An absurdist Anarchist examination of love 

 by Story

03.18.2020

Theory in poetic storytelling 

 

Quotes 

“There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide.” – Albert Camus [1]

“In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.

And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger – something better, pushing right back.”- Albert Camus [2]

“Always go too far, because that’s where you’ll find the truth” – Albert Camus [3]

“People hasten to judge in order not to be judged themselves” – Albert Camus [4]

“There is not love of life without despair about life” – Albert Camus [6]

“Since we’re all going to die, it’s obvious that when and how don’t matter” – Albert Camus [7]

“There is scarcely any passion without struggle”

– Albert Camus [8]

“What is called a reason for living is also an excellent reason for dying” – Albert Camus [9]

“Freedom is nothing but a chance to be better”

 – Albert Camus [10]

“The most important thing you do every day you live is deciding not to kill yourself” – Albert Camus [11]

“Where there is no hope, it is incumbent on us to create it” – Albert Camus [12]

“We are all special cases.” – Albert Camus [13]

“friendship is a knowledge acquired by free men. And there is no freedom without intelligence or without mutual understanding.” – Albert Camus [14]

“The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.” – Albert Camus [15]

“It is necessary to fall in love… if only to provide an alibi for all the random despair you are going to feel anyway” – Albert Camus [16]

“For the anarchist, freedom is not an abstract philosophical concept, but the vital concrete possibility for every human being to bring to full development all the powers, capacities, and talents with which nature has endowed him, and turn them to social account.” – Noam Chomsky [17]

“The record of anarchist ideas, and even more, of the inspiring struggles of people who have sought to liberate themselves from oppression and domination, must be treasured and preserved, not as means of freezing thought and conception in some new mold but as basis for understanding of the social reality and committed work to change it. There is no reason to suppose that history is at an end, that the current structures of authority and domination are graven in stone. It would also be a great error to underestimate the power of social forces that will fight to maintain power and privilege.” – Noam Chomsky [18]

“The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum….” – Noam Chomsky [19]

“Optimism is a strategy for making a better future. Because unless you believe that the future can be better, you are unlikely to step up and take responsibility for making it so.” – Noam Chomsky [20]

“If I can’t dance to it, it’s not my revolution”

 – Emma Goldman [21]

“The most violent element in society is ignorance” 

• Emma Goldman [22]

“Free love? As if love is anything but free! Man has bought brains, but all the millions in the world have failed to buy love. Man has subdued bodies, but all the power on earth has been unable to subdue love. Man has conquered whole nations, but all his armies could not conquer love. Man has chained and fettered the spirit, but he has been utterly helpless before love. High on a throne, with all the splendor and pomp his gold can command, man is yet poor and desolate, if love passes him by. And if it stays, the poorest hovel is radiant with warmth, with life and color. Thus love has the magic power to make of a beggar a king. Yes, love is free; it can dwell in no other atmosphere. In freedom it gives itself unreservedly, abundantly, completely. All the laws on the statutes, all the courts in the universe, cannot tear it from the soil, once love has taken root.” – Emma Goldman [23]

“When we can’t dream any longer we die.” 

• Emma Goldman [24]

“Patriotism … is a superstition artificially created and maintained through a network of lies and falsehoods; a superstition that robs man of his self-respect and dignity, and increases his arrogance and conceit” – Emma Goldman [25]

“Every society has the criminals it deserves.”

• Emma Goldman [25]

“If love does not know how to give and take without restrictions, it is not love, but a transaction that never fails to lay stress on a plus and a minus”  – Emma Goldman [26]

“We Americans claim to be a peace-loving people. We hate bloodshed; we are opposed to violence. Yet we go into spasms of joy over the possibility of projecting dynamite bombs from flying machines upon helpless citizens. We are ready to hang, electrocute, or lynch anyone, who, from economic necessity, will risk his own life in the attempt upon that of some industrial magnate. Yet our hearts swell with pride at the thought that America is becoming the most powerful nation on earth, and that she will eventually plant her iron foot on the necks of all other nations.Such is the logic of patriotism” – Emma Goldman [27]

“Every daring attempt to make a great change in existing conditions, every lofty vision of new possibilities for the human race, has been labeled Utopian” – Emma Goldman [28]

