No gods, no masters

When I was just a little kid, I often met other children who needed to show me they were superior to me. I always thought this was because of my obesity, but more likely, it had something to do with their characters, disturbed and suffering as I see them now.

I also had a lot of friends and a lot of fun, but there was a pain that was deep within me and with me every day. The pain of being intimidated, the pain of being humiliated. I was always in a rage when this happened, and overflowing with grief. Why does this have to happen, I asked myself. Why do these people have to be here ? Why can’t they just leave everyone alone, and why can’t we all just play and have fun ? Why can’t we all get along ?

So the answer I gave myself was that it was my own fault. It was because I was overweight, because my belly was too big, and the pain that centered around the behavior of the other kids came to center around me. Why do I have to be overweight ? Why do I have to be so ugly and different ?

For the years that followed, the pain of intimidation and humiliation drove my every move and my every decision. I vowed to lose weight, and become just like anyone else. Then they wouldn’t pick on me, they would just let me be. I wouldn’t be special anymore, I wouldn’t stand out any longer.

So I sought the advice of doctors and fitness people, and dieted my butt of, and worked out very hard to obtain the body that was normal and acceptable. The pain of those early encounters stayed with me very deep.

When I graduated from high school, I was a muscular and lean boy, top of his year in swimming. I had gotted better in sports, and had moved myself from the ranks of the beaten ones unto the level of the popular kids. I always made sure I wouldn’t do anything that could cause other children to pick on me, or to cast me aside and shut me out, back where I was not good enough. It was a pain, it was a fear, it was a sickness, it was not a life.

Strange enough, my anger towards injustice compelled me to seek a force as a police officer. I would punish the bad people, and be harsh and relentless towards them. I would be the biggest, baddest, strongest, most feared and respected cop around.

For this, I had to join military school. So I did, and when I was there, I started considering a job as an officer with the armed forces as well. I say this is strange, because, when I analyze it now, I was going to become some sort of a bully myself, bossing other people around for a job, whether they were civilians or not. And I would be bossed around myself by my superiors for the rest of my life too.

So, bossing people around had seemed like the only game in town, since my early experiences on the playground. You showed you were the boss, or you submitted to the other who showed that he was the boss. Everything was competition and fighting, and that was life. To eat or to be eaten. One great food chain.

These days, I have a different assumption of living together, which is more radical. I think no one should boss anyone around, no one should eat a fellow being, just for showing who has and who does not have a place in this world. I believe in equality, respect and anarchy.

It is somewhat difficult to explain, to the common man, the idea of not having a food chain, with the king eating all of his subordinates, the army and the police feeding the king his portion of civilians, and the civilians living like nothing but sheep among all of the wolves in present day society.

When I say I believe in anarchy, then I must say that I don’t believe in democracy.

You see, in psychoanalysis, it is told that man is inclined to suppress himself, to keep himself down, in order to fulfill the demands of his ego. This ego is a most irritating instance, and is not even real. Still, we cling to it, or rather, originally, it clings to us. The ego is the death-drive, that which kills us on the inside. Yet we live for it, we live for death. And that is most visible in a democratic society ruled by the police.

You see, in a democracy, we also kind of choose an image, we want to be such or such a society, and then we all conform to it. It was as if we called the police on ourselves, to keep us tied to a certain mode of behavior. We do not love ourselves, we do not trust ourselves, we do not live our true lives. We call the police when things don’t fit the demands of the majority, and we bow to the king, who may give us a dollar, but is filling his own pockets with a hundred more.

We are good people. We live in servitude. We are the slaves still, the peasants starving for the glory of their kingdom. What is the kingdom, if not the people themselves ? Is it the amount of gold in the national treasury, is it how many subordinates the king has, how many soldiers bow to a general ? Is the richness of a country, a king, a general, just about how many people they boss around ? And what about the common people, the ones who live for the glory of their king, the ones who die for the glory of their general ? When will they live their own lives, in peace, and harmony at last ?

I do understand that people have a thing with death, with dominion and suppression. I understand the ambivalence, they are uncertain, so they choose the side of death, they identify with the ego. They say make me obey, I want to be good. They say punish me, I have been a bad person, sometimes in sexual games of acting out their feelings of guilt.

Still, this day, I am glad I do not boss people around telling them to obey the law of the king, I am glad I did not choose to partake in wars telling other people to bow before my king, I am glad I have learnt to question the bossing around and the demanding games of the ego.

The pain is still there, the pain of refusing to obey the bully, the fight is still there, the fight for my right to live and play undisturbed and in peace. And although I have run the risk of becoming the worst of bullies myself, assuming this was the game of the world and wanting to get better at it, I am glad I have come to a place where I return to my true position, that is one of revolt.

We may not be as defiant towards the oppressor as we should be, we may sympathize with the boss, we may feel we need to be told what to do. We may be slaves too much. But this I do believe: I do believe the day will come when the ego will have its power over us no more, and we shall see the truth, that peace should be, and not the power of the strongest ruling in shameful arrogance. I do believe the day will come when we question the police, when we question authority, when we question the king and when we defy the need to be good citizens and subservient, obedient slaves.

One day, man shall see through the games of suicide he now calls democratic rule, and the bossing around he now calls the law and order, and one day he will cast off the image so severe that held him bound for ages to this or another king. One day, man will live without authority, like a child without bullies, just playing and feasting the great wonders and opportunities this wonderful world beholds.

One day, there will be no more politics, there will be no more bullies arguing among themselves what rules they will impose on the unfortunate slaves. There will be no police to keep everyone in check, and there will be no more king in whose name the people suffer death, not only from the inside, but evermore these days, inflicted upon them by the ones in charge.

I pray I may live to see that day, and release perhaps the pains of my early life in a breath that is not yet my last. I pray we may awake, and I pray we may free ourselves from every sort of oppression, whether we seem to choose for it or not, and live a life of freedom, love, peace and a beautiful and deep felt anarchy.

In the mean time, I send my best to you.