a good place.

It seems anarchy is merely a place where young disaffected people gather, pose, spout drivel (mostly), get older (possibly wiser???) and leave... and they next young disaffected person fills the hole left and so it goes...basically! A tragedy is my opinion.

you could say the same about anything that requires/relies on enthusiasm, a rejection of the world as it is.
it's hard to reject the status quo, and most people around us won't practice with us. and most of us don't find people in real life to practice with us even when we're young, much less as we age.
signed
a proponent of a strong anarchist subculture

Speaking for myself and few others I've had this convo with: I think people leave because people get bored and like to do different things with their life over time, and there isn't much room for that in subcultural spaces. Also, life happens, and the scene/milieu isn't known for fostering supportive relationships that endure through different life events/stages. Still disaffected, though.

Doesn't have anything to do with anarchy as a practice, not even a subculture. Most people just on to other interests or occupations, and when the many interesting folks in your '20s radical milieu have moved on, you're much tempted to do the same. But that doesn't answer what this anarchist subculture was about... petty vandalism and activism barely distinguishable from lame lefties? I can totally understand why people would leave this boat after a few years!

But some of the anarchy I've known was way more interesting than this, and has also been cross-generational. Too bad if some of you never experienced anything outside of the activist/academic echo chambers... :-( What can I say... go to Europe and Latin America for a while?

Because anarchism has become a youth culture. The numbers involved in youth movements are insufficient to overthrow a government.

And people still wonder why 'the revolution' hasn't occurred.

"The numbers involved in youth movements are insufficient to overthrow a government."

No the numbers of zoomers are sufficient for overthrowing the social order, but the vast majority of them have been busying themselves risin and shinin through the new capitalist economies with barber shops, trap house and trendy venues, in between social media representation politics. I'm not saying the past generations were any less foolish, tho. The demographic weight of the Boomers has had an tremendous impact on over-inflating their collective big egos.

And overthrowing governments? This is not the site for those seeking to do that. I may direct you at marxists and fascists, instead. Anarchists have never been interested in coups, as for every fallen church you gotta replace it with another...

if only we had more ____, then we'd definitely have ____!

i want some ____!!! gimme some of that ____!!!
please?!!!

She turns and looks a moment in the glass,
Hardly aware of her departed lover;
Her brain allows one half-formed thought to pass...

Thanks for the two replies. A person would have a thought enthusiasm for anarchy would be long lasting, even life lasting given it's fundamental message? I got into the idea via punk 1976 and it is still with me today: not the music so much but the ideas. They're even more needed in today's world I would argue. As people getting bored and wanting to do something else... how can anarchist ideas be boring and it is not something one does, it is one sees, feels and relates to the world, no? To change, would surely mean entering domination and uncreativity etc? The scene isn't known for fostering supportive relationships. Wow! That sounds just like The State to me? It is people who struggle putting anarchy into action. It is as if group solidarity fails over and over?

I have just been watching and listening to Cal Washington of the Inpower Movement challenging 5g, smart meters and vaccinations. He appears to have hit on possible solutions which he claims have worked. However, he claims it is really really hard to get people involved because people cannot be bothered to put the effort in to achieve the change. He basically claims that all relations are commercial and based on contract and shit happens to us via our tacit agreement. It is fascinating stuff. Yes, I know anarchists are all for scrapping the whole shebang. However, Cal doesn't claim to be an anarchist yet he is very keen and active in taking on domination. And he isn't young either.

> it is not something one does, it is one sees, feels and relates to the world, no?

i.e. reflecting? i agree, but 'what something one does' usually follows, no?

> paragraph 2

this is tin foil hat territory. 5g, smart meters and vaccinations are boogiemen to for people like cal washington and alex jones to make e-bux from.

Who should? Or how should that be the basis for having affinities with someone? Anarchism is meant to be an arcane philosophy for radicals interested in liberation, not as this godawful Chomsky socialist petrified borefest about "unjust hierarchies". People should have more and more conversation related to anarchy, yet their practices and cultures they develop out of it should be as informal and stealthy as possible.

Be like water, not rocks. https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/tyler-dixon-liquid-anarchism

is simply an absence of authoritarians, or people who can exert some sort of un-welcomes control over you. A proactive anarchist position will always be an issue, as trying to change other people normally fails, and why as an anarchist would i even want that? Sure it seems like being a person means that people will manipulate you and you will manipulate them, and that is the conundrum. I want an anarchy that completely rejects and has contempt for any sort of expectation. In this sense, I am a passivist, my years of wanting to fight the system are completely over.

As far as Cal Washington is concerned, complaining about what other people could be doing does not sound like my idea of a good time. I would think that being an anarchist means that only you have control over your own behavior, which of course will be dominated by a general situation like it always has been...

Fuck, theanarchistlibrary.org is offline!!!!!!!

This is so fucked! Please tell me it can survive!!!!!!!!!

How do we help?

you can help by not freaking out because something is down for a minute.
you know, just two bangs maybe, instead of 8 and 10?
also, if you're an infrastructure person, have notes on things you're working on, in case you die.

Damn... I was just without my daily fill of trollbait for a few hours today and it was enough for me to start reconsidering my life. Now FBI scare disintensifies...

We are working on it. It went down for the same reason Anews did. It can and will survive. Sit tight unless you can help in a technical way.

I'm reflecting on its absence...

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