Anarkey # introduceyourself

Hello!

Welp, this is my #introduceyourself post. I am NOT a blogger, though I have been encouraged by many to do so. I think part of my resistance to public blogging/content-creation has been the seeming futility of it...unless others engage with the blog (and I HATEHATEHATE self-marketing) I'm just masturbating online. ew. I've journaled regularly throughout my life, but this has been simply a tool to "brain-dump" and organize my own thoughts for my own benefit. A sort of "therapy", if you will. Remember The Artist's Way? Many, many moons ago I used my journaling habits to help me write lyrics back when I was in bands, but that was another lifetime...

Steemit feels different for a bunch of reasons, however:

1. Since it's brand-spankin'-new, there seems to be some serious excitement about getting in on the ground-floor of a new community of "social networking." Who isn't sick as hell of Facebook drama - micro AND macro?
2. I like the idea of exploring content based on topics of interest. Yeah, yeah - reddit, I get it - but damned if that shit ain't totally overwhelming to an OG like me. I got shit to do and eighty-gajillion other rabbit-holes to go down. Ain't nobody got time for that.
3. Holy shit...VALUE consideration for the work I share? Outta the gate? Using an exciting new crypto-currency tied to the platform??? HELL YEAH, now we're talkin'! I dunno about you, but sometimes I get nauseous when I think about how much free data and work-product I've contributed to sites like Facebook and Yelp. Don't get me wrong, I've gotten something out of my efforts on those platforms (social connection, a bit of a creative outlet, sometimes clients) otherwise I wouldn't have spent countless hours in those places, but as I get older I'm feeling more and more like this:
   
4. My initial exploration of Steemit yielded plenty of content about cryptocurrencies, but little to nothing about #anarchy, #voluntaryism, #libertarianism, #anti-establishmentarianism, #agorism, #non-aggressionprinciple and the like. I'm pretty active in FBlandia with others sharing these interests, but FBlandia is getting increasingly less tolerant of anything coming close to smelling of anti-establishmentarianism. Not to mention the fact that SO many of the groups that discuss said topics have devolved into little more than echo-chambers of identifying the various problems of statism, bitching about them (best-case scenario, philosophizing about them...and these are often little more than schoolyard circle-jerks), dick-wagging, in-fighting (anarchy-with-hyphens...c'mon now) and gasp oh, god, NOT ANOTHER FUCKING MEME! Don't get me wrong, I dig memes, but you can't claim to be a voice for something as important as the ideology of anarchy as a method of human existence because you collected the whole set of memes on the subject. Most importantly, it seems as though since (almost) everybody in FBlandia is too busy arguing about the problems, NOBODY IS COMING UP WITH SOLUTIONS. Like, real ones each of us can use every day to make us just a little more free from the systemic oppressions of our slavery.
   
   Anyway, this seems like an important burgeoning new platform whose community members could benefit GREATLY from exploring this important ideology...not to mention it's inextricable link to crypotcurrencies!

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"The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words."
~ Philip K. Dick

I was a teen in the '80s and associated with a motley crew of "punk rockers" of various stripe.

I grew up associating the word "anarchy" with Merriam-Webster's "Simple" or "1b:" definition and The Sex Pistols (along with a slew of other bands). That's the only context I'd ever had for that word until just a couple of years ago...when I woke up. It all started with a little book that my Love ordered for me direct from the author. A little indie non-fiction...YAY! He even had it signed by the author for me! (I was duly impressed that my Love was on personal terms with a literary figure ;))

I've always been a logophile so I was a bit distraught to learn the etymology of the word "anarchy."

But...wait...what about all that shit about chaos and disorder, cats and dogs living together, mass hysteria?

The book's main premise is the assertion that the greatest superstition ever devised by man - even greater than any religion (cause they use it, too) is the myth of authority. The author goes through all sorts of examples exemplifying this to be the case. And of course I'm reading this stuff thinking to myself "hmmm", "yeah," "that makes sense," "oh, HELL yeah!" "yup," "mmmHM," "yeah, ok, you've made that point...twice, now," "yep. I get it. what else ya got" It seriously read like that...which wasn't a bad thing 'cause it just drove home a serious "duh" moment. Like one of those riddles you can't figure out 'cause you're too indoctrinated in a certain way for it to occur to you that any other point of view exists. And then when someone tells you the punchline you feel like a complete asshole. After reading that book, I felt a way that I imagine people felt when someone told them "the earth is not flat, it is a sphere." All of a sudden I looked back on a lifetime of personal observations about the world and how they related to each other from a perspective that just made so much more sense than anything I thought I knew or believed. I was simultaneously exhilarated AND terrified! One of the most difficult realizations for me has been learning just HOW almost ALL of the shit involving chaos and disorder, cats and dogs living together, mass hysteria is due to the myth of authority: government. Statism is the most sinister of religions because it co-opts EVERYONE...and BY WAY OF VIOLENCE, FORCE AND COERCION.

