Noah’s Choice
On The Revolt Of The Flesh

Acknowledgements

There are perhaps too many individuals besides myself who have helped make this book possible for me to name here.

The first person I feel to name is Katie, who has been ever loving, supportive and empowering, throughout our relationship and the health struggles I have experienced whilst writing this book. The philosophy of love that I have affirmed within these pages is in no small part created through the lived experience of our relationship — which I have often referenced in the text.

Next I want to thank my former publisher with Forged Books, Llew, who planted the seed that ultimately grew into this text, with his encouragement of me writing more on preservationism. While this is not the Muir focused essay project initially suggested, I sincerely hope that this meets something of what value Llew thought such a piece of writing might hold.

Simon Crow, Lawrence Jarach and Artxmis Graham Thoreau, as individuals who have supported and encouraged my activities as a writer, I also feel to voice gratitude for.

The ghost of Aragorn!, who was a major part of my first two books being published through Little Black Cart, influenced a great deal of my thought in this project and is mentioned at multiple points throughout, haunts me and I feel a need to voice my appreciation for him here.

Other ghosts who I feel to affirm here are those of my mother Triezah and nan June Langer, who I will be grateful for their presences within my life until my dying day. Thank you both for all you taught me!

Returning to the living, I want to next thank Becky, Phil and Shareen, for being family. I also feel to thank Ann, Sarah, Hannah, Karen and Delia, for the support shown throughout this period of health struggle. Next I want to thank all of the folk, in different medical roles and approaches, as well as other helping professions, who have helped me get to where I am today.

I also wish to thank those individuals and projects who have found value in various pieces I have written and so chosen to translate some and republish them, so that I can be read in Spanish, Portuguese, Indonesian and other languages.

Lastly, I want to thank all those rebelling and revolting before Leviathan, in all their individually different and differentiating ways, who continually inspire me.

Thank you all!

12/6/2025

Dedicated to those who are present and those who are possible.

Preface

Julian Langer is an author beyond words and comparison. From writing from the point of view of an extinct mammal absurdly struggling for life, to endless critique of the totality that we call life, Julian is a wealth of enjoyment, confusion, and frustration. This is a good thing, as an author who only makes you feel comfortable or confirms your ideas is a politician and does not respect your intellect or personhood.

The text you are reading now is the next step for Julian’s writing, thinking, and feeling about Leviathan. He is an enemy against the state, which doesn’t mean he is some communist LARPER or libertarian goofball (a goofball, he is, though!), but a radical opponent of rationalism, systemization, and other deadening ways of conceiving of our shared worlds.

In my understanding of Julian, the deadenings we all are subjected to are no different than the cancer he has struggled against. The cancer seeks to dominate his body, lead him to an eventuality (bodily death). The methods of world-builders, Right and Left-wing, are the same, in they seek to guide us in one way: death. Death of the body, the soul, the natural world, and the mysteries of it all. As he writes, “Amidst the feverish sickness of this global warming and mass-extinction event — a symptom of the cancer of civilisation — Earth /life /the-world /existence /Being cries out for possibility in anguished wails.”

Cancer of the body is the cancer of Leviathan in miniature. May this text be part of your own treatment. May you also absurdly resist extinction. Be feral, be wild, be you.

Artxmis Graham Thoreau

Uncivilized Distro and Uncivilized Podcast

Introductions or On The Revolt Of The Flesh

“The revolt of the flesh is the absurd.” Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus

To be born with a cancerous brain tumour is to be born condemned to particular struggles and this is how I was born. Whilst in my mother’s womb a pineal gland germinoma formed, which remained there unnoticed until my late teens when I started developing double vision; and on my nineteenth birthday I was diagnosed with a brain legion. What followed from this was two years of treatment, including two brain surgeries and a month of radiation therapy. The on-going impact of this tumour was brain damage that I live with and means I have what doctors call dorsal midbrain syndrome, meaning my brain wants to keep my eyes out of alignment, and vertical gaze palsy, which means I have to move my head to look up.

This book has been written amidst the experience of being diagnosed with an ocular tumour, going through treatment for this tumour and recovering from its impact. This tumour, called by doctors a solitary fibrous tumour, was removed in the February of 2024 and found to be benign — over a year later I am having regular MRI scans to ensure nothing is growing where it was, as any cells left in there for too long have the potential to turn cancerous. It is possible that this tumour grew from the conditions created by radiation therapy to my head, but this is entirely unknowable and impossible to really say, without delving into absurd rationalisations. Right now, the most significant impacts of this experience right now are on-going fatigue, which is improving, as well as slight distortion of vision and heightened light sensitivity in my left-eye, which is somewhat to be expected given the impact of the tumour to the area behind it. In September 2025 I had my second corrective surgery to realign my eyes, with the first being a year after brain tumour treatment, and am undergoing regular checkups and blood tests.

As someone who embraces the identities of being a pessimist and an absurdist, there is something bio-poetic about being more sensitive to light and having eyes that aren’t able to look up “properly”. It would be very easy to ad hominem myself and disregard all my thought as being merely the result of these physical “defects” and perhaps folks reading this will do so.

With these experiences, I have found myself returned to my body, my flesh and the flesh of life, and found my flesh to be in revolt, rebelling against death. The sensation of breath passing through my body and my heart beating in my chest. Tensions across my forehead from headaches and the tiredness in my muscles from fatigue. These are true and real to me in ways that are primal and largely unspeakable. In the search for thought which harmonises with these experiences, I have found immense value in the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche and Albert Camus, who I have continually drawn from within this text.

A different truth, which is both entirely real and primal to my being, is that I am loved, that I can love and that there is love in the world. Though she died when I was seven, I am sure that I was first taught this truth by my mother in my infancy and know that it has been reaffirmed through the love shown to me by those around me who have supported me throughout my struggles, including my love for myself, and especially by my wife, partner and best friend Katie. The experience of love exists within me between despair and death, as living in the present between the past and future, and from this I find my courage to continue. Of course there is another opportunity to engage in ad hominem here and that is something that I can accept. Regardless of this, I have sought throughout this text to affirm this truth, drawing from Shestov’s affirmation of despair being the penultimate word, with love being my last word, before the full stop of death/extinction, and at the root of the thought I am seeking to affirm.

