O Anarchy!!!

Ah! that word anarchy appeared to me for a long time, in the days of my youth, as a sort of myth.

The change that has occurred in my mindset has not changed my opinion on the grandeur of the word and the beauty of the thing. My aim is still and always to work, to struggle, to hasten the coming of the anarchist life—a life without authority, without obligation, without brutality; a gentle, tolerant, normal, natural life, where people will learn to understand one another.

In these moments, I seem to see new men silhouetted on a cheerful stage, where everything is love, where everything is beauty, goodness and truth. Evolution pursues its course, and the humanity of tomorrow will surely not resemble that of yesterday, nor even that of today. Many will be conscious of their value, as negligible as it might be; yes, many will be conscious of their individuality. Their words and deeds will be free, the reticence and the posing of the present will have disappeared. The atmosphere will be purer.

Someone says to me: It is just a remnant of dream. To see my contemporaries, alas, there is cause for despair, but pessimism does no good; it saps all energy, all initiative…

Tomorrow! Tomorrow! And we dream constantly of what will be tomorrow.

Why? We will spread our sails according to the wind. Yes, let us break down this last remnant of mystical sentiment, which makes many among us scorn the present, resign themselves to their fate, never acting and waiting for some Messiah — however revolutionary — to build a society, a better life in the future.

Since we are irreligious, let us begin, from this moment, to listen to one another, to seek affinities in order to accomplish whatever work, whatever task nous concerns us, one and all. Certainly, we know that tomorrow will come. But to wait for tomorrow is a loss of time and it could be that tonight, even we will be no more.

Anarchy is no longer, for me, the myth of my youth. It is a state of life that manifests itself in the present and seeks to fulfill itself without prejudice, without mysticism.