“The most absurd apology for authority and law is that they serve to diminish crime. Aside from the fact that the State is itself the greatest criminal, breaking every written and natural law, stealing in the form of taxes, killing in the form of war and capital punishment, it has come to an absolute standstill in coping with crime. It has failed utterly to destroy or even minimize the horrible scourge of its own creation.” – Emma Goldman [28.1]

“Politicians promise you heaven before the election and give you hell after”

• Emma Goldman [28.2]

“Love is its own protection.” – Emma Goldman [29]

“The real test of love is when a person—including you—can know your weaknesses, your stupidities, and your smallnesses, and still love you.”

 – Dossie Easton [30]

“GREAT SLUTS are made, not born.” 

– Dossie Easton [31]

“Love is not a real-world limit: the mother of nine children can love each of them as much as the mother of an only child.” – Dossie Easton [32]

“Fighting is the ultimate act of intimacy.

(…) Intimacy is based on shared vulnerability.”

• Dossie Easton [33]

“People often learn about starvation economies in childhood, when parents who are emotionally depleted or unavailable teach us that we must work hard to get our emotional needs met, so that if we relax our vigilance for even a moment, a mysterious someone or something may take the love we need away from us.” – Dossie Easton [34]

“Once you have a handle on loving yourself, you can practice sharing that love with others. You’ve probably been taught to reserve the language of love for when you’re feeling overwhelmingly tender and passionate, and only for those who have made huge commitments to you. We recommend instead learning to recognize and acknowledge all the sweet feelings that make life worthwhile even when they don’t knock you over—and, moreover, learning to communicate those feelings to the people who inspire them”

• Dossie Easton [34]

“A final note about love: One remedy for the fear of not being loved is to remember how good it feels to love someone. If you’re feeling unloved and you want to feel better, go love someone, and see what happens” – Dossie Easton [35]

“Only actions can be crimes. Let us repeat that one: emotions are never wrong; only actions can be wrong. Emotions are an expression of our emotional truth, and truth cannot be wrong. Nor do they need to be justified. They just need to be felt.” – Dossie Easton [36]

“When penetration is desired, the focus is on what works for the recipient: we have yet to meet a dildo that got hung up on its own needs” 

– Dossie Easton [37]

“When you have built a satisfying relationship with yourself, then you have something of great worth to share with others. Abundance”

• Dossie Easton [38]

“The problem is that when you blame someone else for how you feel, you disempower yourself from finding solutions” – Dossie Easton [39]

“To be an ethical slut you need to have very good boundaries that are clear, strong, flexible, and, above all, conscious” – Dossie Easton [40]

“So what’s wrong with wanting attention? Isn’t there plenty? Remember about starvation economies: Don’t shortchange yourself. You do not have to be content with little dribs and drabs of comfort, attention, support, reassurance, and love. You get to have all the comfort and reassurance you want” – Dossie Easton [41]

“Gender is not sane. It’s not sane to call a rainbow black and white.” – Kate Bornstein [42]

“Never fuck anyone you wouldn’t want to be.”

• Kate Bornstein [43]

“I have this idea that every time we discover that the names we’re being called are somehow keeping us less than free, we need to come up with new names for ourselves, and that the names we give ourselves must no longer reflect a fear of being labeled outsiders, must no longer bind us to a system that would rather see us dead.”

• Kate Bornstein [44]

“Let’s stop pretending that we have all the answers because when it comes to gender, none of us is fucking omniscient” – Kate Bornstein [45]

“You can have great autonomy in the things you choose to learn and pursue on your own time. When you’re learning things that interest you, challenge you, and make life worth living, getting an education can be blissful and stimulating”

• Kate Bornstein [46]

“And keep in mind that the you that makes life worthy of living today won’t be the same you that makes life worth living this time next year. Identities aren’t meant to be permanent. They’re like cars: they take us from one place to another. We work, travel, and seek adventure in them until they break down beyond repair. At that point, living well means finding a new model that better suits us for a new moment” – Kate Bornstein [47]

“There’s no such thing as hurting someone for their own good. There’s only hurting someone for your own good.” – Kate Bornstein [48]

“You are worthy and capable of finding a way to live your life just the way you really are. And there are plenty of good people in the world who believe that a life like yours needs to be lived.” 