The choice to write from a personal-perspective and speak as myself is entirely intentional and done with awareness that it is aesthetically displeasing to many; especially those more academically-oriented. In feedback for my book Revolting, the anarcho-primitivist writer John Zerzan implied in an email to me that this approach might be narcissistic and there will undoubtedly be those who judge this as that — for me this is my seeking to write with authenticity and sincerity, not assuming a detached or Gods-eye-view. I know that I find myself more attracted to autoecophenomenographical writings — which is a fancy way of saying writings that are of individuals describing their experiences of being-in-the-world — and from this aesthetic choose to do so myself.

It could be asked what is the reason for this book to be written and/or read, and to that question I have no rational-justification and can only say with integrity that both are absurd choices. Writing this has been aimless, beyond the aestheticism of writing it for the sake of writing it, and purposeful in ways pertaining to the affirmation of life amidst this mass-extinction-event we are living amidst. In his essay Existential Monday, Benjamin Fondane (who I have drawn from heavily throughout these pages) wrote “(c)ould the role of the philosopher be to maintain unrest in the existent?” and my answer to this is yes, with my belief being that the unrest/revolt of the existent/living is an existential affirmation of life — for many years I have appreciated Brian Massumi’s affirmation of unrest as life, which is activism, echoing Albert Libertad’s words of life being revolt! With this, the absurd purpose that I have placed in writing this being to help me maintain my unrest/life, amidst on-going health struggles, and to encourage unrest/revolt in those who might read this. The aimlessness of this text means that this is not an appeal to any future that is not death/extinction, with that being the only real promise of the future, or historisations seeking to justify/rationalise the past — my concern is with the preservation of presence for the sake of preserving presence, with the awareness that this is absurd as all dies. This preservation of presence, which is the absurd, is the revolt of the flesh.

What happens when there are many different differentiating fleshes in revolt, when absurdities individuate? My belief is that, in real life, they co-exist in a dialogic manner, with voices in the dialogue emerging through birth and becoming silent through death, as living beings are born and die as part of this experience often called life. In a not real way of living, or inauthentic way of living, which is the norm in this culture, the dialectical push to assimilate or negate voices through systematic-totalisation is the norm, in an attempt for absolution, repressing the revolt of the flesh. Not wanting to repress the revolt of the flesh, but wanting to encourage it, I have chosen through the book to draw from the philosophies of dialogue of Martin Buber, Camus, Aragorn! and Mikhail Bakhtin — whilst also being influenced and inspired by Derrida’s deconstructionism and Deleuze’s philosophy of deterritorialisation — to attempt an entirely anti-systematic approach to philosophy, with authentic dialogues not being systematised but moments of spontaneous and sincere meeting.

The writing style throughout this is somewhat aphoristic, poetic, reflective and meditative, rather than analytic or synthetic, and I have a desire to call these proverbs, or pro-Verbs, in as much as these writings are intended to “… maintain unrest in the existent.” One of the meditation techniques embraced by Kabbalah practitioners is called “hagah”, and is known as the noisy meditation, with hagah involving roaring, groaning and growling. The idea of calling these writings proverbs, pro-Verbs and/or hagahs feels absurd, and I would still like to. Of course the name matters less than the intension, the purpose, which is to “… maintain unrest in the existent”, to encourage the revolt of the flesh, without aiming towards a promised future as the only guaranteed future is eventual death/extinction.

My revolt of the flesh has involved the killing of two tumours and I am alive now following their deaths. There is also no cure for cancer, with cancer rates steadily increasing. I don’t know that I won’t be host to another tumour that I will need to fight and revolt against to preserve my life; it is as possible that I could die from cancer as it is for any other individual living amidst this culture. No fight, no struggle, has a guarantee of victory, with all fights and struggles being absurd, with death’s invariance. I still want to fight and struggle and revolt and live, and see this absurd yes-saying to life manifest in the will-to-preserve/survive of living presence I dialogically co-exist with. And cancers are presences within this habitat who I say no-to, as the preservation of all is impossible. Cancer is a disease of civilisation, to me a corrupted mutation of living presence that is utterly undesirable. Records of cancer go back to Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt, and for all the research and treatment options and technological advancements, it is not going away, as civilisation remains. I am revolted by cancer and revolting against cancer.

As there is no cure for cancer, there is no cure for global warming, no real solutions to this mass extinction crisis, no definite answers to ecological catastrophe and no pathways to salvation. Despite all the research by scientists and media pushes, all the protests and memes, all the revolutionary rhetoric and organising, all the recycling and ethical consumerism, all the platitudes by politicians and promises by business leaders, all the riots and broken shop windows, all the green party manifestos and books written by angry philosophy nerds oriented towards anarchist-thought; the ecological situation continues to worsen, with civilisation expanding and decimating living presence in its wake, and global warming worst case scenarios becoming more possible. The main pushed to solution to all of this, green industrialism, fuelled by so called modes “environmentally friendly electricity”, is not something that I have any faith in; as much as I do not have faith in more sustainable modes of abuse — I’m yet to see any of the so called “green technologies” that aren’t dependent upon intensely ecocidal modes of production. Of course this lack of faith could be positioned as a flaw on my part, with my infidelity towards Leviathan — if I reasoned and rationalised enough I would surely see how solar panels and wind turbines and nuclear power will save us, right? No, I am a techno-pessimist and heathen, without faith in the good news provided by industrialists.

“We suffocate among people who think they are absolutely right, whether in their machines or in their ideas.” Camus, Neither Victims Nor Executioners, essay one The Century of Fear

During this period of personal health struggles Leviathan has not stopped and it would be nonsense to rationalise it doing so. The war between Israel (and it’s backers) and Hamas (and their backers) and Lebanon (and their backers) brought ruination and annihilation to Palestinians and inspired anti-Semitic and anti-Arab racism in many across the world — including anti-war protesters who I had been friends with. Across these isles white-supremacist ideology sought to make itself seen through riots and protests and attempts to burn down hotels with people inside, justified and rationalised under the Cause of anti-migration. Donald Trump survived assassination attempts, was re-elected as president of the USA and has begun implementing policies inline with his Christian-nationalist, anti-environmentalist and neo-imperialist agenda. These and other revolting events occurred and were spectaclised for all to see and witness, with horror and disgust. Less actively than is my general norm, as my focus of attention has been my health, I have been attentive to these (and other) spectacles with experiences of revolt; which has inspired much of the thought within this book.

