Anarchist hyperbole can be painfully annoying at times: an extravagant exaggeration at odds with how anarchists actually engage in the world or treat people, including each other.

Yet lately, I feel the hype is no exaggeration at all, but captures the extravagantly touching ways that anarchists are “making the world we need,” and with such care. And imagination and even joy—for care, imagination, and joy are necessary counterweights to the abandonment, lockstep fascism, and grief swirling around us.

On the one hand, anarchist hyperbole is a message in a bottle during an era when it can feel like all is lost: we may be far from other possible worlds, yet those other worlds are still always a potential, and thus something we can hold out and journey toward. Without that promise, what is there to fight for? To live for? Anarchism without vision, without aspirations, is hollow rhetoric.

On the other hand, anarchist hyperbole seems to be describing—at least now—what anarchists are actually doing on the ground, as their #EverydayAnarchism as it were: prefiguring what those possible worlds look like when premised on deep, self-organized, rebellious forms of #CommunalCare. There are many reasons why anarchism seems to have turned toward building up, in do-it-ourselves and even friendly ways, all that people need to survive and thrive, including the turn toward #MutualAid that so marked the start of the pandemic, and now, the ways anarchists are taking those practices back from liberal and capitalist co-optation because ecological and other human-made disasters are necessitating it. Also, though, there’s a way that the bleakness and violence of these “end times” appears to be drawing out anarchic play and creativity, both to protect each other and squeeze out beautiful, sacred life for each other.

I could list many real-life examples, but for now, I’ll uplift just one: @broken.window_rva, with some of its hyperbolic zines pictured here. One of their crew pulled me aside at the @acabookfair to joyfully share all the DIY other-possible-worlds of fun (esp. related to varied-themed bike rides), tender solidarity, and more! Check out their Instagram for inspiration.

"During this fascist period especially, embracing our creativity can help us find better, more flexible, and resilient ways of caring for each while bolstering our ability to combat oppressive dynamics. It is important that we do not give up our collective agency and creativity in exchange for rigid organizational disciplines that refuse to accommodate us and everyone imperiled by eugenicist normalcy. We cannot compromise with the systems that want us dead. There is much problem-solving to do and we need a comprehensive discerning solidarity more than ever."

#CommunalCare #AntiAbleism #DisabilityJustice #MutualAid #AntiFascism

It’s a bittersweet challenge these days to figure out, much less practice, what it means to “live like the world is dying.” After nearly three pandemic years, given how much has died, “living life” can feel more elusive than ever.

I’ve been thinking a lot—on obsessive #FuckCOVID19 walks again—about an observation that @mbsycamore made in a tweet-story recently: we squandered the “we take care of each other” opening at the pandemic’s start and now the widespread loss of “communal care” feels “all the more brutal.” Especially when the abandonment of collective care for all (emphasis on “all”) occurs too often now in our own circles, as if the pandemic were over. That “squandering” has been cutting me to the core.

So it was not merely an honor to be asked to join @margaret and @house.of.hands for an episode of Live Like the World Is Dying; it felt reinvigorating to hear their words on the joy of living anarchism for life.

https://www.liveliketheworldisdying.com/

Since we recorded that podcast, many days haven’t feel reinvigorating. And even when recording it over a month ago, I was speaking/dreaming of the world I yearn for and wish I lived in, not the one I inhabit, as if voicing my aspirations can conjure them into existence.

I’ve been reflecting on that a lot ever since, but keenly once the podcast came out. I was struck by the unusual number of folks who messaged me to say that listening to this episode gave them “care,” “kindness,” and “love”—and reasons to go on with “living life” for themselves and others.

Around that same time, some friends who I hadn’t heard from in a while randomly reached out to me for a catch-up phone call, text exchange, or walk—just when I desperately needed extra support. Their words gave me “care,” “kindness,” and “love”—and reasons to go on with “living life” for myself and others.

I write. And talk. So even if I’ve forgotten of late, I know that words count—as political practice, as lifeline and love letter, and as the stories that we swap to tangibly reshape this miserable world for the better.

Let’s reinvigorate #CommunalCare with words that remind us to engage in life-giving deeds.

#TryAnarchismForLife

(photo: “you are loved” street heart, seen in Tio’tia:ke/Montreal, summer 2022)