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GrimWillow wrote

I'm no expert on nihilism at all, but I've always identified with the concepts when they're described to me.

I don't often say this to people around me because they often make the assumption that I have lots of optimistic hope for the future, so it doesn't come up, but I have none. I believe that industrial capitalism has gone far beyond what a human habitat can handle, and all those wealthy families over centuries have successfully summoned the hell so often feared in religious texts.

I was going to expand on this further, but I suddenly have to go out the door. I'll come back later and thanks for the book. Looks interesting.

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GrimWillow wrote (edited )

ok, so here's a small expansion of what I was saying.

Even though I think the future is doomed and we live in a hell created by the wealthy throughout history, and we are at a pinnacle point in their agenda, I still believe in resistance to it. I think we're long past any point of being able to survive this, and the generations inheriting this mess are completely doomed, but Anarchism is what I believe to be the right path, and it is an exercise of the only freedom I possess. It the useless vote I make with my actions and lifestyle in the face of their tides of oppression. A glimpse into possibilities that have come too late. On top of this, I will live and die as an Anarchist, and it already has helped insulate people I love from greater amounts of oppression. The more people that do this, the better. Will it save us? No.

edit: Reworded a bit to reflect that every day actions of Anarchism add up to a lot more safer spaces for people in general, even if its project to free the oppressed, or at least halt the advance of globalizing tyrants, has not yet succeeded.

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[deleted] wrote

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GrimWillow wrote (edited )

The greatest joy in my life is when I engage in actions that reflect on my true desires. I have realized the hollowness of the rewards that the system offers. I am constantly paying the money I "earned" to recover from "earning" it. And who gets the most from that trade off? Those who have commanded my location and demanded my actions reflect their desires of control, oppression, and growth.

My joy is in the destruction of their malignant desires. Because I do not desire their control, oppression, and growth to exist. Whatever happens at the point in time that I choose to act on my desires instead of theirs, I will know the joy of being the person I truly wish to be.

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[deleted] wrote (edited )

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GrimWillow wrote

how would you live if you had devoted your entire life to a cause you believed in so deeply that it became so much a part of who you are that you sacrificed everything for it, only to find it co-opted by corporations who understood nothing about why you believed it could make a better world, and the people who you were trying to help believed the corporations and despised and reviled you?

What is the normal way for a human being to react to these circumstances?

Normal reaction I think is depression and feelings of betrayal, hopelessness, and being de-energized. Especially if it was your life's work. Even projects that have been explicitly anti-capitalist have been recuperated in the past, so it's hard to even imagine something not just blowing up in your face.

Riot porn and arson fantasies are part of it, but compassion and wanting to tend to "our own" wounded, incarcerated, and the families of our fallen are the other side of the same coin.

Yea, it's always tough because we're always on the defensive and everyone is so damaged in so many different ways that it feels like we're on fire and trying to put ourselves out while also trying to defend ourselves in combat.

A normie mistook me for a threat to myself and/or others on a tech board and it freaked me out. Now that I have a word for it, it doesn't any more. The normie was mistaken.

I'm mostly familiar with the term "normie" from the incel/chan crowd so it's weird to hear it referring to non-radically minded people; but I'm not suggesting that you associate with that crowd at all, just relating my experience with the word.

When you say that you now have a word for "it", what is the "it"? Nihilism?

I still have a lot of studying to do and I'm going to make mistakes and accidentally offend people but I think I've found a safe place to process what went down afk during #OccupyMySmallTown six years ago, lol.

Yea, I also have a lot to learn. We've all been through a lot of intense brainwashing, but attempting to not recreate the horror that put us here is integral, so call-ins are extremely important. All the studying we can on our own relieves the load and potential pressure from those around us also trying to heal. But obviously there are so many blind-spots that we don't always even know what we should be reading.

Oh god, the Occupy movement is rife with problems, but overall I'd say that it was a really good thing. Unfortunately, it was preyed on by many a predator because it was a hotzone for newly radicalized people who were unfamiliar with the terrain. So many cases of police, fascist, and capitalist infiltration left it torn apart. Ultimately it points to the need for better security culture and better politics to be at the helm. By "better politics" I mean addressing patriarchy, white supremacy, transphobia, and classism (capitalism).

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GrimWillow wrote (edited )

I was thinking it might be like that. It sounds like it will be a good read! Thanks for having mentioned it in the other thread.

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ziq wrote (edited )

It really annoys me when ancoms condescendingly call me a lifestylist because I recognize this futility. Needing to believe in a holy revolution where anarchists will rise up surrounded in light and save the world just means you'll never actually be an anarchist because after a decade of your fantastic revolution not getting any closer, you'll throw in the towel and work on your stock portfolio instead.

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afk wrote

is it annoying when i say a believed holy revolution could be synonymous with anarcha nihilist lifestyle practice where rising up in light requires a grounding in dirt and shit and connecting our world between others' even when it seems futile because life isn't about style but a sacred, fiery soul. ?

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ziq wrote

I get called a nihilist a lot for opposing civilization, because I see it as the root of all oppression. So I embrace it. A lot of basic people just use it to describe anyone that's more radical than themselves.

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ziq wrote (edited )

He just wanted to get as far away from the cities as he could, live his life, and laugh as civilization rotted from the inside out and destroyed itself.

Pretty much me, except civilization seems to be surviving rotting from the inside out so far, it's just everything around it that's been destroyed. Oh, and my generation has to continue working in the city even after we go back to the land. Needed a 15 year loan to pay for my one acre. Still got 7 years of payments left on it.

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[deleted] wrote (edited )

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ziq wrote (edited )

He sounds awesome.

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