Also, during this period of personal health struggles, other aspects of my personal life have continued. I have been engaged in training and qualified as a counsellor, worked for a year as a mentor for young people who were spending time on hospital wards, continued learning how to be a shinrin yoku guide, and have begun a therapy practice. I have immersed myself in music, with klezmer, folk-punk, skramz, grindcore, classical, goth-country and blues being go-to styles of sounds; and recorded a klezmer-punk/grindcoustic album. My practice of checking badger setts close to me has continued and I witnessed the horror of the woods containing the ancient badger sett I have checked most frequently being cut down and annihilated. I have written and self-published pieces, been published online and been published in print, with the print edition of my book Revolting being published by Active Distribution. I have cooked and done house keeping, and sought to be helpful to and supportive of those who are close to me, in all the ways that I have been capable of being — including a close family member who went through a similar medical struggle to me and sadly died. Through the internet, I have kept in contact with several friends who have also been going through treatment and after-care for tumours, and have experienced joy in their successes, whilst also feeling deep sadness for their struggles.

In that this text is intended to encourage “… unrest in the existent”, I have sought to challenge, resist and rebel against the logic, rationality and rhetoric of various ideologies, such as conservatism, conservationism, masculinism, nationalism, miserablist-pessimism and others, and their representatives/advocates/voices. As well as this, I have sought to affirm voices and thought that I find resonance with in ways that do not pertain to systematisation — in particular less popular/known and/or largely forgotten Jewish-existentialist and absurdist, as well as rebel and/or anarchist voices. This has come following an extended period of independent studying, exploring with enthusiasm different and diverging writings — as well as my studying and training in counselling and ecotherapy. The extent to which this could be dismissed as a (pseudo-)intellectual endeavour is for anyone to decide for themselves; I have lived my ongoing revolts and activities as I have been able and chosen to and I care not for anyones judgement on this — the extent to which I have been “privileged” to be in a position to study for and write a book surpassing a hundred thousand words, is just as true as my not having been privileged to enjoy the experience of life that has not involved fighting two tumours and the impacts of those struggles. There are far more dramatically glorious means of rebelling against Leviathan, which many might consider better than that of writing, and they are fine choices for those who choose such activities. I can only choose for myself and cannot choose for another.

It seems worthwhile to attempt here descriptions of the main themes of this book. My desire is to keep these descriptions brief — I am not fond of summaries and mediating representations. The absurdity of writing a book and being critical of representation is not unnoticed by me and I am prepared to affirm my contradictions without denial or dismissal.

Following from my other writings on the subject, including my books Revolting and Mesodma; I have sought to affirm here the philosophy of which I have called eco-absurdism. While certainly inspired by aspects of both, this absurdism differentiates from the Humanistic-absurdism of Camus and the religious-absurdism of Shestov, and is ecologically-oriented in that it seeks to affirm living presence in a way that is irreducible (and so really unspeakable). There is a degree to which this is affirming the choice between futility and despair, or love and rebellion; though more so this is my seeking to affirm perhaps the most pressing philosophical question, which I believe Camus got backwards (as it’s not that of whether or not to commit suicide but) of whether or not to attempt to affirm and encourage life, amidst absurdity and mass extinction, considered as holistically as possible.

After eco-absurdism, the theme that I notice most within these writings is that of possibility. To Shestov’s mind all things are possible, which I have found a horrifying truth, in my facing the possibility of cancer, to affirm; as it also pertains to the possibility of my impossibility in death — for me all things are possible, including impossibility. What is possibility though? My answer to this question is that possibility is choice, freedom, will, becoming, life and a paradox of being both irreducible and limited. That I do not view possibility as absolutely desirable or undesirable, I hope is obvious whilst reading this text; and while I do not favour the repression and annihilation of possibility that is Leviathan, I am whole-heartedly affirming of the death of possibility that is the killing of tumours and the deconstruction of abusive machines.

But what of the matter of saving ourselves from extinction? Alas I have no faith in the notion of salvation, as I believe that death is always possible and, ultimately, impossible to avoid. If there is a negative quality to the thought described in this book, it is that of my anti-salvationist aesthetic, which is a persistent theme throughout the different sections. Enflamed by the writings of thinkers like Nietzsche and Daniel Quinn, my anti-salvationism was largely born from my experiences as a brain tumour patient; and while I have suggested that this could be called a negative quality, I do not really see it as such, as for me it is a positive-affirmation of this world and this flesh, which is in revolt, rather than seeking transcendence in some Otherworld or other-life.

If there is a dominant theme to this book then it is the aesthetic/ethic I am seeking to encourage, which is the revolt of the flesh and “… unrest in the existent”. This aesthetic and ethic I call preservationism, and is absurd, as all preservation is futile with the possibility of death, but still what I am choosing for myself, wanting to encourage and support in others and witness in the living who struggle and strive to survive amidst Leviathan. In affirming this ethic and aesthetic, I have focused on health, presence and eco-egoism (as the non-separation of self and world), which are all differentiated and non-separate. Part of my studying pertaining to preservationism has involved me returning to the primeval histories that comprise the first stories of Genesis in The Torah, which I believe to be stories that have been handed down from the first displaced and revolting tribal folks living and surviving amidst the presence of Leviathan, as Mesopotamia. With this, I have reinterpreted these stories for myself and have come to find a deep appreciation for the character of Noah, who is a focus towards the end of this book (and has become a heroic figure for me). Noah’s preservation of living presence did not provide salvation from death/extinction, and is still beautiful and desirable and inspiring for me, as an absurd revolt. If Sisyphus is the hero of Camus’ absurdism and Job and Jesus the heroes of Shestov’s (and his student Benjamin Fondane), mine is Noah, but possibly not the Noah who was written of in Babylon when The Torah was first recorded.

In being a heathen before faith in Leviathan and in differentiating from Humanist and religious faiths, there is the possibility that this book is a work of blasphemy and I a blasphemer — I am reminded of Oscar Wilde’s introduction to The Portrait of Dorian Gray, where he states that “(t)here is no such thing as a moral or immoral book”, and Camus’ essay Create Dangerously, where he wrote that “(t)o create today is to create dangerously”. If this is the case, then I can live with that.