• Kate Bornstein [49]

“Are you breaking some either/or cultural law, just by being who you are? If so, you’re not alone.”

• Kate Bornstein [50]

“Instead of saying that all gender is this or all gender is that, let’s recognize that the word gender has scores of meaning built into it. It’s an amalgamation of bodies, identities, and life experiences, subconscious urges, sensations, and behaviors, some of which develop organically, and others which are shaped by language and culture. Instead of saying that gender is any one single thing, let’s start describing it as a holistic experience” – Kate Bornstein [51]

 

Part 1: Don’t be afraid to live and die at the same time 

We walk and dance around a question:

Why only face the void and see what it entails?

To some it’s heaven, maybe it’s hell

It’s a unique concept 

Different meanings to different people 

Yet…now I decide 

To instead walk into the void 

and see what it entails 

not afraid of life or death

Embracing my complex emotions 

My absurd depressive episodes

The irrational panic attacks 

The human nostalgia of hyper-focusing and attention-deficit disorder 

And walk into the void 

With gentle indifference and affection 

Part 2: Space & Time 

I walk inside 

And only look back once

And see beautiful manifestations

Of time and space 

I’m filled with love that moves me forward into the darkness 

As I move along my past blooms beside me

Memories and traumas into dark demonic creatures 

Yet I do not feel resentment towards these things….they made me who I am

At least…partially 

 

As I continue forward 

A woman comes up to me

She has soft beautiful Caramel colored hair 

Loving brown eyes

Pale and beautiful skin

Lips that are stunning and sweet

A skinny beautiful body that is her own

We speak about things

Mental illnesses, theory, consent, desire

And all the things we love 

That woman’s name is Eva

As we stand here stagnant and simultaneously moving forward even if we can’t tell the time

She teaches me radical honesty and self-love 

Allows me to cry and show as much affection within consensual boundaries 

24 with Autism and BPD

as we connect with each other and understand each other in love, rage, mutual aid, and nurturing revolutionary love….

Eva…decides

Not to walk behind me

Not in front of me 

But, beside me smiling 

Because she is one of my close friends and one that I can safely call family 

With radical love

Honestly 

Education and nurturing relationships

And interdependent mutual aid 

 

At times as we walk through together 

We trip and fall

Get hurt

Feel upset 

But, it’s okay 

Because we are both willing to help one another get back up and continue again 

Over and over

Our mutual understanding is that it’s a part of living but, being able to go through it with someone in confidence….that makes all the difference 

 

As I walk with my comrade & platonic- lover Eva

(As I have many all with complex relations and understandings)

Another being walked next to me

I can’t make them out entirely as their face is a blur

But, they are chubby with a complex gender and sexuality just like Eva and I

This beings name is

Ⓐ⌘⓿☺☹⚑

A name not understandable at least for now….

As it gave me a hint:

“One day you will know who I am and find true revolutionary love like the rest”

and we walked along into a hotel

And have some rest

Part 3: Rest In Peace, Wake up Euphoric 

Resting in peace doesn’t always mean

To die

It can mean different things to different people 

All words have meanings and interpretations across languages and cultures 

that is all okay 

 

A friend that I love dearly 

L. Black 

Adorable 

Revolutionary 

sweet

as we all sleep in our rooms 

We listen to her lovely tunes 

To sleep in peace is to defy a treacherous assumption 

That those who are given the worst treatment in life 

No matter the social category 

Is all their fault 

So we live and love one another 

To defy expectations of subjugation 

And treat one another as we should 

As a community 

Friends

Lovers

And family 

4: Build, destroy, learn, start over 

Voids

Black Holes 

Cosmic objects that create and destroy 

The void….whatever lies ahead 

Is what you make of it 

What you imagine it to be

It is unique 

Infinite

Natural

 

Walk into the void 

And see what lies ahead 

Create whatever you desire 

As long as it harms none 

Because one thing we have learned from earth

Is that unjustified and coercive relationships and hierarchies 

Will never work 

 

Constantly learn 

Build and rebuild 

Destroy and dismantle 

Make something new

We all have the love and potential 

To do something good….