I mean, have you ever asked yourself WHY you feel a certain way about something? WHY do you believe what you do? HOW do you decide what to believe and not believe? What do YOU value? Why? How do YOU define "right" and "wrong"? Is it possible you could be heavily influenced - perhaps even controlled - in how you view the world and the people in it? How do you think how you view the world influences your decisions? Your view of yourself and others? Your place in this world?

Think about everyone you know - friends, family, coworkers. Each of them have some level of interest in you viewing the world, yourself, and yourself in the world in a certain way: a way that suits them for whatever reason. All of a sudden something happens - a major life change, a pivotal person, a book, a movie, a conversation, a song - and you will never be the same again. OK, YOU'LL still be the same, but you'll never be able to look at the world in the same way again. It may not even change your circumstances or your day-to-day existence, but it forever colors how you think about the world, your place in it and completely opens up the options for "what's next?" to an almost terrifying degree of simultaneous hope and fear. What's next?

And thus the titular point.

After spending a goodly amount of time going down all manner of rabbit holes with new eyes and discovering that there's a WHOLE LOTTA PEOPLE talking about the concepts of statism, neo-slavery and abolition, voluntaryism, etc. There's ALSO a whole lotta people that GASP when anyone mentions the word "anarkey'. Why? BECAUSE THEY'VE BEEN BRAINWASHED TO FEAR IT. Why? Because truly understanding it might inspire someone to think. And thinking folk are bad for The Establishment. But it just so happens that there are a LOT of thinking folk out there that are already talking about the reasons that anarchy is the only sane human existence. ANY system of violence and coercion is a sick system.

Anarkey was conceived out of a desire to devilify the word "Anarchy." Our intent is to re-brand the word by:

1. curating and sharing content that illustrates its TRUE meaning: "without rulers" = a peace movement.
2. providing resources to more deeply explore all the related aspects of living in a voluntary vs. authoritarian society as piques your own personal interest (I guarantee there's sumpthin' in all that for everyone)
3. Discussing ways each of us can pursue - to our own respective comfort levels - achieving a little more freedom from egregious government control in our day-to day lives, right now: which combination of things work for you?
4. Exploring extreme strategies in the pursuit of individual liberty: which combination of things work for you?

Who knows what it will turn into but I have a sneaking suspicion my aim is true.

I've never fancied myself to be a "content provider." At least not on the internet. But I feel like I'm pretty good at "connecting the dots" to interpret a thing in a certain way. MY way of interpreting "anarchy" seems "right" to ME...maybe it will also seem "right" to others.

Back to Steemit

Earlier today I was listening to this podcast where one of the dudes was saying that often some branch of government will plant a press release with AP reporting that a certain policy is under consideration in an effort to gauge public opinion using social networking data. If the response is "Oh, HELL NO" they shelve it. If it's "meh." they slide it through with some shit MSM convinced the masses is "important."

Validation. Likes. Thoughts and prayers! Big whoop. I wrote HUNDREDS of reviews for Yelp. Admittedly, at the time, I was an isolated new mom who'd just found social networking (I was Yelping for 2 years before I entered FBlandia) and was excited to meet new people and have an occasional opportunity to share some cocktails with them. But, as with ANY social networking platform, invariably you start to consider the cost-benefit analysis of what you get out out of it vs. the time and effort you contribute. To my mind, consideration is the highest form of valuation of a product. When that consideration aligns with the intent of the product, you have a successful transaction. If the level or brand or type of consideration is not worth the time and effort, the creator must abandon the project in favor of pursuing something that will provide the consideration that creator requires. Keep in mind that "consideration" need not = "money," but that is a pretty universal measure of relative value, ain't it?

Perhaps my Steemit project is a way to gauge public opinion of my views and ideas by way of votes and contributions rather than opinions. I imagine the worst that could happen is I cut my chops in and learn how to hone the art of content for the coming website.