What is the revolt of the flesh that is the absurd? Life! Me! Possibly you as well — I feel reluctant to tell you who you are.

Poetry written after diagnosis and in the weeks following surgery

“If a man knows the wherefore of his existence, then the manner of it can take care of itself.” Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

“ Wherever we look today, in mansion or in slum, we see the features and hear the complaints of ill-health; the difficulty is really to find a healthy person.” Edwards Carpenter, Civilisation: It’s Cause and Cure

Amor Fati

I am embracing this period

Of pain, suffering, struggle and dis-ease

By burning these experiences

Upon the fires of my creativity

So that this will strengthen me

And that in this overcoming

I may love this awful period

I am not like Rimbaud

Consumed and devoured

By this hellish season

My season in hell

Is opportunity to choke it

And walk from its mouth

Alive and well

Bare Life

The struggles I have experienced

Through health challenges

And grief

Have brought me to the ground

Of aesthetically desiring

The honesty of bare life

That which comes before politics

The honesty of flesh

Rock, dirt, rain and wind

Raw and real

How Am I Doing?

How am I doing?

I’m resilient as a bacterium

I’m like Covid mate

Nothing kills me

I’m in the world

Not going anywhere

Beautiful to Nietzschean aesthetics

And if it’s true that

What doesn’t kill you

Makes you stronger

With how much I’ve survived

I’ll be strong enough to

To take over from Atlas

The gods keep trying to kill me

But they never will

Yes that is how I’m doing

How am I doing?

I’m really fucking sad mate

This is my second tumour and I’m only 32

Having to be in and out of hospital

As other options hold greater risk

Yeah this fucking sucks

There’s a constant drain

As this doesn’t go away

And that’s tiring

I could cry

I could sleep

Mum and Nan are dead

So I can’t turn to them

For nurture

How am I doing?

I’m angry

Fucking raging

That this civilisational disease

Is affecting my body again

And that there is no direct target

For this anger

Is maddening

This rage wants to do something

And that there’s nothing it can

Intensifies the maddening

Inside me there is a bear

Who has had enough

Grizzly and ready to bare teeth

And claws

How am I doing?

I’m so loved

By friends and those I consider family

Even by strangers

The kindness is absurd

Individuals telling me that I’m in their prayers

Messages of encouragement

It’s wonderful

Most of all

I am loved intensely

By the person I love most in the world

She shows me so much care and affection

Her presence softens this experience

While helping me find strength

How am I doing?

I am really self caring

Enjoying comforts

Like warm baths, soft blankets,

Good food, games and beer

Going for walks and grounding

Whilst appreciating trees and bird song

Guitar and tin whistle

For when I want to create sounds

Folk, punk, blues and metal albums

For when I want to listen

Books as well

Particularly when being read to sleep by my love

How am I doing?

I am such a fighter

I don’t even understand myself

That the fires of life affirmation

Burn as brightly as they do in me

Is absurd

In madness I shout

L’Chaim

Amidst unending revolt

Here I am

I am alive

I will on

Continually overcoming

This is not the rugged individualism of propertarian entrepreneurs

This is the heroic individuality of pagan folklore

And the egoistic confidence of believing that

Not only will I survive this

I will be stronger for it

More resilient

And with more resolve

This is how I am doing

As I survive this tumour behind my eye

These are all true

And this is intense feeling

The fight isn’t over

Neither am I

War On Cancer

More technologies

More treatments

New drugs

New patients

More patients

Cancer rates are rising

Is cancer winning the war?

This disease of civilisation

As civilisation expands

Grows, progresses,

Worsens, kills

Cancer does too

Edward Abbey’s words come to my mind

I rarely appreciate Abbey as much as I’d like to

But his words on cancer resonate with me always

Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of a civilisation

The war on cancer must surely be a war on growths that either kill the bodies of those they survive within or are killed off by others within that body?

No, it’s the pursuit of bio-medical-technological growth is it?

Fuck

Edward Carpenter considered civilisation to be a health issue, a disease

And I agree

So long as the war on cancer

Remains the perpetuation

Of the expanding growth of civilisation

There is no fight against cancer

As cancer grows with civilisation

Finding Myself

Finding myself

Through the sensual experience

Of suffering, discomfort and revolt

Returning to this body

Life is here

Baths

During treatment for the brain tumour

Baths were a wonderful pleasure

And here I am now

Enjoying the pleasure of bathing in warm water

Nietzsche’s Words

When I was at the limits of my experience

Nietzsche’s words on those

Who despise the body

Helped me to find my love

For the flesh I am

And my life

I return to his words

And I smile

I love this body I am

Surgery Scars

There is a rounded scar

On my head

Where they did the brain surgeries

And there will be a scar across my eyelid

After they remove this tumour

Marking where they sliced into my face

Piercing my skin and cutting open

A wound that will heal

I will heal

For Katie

The strength by which I

Survive and overcome

Horrifies me

and that you

so gentle and tender

love me

affirms that I am

not horrifying

When I look into my strength

I find sore muscles

Being tended to by your hands

thank you

my love

Indifference To Property

The tumours that ended Steve Jobs, David Koch and other billionaires did not care for how much property they had collected

And it hardly needs to be said that tumours end those without property too

This seems to be due to the obvious situation wherein the bodies that living beings are largely do not change due to having or not having property

Though there are arguable health benefits to both

More to the point

As property is not real

In the same sense that a tumour is real

Existing only within the boring performances of overly domesticated featherless bipeds

Who seem more concerned about maintaining capitalism, socialism, corporatism and all else within the propertarianist theatre

Rather than taking care of the bodies they are

And the flesh of the world they are

Which is real, in the same sense as tumours are real

Maybe, in this way, I am like a tumour

I don’t care about property

Hail

Hail fell last night

The world outside my window

Has become colder and harsher

While also being more beautiful

As the morning sunshine hits

The icy white

Ethics and Will

I am of a similar mind to Spinoza

That self-preservation is at the core of authentic ethics

And Schopenhauer as well

That living, authentic living, surmounts to willing and striving to Be

I find this as I subscend into my core

And in experiencing the living world

In those wilder and more lively spaces

Where these ethics and wills are less repressed

My Eco-egoistic Ethic/Aesthetic

Eco-egoism

The welfare of the world and other living beings who reside here is my welfare

The preservation of the world, which is the preservation of the wild, is my preservation

My welfare and preservation is that of the world, other living beings, wildness

Pan-solipsistic self-centredness

In caring for myself I can encounter the world

My individual selfish desire for wellness subscending ecological holism

This is an effort in infection praxis

Primal life desire like a germ entering the body of the industrial death machine

Mint Tea

Tiredness is intense

And mint tea is softening

My Beastly Pessimism

This beast was born a wild unique being

Trained to be a human

And as pessimism is a collapse into the unhuman

Has become feral

This beast walks on four legs

Walking through the bewilderness

Of eco-existential uncertainty

The front right leg

Affirms that death

Is all the future holds

And that life exists

In the presence that is the present

The leg of assenting to life

That left front leg

Affirms that there is no salvation

From pain

And that suffering means

That I am alive

The leg of embracing self

The right back leg

Affirms that the world

Cannot be improved

And the attempts to improve the world

Have built nothing but ruins

The leg of celebrating earth

The left back leg

Affirms that there will always be fights

So long as there is life

And that through confrontation

Life may be cared for

The leg of untamed revolt

This beast

This pessimism

Is me

This pessimism

This beast

Is living

As I live

Names

Not through theory

But through relationship

And the absence of relationship

Have I come to the perspective

That who you are has less

To do with your names

Than it does the activities

That you engage in

In your life

Your name means less to me

Than your absence

A Tough Night

I wake up with a headache

Check the clock

5:03 and you ask me

If I’m okay

I say yes but I might get

Some paracetamol

After I ask

You tell me how you haven’t slept

We hold each other

Two animals in the night

We are thrown into the real

Of bare life

Meeting each other with love

This shit is tough

This night is tough

The Wherefore Of My Life

I have no reason, as I have no Cause

I have no purpose, as I am no one’s instrument

The wherefore of my life,

What I am here to do,

As my will, absurd freedom and intent,

Is my creation,

Which I have directed towards care

For those who I love and am in relationship with

With this,

I live,

I breathe,

I revolt,

I overcome,

I survive

Ex-Buddhist Thoughts

Cancer killed

My faith

In Buddhism

Karmic order

Rendered illusion

Amidst affirming

Primal wildness

And non-attachment

Becoming impossible

With ecological non-separation

Desiring life

Passionate loving

And self-preservation

I do not reject

This world

Where suffering lives

Seeking transcendence

Felt like suicide

Now I subscend

Into the world

Into myself

Where wilder

Creatures live

Pre-Op Day

Morning train to Bristol

Lunch before going in

I’m seen by a nurse

Who is kind

Then a doctor

Who is also kind

The kindness lessens

My dislike of being here

On the train journey back

I fall asleep

When I wake

Katie tells me I snored

And I snore loudly

Across the aisle

A man throws dirty looks

My snoring displeased him

I could explain

I’m tired and needed sleep

I have a tumour

I’ve had a long day

I’ve had an intense life

So I slept and snored

I don’t say anything to him

I don’t need to justify myself

Owls

I am so tired

As I walk home

But the sound of owls in the night

Invigorates

Owls 2

When driving home last night

Tired, frustrated and angry

The Dillinger Escape Plan playing

And I’m thinking about expressive art

An owl flies low in front of me

Moving like a dance

From the hedge to one side of me

And then to the other

Hovering as in hunt

I’m awe struck by this presence

And shocked by the rhythmic

Absurdity of this encounter

How have you come to visit me now

In this moment

Not as a voice in the night

But as a figure I see

Moving in and out

Of the darkness

Gratification

I won’t give you

Gratification

From my struggle

You are not being helpful

Your attempt to take

Gratification

From my struggle

Without being helpful

Disappoints and revolts

I am giving

Gratification

Through thanks and appreciation

To those who are here for me

In my struggle

Contact

“ If, as is being perversely attempted today, all contact were to be abolished, if everything and everyone were kept at a distance, we would then lose not only the experience of other bodies, but first and foremost any immediate experience of ourselves. We would lose, purely and simply, our flesh.” Giorgio Agamben

You touch me

And I’m thrown into

The here I am

Your care affirms

Here we are

Flesh and space

Without distance

Immediatism is not a revolution

Immediatist praxis is not a Cause

Immediatism embraces intimacy

In eco-existential revolt before the machinery of mediation

Destruction

The desire

To reach behind

My left eye

And pull out this lump

To rip into it

And tear it apart

With my bare hands

To burn the pieces

And bury the ashes

Is true

Bakunin’s words about creation and destruction

Come to mind

The struggle

To retain patience

Is worsening

I need to destroy something

To smash and break

But what will do?

Radiation therapy killed the tumour that was in my brain

And likely birthed the conditions for the tumour behind my eye

It didn’t save me

But killed what was killing me

I dread the potential impact

Of nuclear meltdowns

Radiation leaks R

And nuclear war a

I dread the potential impact d

Of Hinkley Point C i

Finishing construction a

Feeling glad to learn t

Of problems occurring with its construction i

May it never become functional o

n

Scientists say that the KT impact

Had the force of 10 billion atomic bombs

But what the fuck do they know?

They weren’t there!

Regardless, this at least

Calms my anxieties

With a feeling that living beings

Could survive and overcome

A nuclear holocaust

436 nuclear power plants constructed

12,500 nuclear weapons

One tumour

Behind my eye

Frustrating

This is so fucking unfair

There is no fairness

The Otherworld/After Life

Elysium fields and Valhalla’s halls

Heaven and Aaru

As promised by religions

Utopias promised by revolutionaries

And techno-salvationists

Are places I neither want

Nor believe in

Like Nietzsche and Quinn

I abandon the pathways

Away from this life

Cartographies seeking routes

Away from this ground

Away from Earth and flesh and breath

My love for the world

Holds no desire for the otherworld/after life

Death

If there is a certainty

That I am utterly convinced of

It is death

Death as all the future truly promises

Extinction as the inevitablity of life

Entropic complexification

Bodies and habitats,

Structure, systems and totalities

Dissolve, breakdown, fall apart

With gravitational return and ground

As decay

And by the confident certainty that

I will die

I experience and instinctive certainty that

Civilisation is dying, breaking down and will collapse to become rot and decay

That this mass extinction event will be the death of civilisation

Much like how a tumour kills its host

Dying with it

Camatte’s words about the fatality of technology lingering in my mind

My instinct is also that

It is by revolt

That the living survive

And will survive

As I am revolting

As I survive this tumour

Fight!

I am connecting with my fight instinct

That pre-human, pre-mammalian

Aspect of my Being

That is as Real a part of me

As my face, my voice, my lungs, my arms or any other

I am fighting to survive this tumour

I’m not in flight

Seeking to escape

I am not fawning

Seeking to please

I am not in freeze

Hoping that this will pass and not notice me

Not that any of these are aspects of animal instinct that I reject

They just wouldn’t be helpful for my current circumstance

With the privileging of cognition, Apollonian thought, rationality

I notice a tendency to reject these instincts and disassociate from these animal aspects of ourselves

I am not rejecting my fight

Nor any other of my animal instincts

Fight is my will to life, will to overcome

This tumour

This is my fight!

Together

As ever

My love

We are in this together

Breakfast

Walk into the kitchen

CBD oil under my tongue

Boil kettle

Tea bag in mug

Heaped teaspoon of sugar

Water in mug

Full fat milk

Swallow the oil

Take a sip

Put eggs on to boil

Three slices of toast

Plenty of butter

I’ve probably overcooked the eggs

Plate it up and sit down

Open the eggs

It’s still soft

I’m elated

Sip my tea

Eat the food

This feels like love

I’ve shown myself love

Birds are starting to sing

This feels like the best start to the day

After stressful dreaming

Self-hatred

Self-hatred is a cancerous growth

Encouraged by Leviathan

At the core of the world/earth/life hatred

That is civilisation

“Repress”

“Harm”

“Neglect”

Messages that nurture this growth

Within the minds of the living

How to rebel?

How to survive?

How to overcome?

Acceptance

Care

Kindness

Healing

Love

Responsibility

Towards self

Which is also towards

The world around us

And those we love

As we breathe them into ourselves

As we live

Gifts Train Strikes

Gifting A minor annoyance

Is a wonderful act Traveling will be comfier via car

For imparting love Changing plans is inconvenient

To someone you care for Adapting to this is easy enough

Showing them that

Their presence

Is seen

And wanted

I am deeply appreciative

Of the gifts

I’ve been given

And those who gave them

Bucket/Life Lists

When I was a teenager

I wrote bucket lists

Recording what I wanted to do

Before I die

Many of which I have done

All the lists

I wrote are now lost

I think I will write

A life list

During my recovery period

And list all

I want to do

Within what life experience

I have left

Adam

First man?

Maybe

Who knows?

My father

Is he my father?

He’s not the first man

My friend

Who is checking in

He is awesome

They share a name

Neither of them

Are the first man

Tanz

Dancing to celtic and klezmer punk

Dis-ease Grindcore

Celebrating the moment

I do not reject Exercising this body

This discomfort Exorcising stress from this body

As it motivates Dance as medicine praxis

My efforts to overcome Revolutionaries don’t dance

And to heal I do

Thought For Food

What to do

Get food today?

Get food delivered for when home Wednesday?

It’s Saturday morning

Going to Bristol mid afternoon Monday

Lunch out on Sunday

Leftovers will do for dinner tonight

Or tomorrow’s

There’s soup and bread too

The cupboards are well stocked

With “long life” foods

Cans, jars, dried stuff

There’s food in the freezer too

Not much fresh fruit and veg

Is there any sense in getting much more now?

We’re going to be out of the house

It makes sense to have more delivered on Wednesday

Though, we’re both going to be tired

It will be put away

…

We’d be fine with cupboard and freezer food

Thoughts of hunting and gathering food and other ways of living that aren’t totalitarian agriculture, of a world without diseases of civilisation, are not helpful right now

I could imagine a hunter-gatherer horticulturalist-pastoralist utopian world and people would follow my vision because it would be so perfect

No, this is not helpful

The moment in Fight Club where Tyler kisses the narrator’s hand and pours lye on his hand comes to mind

Don’t shut this out

This is your life

Here and now

Don’t deal with this the way those dead utopians did

Alienating themselves from the horrors of totalitarian agriculture

Through turning their attention to imaginary societies and unreal worlds

How much longer will the milk last?

We could always stop off somewhere and stock up on our way home

That’s probably the best option

Not the best option

If totalitarian agriculture wasn’t here, the Taw River healthier and more wild foods about, I could fish and forage and eat what we found in the day

The best real option

I’m not distracting myself with fantasy

Marx, Fourier, Black, Proudhon, these systematisers

Constructing realities, unreal worlds, serving as distractions to life

Real life

Here and now

Unhelpful and pathetic

An unpleasant taste comes to my mouth

I sip my tea

There’s plenty of tea in the house and other drinks

There’s no beer

There’s other alcohols and enough comfort food

As comforts and distractions go

I prefer the honesty of food and drink

To utopian fantasy

We will pick up food on our way home from the hospital

There’s enough here that we won’t go hungry

….

We have a conversation

And decide to get a food delivery

Arranged for Thursday

There is no right answer

This is the plan we’ve made

Freedom

Berdyaev: we are slaves to freedom as we are slaves to ourselves, our lives and our loves

Sartre: we are condemned to freedom and responsible for our lives and our worlds

Stirner: freedom is not a gift but the will to be responsible for ourselves

Rather than as a political construct

Some-Thing granted by states

I affirm freedom as the wildness, primal anarchy, of real, authentic, life

Uneasy freedom, as life isn’t easy

Terrifying freedom, as life can be terrible

Horrifying freedom, as the world contains horrors

Monstrous freedom, as we may be monsters living amidst monsters

I agree with Freud, that civilisation is built upon the fear and repression of freedom

My freedom right now is uneasy, terrible, horrifying and monstrous

The choice between allowing this disease of civilisation to grow inside me

Or survive by engaging with brutal machines and practices of civilisation

Is not what I would choose

I am not fleeing from my responsibility for my life

I am choosing to live

As life is also glorious, wonderful, beautiful and joyous

Through embracing this uneasy, terrible, horrifying and monstrous freedom

Glorious freedom, as life is glorious

Wonderful freedom, as the world is full of wonders

Beautiful freedom, as freedom is connected to the eros of love and the aesthetics of desire

Joyous freedom, as there is great joy to be found in being with the wild, free, living and in celebrating your wildness, freedom, life

Lazing

Non-productive activity

Intentionally choosing to stop

Be still in external engagement

To concentrate energies

On the internal processes

Of healing

One of the great pests

To the planetary work machine

The culture of productivity

A much wanted and needed

Experience for me

For my immediate wellness

I endeavour to become proficient

In the art of lazing

Learning as much as I can

From the cat who lives with us

A fellow diasporic creature

Living here due to civilisation

Colonialist invasion and displacement

Now my guide in the art of lazing

Hospital Beds

6 beds in this room

My bed is comfortable enough

I’ve had my surgery

Katie is sat by the bed

Reading to me

I’m sleeping most of the day

I sleep through most of the night

I’ve never liked hospital beds

Seeing mum die in one

Is hard to get past

This bed is not that one

It’s not my bed

It’ll do for this moment

Ming, Ola and Bella

This feeling of

Intense gratitude

For the kindness

And care

Shown by these strangers

Is real

(They’re only doing it because it’s their job)

(This is a medical machine processing living beings so that they may return to the planetary work machine)

(And underneath all of this machinic-encoding there are living individuals seeking to support other living individuals, simply from a desire to care for them)

The Man In The Toilet

Travelling home

We stop off at the services

Katie’s been joking about

Me looking like I’ve been in a fight

I say that I have been

I go to the toilets

As I walk in a man walking towards me

Looks at me

Directly at me

Looks at my swollen and bruised face

Dried blood still in the corners of my eye

And recoils

Stepping backwards and to the side

Standing still until I’ve passed

And I keep walking

He might have been trying to be kind

He might have personal traumas I reminded him of unintentionally

He might have been being cowardly with assumptions about bruised faced individuals walking into “the men’s room”

Have I been thrown into a male stereotype

I’ve not been engaged in gender performance

I’m not going to tell him “you should see the other guy”

I sit down on the toilet

Quietly laughing to myself

About the absurdity of this stranger

How uncertain I am of who they are

How they have no way of reasoning who I am

How much I feel like Kafka’s beetle

A revolting creature before the eyes of this individual, seemingly

With my bulging sore eye

My being swollen and bruised sore I

I am a sight for sore eyes

Tax Code Notice

Yuck

What is this bullshit?

Money going to the government

Fuck off

Does this really matter to me,

When I have a tumour in my face?

I don’t like it

Any of it

The government

The money

But it doesn’t really matter to me

This isn’t real

Bullshit social performance

Luke

Phone rings

I pick up

“Hi I’m Luke”

“I’m a local energy supplier”

I say

Luke, I have a tumour behind my eye

I’m dealing with with really real shit

I don’t want to be cold called ever

Please take me off of your list

“I’m really sorry to hear that”

I tell Luke that I don’t want to hear him apologise

I just want him to confirm that he’s taken my number off his list

He says “yes, I will” with an anxiety in his voice that I’m glad for

I put the phone down

Hopefully I’ll never hear from Luke again

Anxiety

of course

I’m experiencing anxiety

this is a healthy response

to this situation

Anxiety affirms

I am alive, I am free

I have choice, I could die

A primal, wild, animal energy

Untamed life desire seeking

Cathartic expression

To purge this disease of civilisation

As civilisation is repression

civilisation/colonisation

settler settlements

nothing can be unsettled

like folk horrors

wildness/freedom is unsettling

I am unsettled

anxiety is with/in me

an unsettled mind

decolonised space

I am a forest

where the civilised fear to tread

Civilisation

I am not convinced

By expert claims

Of knowing the first civilisations

Suspecting others

That life destroyed

All traces returned to the wilds

Like our bodies killing cancer cells

And I am convinced

With my experience of death and decay

That life will overcome

This corrupted, unhealthy, cancerous mutation

This Mesopotamian growth

Totalitarian agriculture and colonialism

Techno-machinic-expansion

Architecture and the illusion of separation

And that the living will feast upon its decaying corpse

Gathering like crow murders

With new life emerging

(I do not know

This is absurd belief

Call it a leap or an instinct

But is true to me)

How I Want To Die

Early 60s

Strong in muscle

Strong in mind

I cross the Atlantic

Arrive in Canada

Hike out into bear country

Cross rivers

Walk through forests

Searching

I’ll know when I find them

Brown, Black or Polar

Matter less to me

Than personality

When I find them

Strip down

Bare arse to the wind

No weapons

Start a fight that I will lose

Become food

Sleeping

When I lived at Bob and Anne’s

The creepy paintings

Would watch me

As I lay in bed

Trying to sleep

I would wake up

Pillow soaked in blood

As it poured out my nose

I would wake in the night and quietly cry

During treatment for the brain tumour

Dexamethasone insomnia

Coupled with intense hunger

Made sleeping a real struggle

The post traumatic stress

This created took years

To really settle

And become easier to soothe

I am sleeping

But it’s not settled

This is not mental illness

That is waking me through the night

It takes very little empathy

To appreciate the situation

How an individual

In an unsettling situation

Might feel unsettled

Anger

Without a centre

To direct this anger

As tearing into

My eye

Attempting to pull out

And destroy this

Would be unhelpful

There’s no easy target

For this anger

I can rage about God

An existential vacuum

If ever there was one

I need

I rage about Existentially

Civilisation with Personally

No delusions Egoistically

That my efforts Meaningful activity

Will do much

Outside the present moment

A I don’t want this anger

N N To harm anyone

G E But maybe to

E E Damage in some small way

R D This machine reality

S A

Body to impact

Like love does

God

I am most sympathetic

To the idea of God

When life feels cruel and unfair

The gods treatment of Odysseus

Cruelty towards the living

Cold and mean humour

I find most connection with God

In the absurd, indifference and harshness

Of pain and death

That forsakes the living

Only to render us reborn

As decaying matter

Births new growth

I’m feeling close to God

As a cruel effort to try

To break my body

Destroy my will

As I refuse to sacrifice myself

Upon a cross

Or bleed lambs before altars

That I won’t pray at

This rebellion before the almighty

Of life affirmation amidst

Continuing struggle and suffering

This revolting iconoclasm

That is my life

Will only end

When I die

God’s victory will be

My death

Hell

Jordan Peterson’s stupidity

About the hell of undergoing cancer treatment

Is nothing more than

Toxic positivity

Masked by intellectual bullshit

Serving as a shield to avoid

Empathising with that pain

I look at him

As a Kierkegaardian evangelical fideist

Desperately seeking to avoid pain

As a knight of faith, a knight of dogma

And I sincerely hope

That Peterson never learns

Through the teacher Experience

The hell of hydrocephalus migraines

So that he may retain his ignorance

As I wouldn’t want that experience

That I have intimate knowledge of

Upon anyone

(What a fucking idiot!)

(Offering salvation from hell)

(While encouraging hell through war)

Allow

A friend says

People ask why does God allow

Such suffering

But we should ask

Why do we

And I don’t say anything

As I don’t see suffering as bad or wrong

But as motivation for overcoming

For will to life and will to power

Nor do I see suffering as being allowed

Or, by God or we, ending

And I don’t have the energy

To respond with anything but silence

I appreciate this friend

They’re kind and trying to be loving

I don’t say that I largely see

Negative-hedonist anti-suffering

As an effort in avoiding empathy

Is this allowing them to hold this thought?

Have I given them permission here?

I don’t know

Does “allow” mean anything

Outside of the illusion of control?

Strawberry Jam

Sweet and enjoyable

Easing the harsh flavour of this moment

Not real fruit

Artificial and false

Conserved fruit

True testament to conservatism and conservationism

As ideologies who are testaments

To what is artificial and false

I enjoy this jam with a revolting feeling

This is not eating wild strawberries

And still, I enjoy this sensation on my tongue

Individualism

My individuation

Within the holism of Earth

(Eco-egoism)

An experience rendered true

Beyond words, logic or faith

Through the pains

I have endured

In health struggles

That have differentiated

My flesh

My body

From those who are with me

Ecologically real

Here we are

Not separate and in relationship

And different bodies

Different experiences

This is neither bad nor good

This is real, authentic and true

In Kamf

Intensities of ease and dis-ease

Not ending struggle: the end is death

Keep on living

Affirming life

My love

Feral life

Zei Gezunt (Be Healthy)

I don’t care

For property

Systems of productivity

Political ideologies

Temples to History

Artificial worms

Artificial worms

Artificial worms

My value is rooted in health

My desires are oriented towards wellness

For myself and the living I love

For the land and sky and waters

Zei gezunt

Zei gezunt

Zei gezunt

How to be healthy

In a world rendered sick

How to be healthy

As a body holding illness

Is a revolting struggle

Thoughts And Prayers

I appreciate thoughts

And prayers

From individuals who can’t help

But want to

So seek to show care

As they can

(I don’t appreciate the

Ill will of atheists and activists

Who react to thoughts and prayers

With ugly and toxic negativity)

Ill Will

What is civilisation

But will rendered ill

Illness fatal

A dying death machine

That will be survived

By those whose

Will to life

Will to overcome/power

Is nurtured and cared for?

Irritation

The end of the stitches

Poking me in the sensitive

Space between my eye

And nose irritating

All through the day

The prospect of pulling out

This from my eyelid

Is welcome

As I desire the end

Of this irritation

Taking My Medicine

Morphine and fentanyl

Codeine and paracetamol

Anti-sickness and steroids

I feel like a pharmacological cocktail

And they are helping me heal

Music and dancing

Writing and drawing

Eating and drinking

I feel enlivened and less grotesque

I am healing

Revolted

Rebelling

Resisting

Living

I am revolted

You

You are so incredible

As you take care of me

As you take care of our home

As you take care of the cat who lives with us

As you care for yourself

I love you

I love you so much

The strength, integrity, sincerity

And love

You embody

You are wonderful to behold

Thank you

Thank you so much

For being you

This Could Be Worse

Ever the pessimist

I am sure that

This could be worse

And fight for it not to be

Not seeking to improve

As all amelioration

Progress and improvement

I look upon as the ruination

Of the world

Worsening life for the living

This life could be worse

It will probably get worse Primal Scream

Before it becomes more beautiful

Beauty not as improved Just as my first act

Beauty as healthy Demarcating the presence

This could be worse This animal, this individual

I could be worse I am was a scream

Primal and honest

I feel within me

A screaming presence

Eldritch, uncanny and horrific

Untame fury towards

The dis-eases of civilisation

Were it not for this tiredness

I would be screaming now

Blood

Blood beneath my skin

Bruised face

The surgeon said

I bled more than they expected

(Only a little more)

Katie said that

My tears were bloody

For a while

Blood is real

This is real

Perilous

Life is a perilous place

Fraught with dangers

With the only certainty

Being death

Godforsaken

I imagine it would be comfortable

Easy even

To live forsaken by God

Deserted by the harsh indifference

Of God’s hand

Such a life would be so limitless

That it would render me

So unattractive to those

Who want me within God’s grasp

How wonderful it would be

To be godforsaken

Quell

The tumour is removed

Biopsy is not back yet

Might need more surgery

The fight is not settled

I am not quelled

Within my being

Erupts the energy

Of resistance and refusal

I will not die

I will not-dying

I will overcome

I will life

I will not be quelled

God’s Chosen People

Chosen not as elevation

Chosen as to endure great suffering

As is God’s will

I am chosen by God

Like Job

To see if I can be broken

And I am not

Unlike many

Of God’s chosen people

YHWH

The breath I breathe

The name YHWH

Life given

Life preserved

In breath

Until breath no longer sustains us

In death’s indifference

To the life we were

Return of the Palaeolithic

The Palaeolithic as the repressed

The repressed as the animal

The animal as the body

The body as the individual

The individual as I

I am returning to the Palaeolithic

Through the intense sensation

Of individuating feeling and experience

Bodily and animal

That I am not repressing

Returning to the Palaeolithic

Collapsing civilisation

Not as primitivist anthropological reconstruction

Nor decisive ecological warfare

But through affirming this body I am

Palaeolithic returning

In destroying despotic signification

Revealing the pre-Symbolic primal anarchy

Of bare flesh, bare life, naked life, naked flesh

A great and terrible remembering of this body

Killing this disease of civilisation

And caring for this body

This sensing animal

I am

Returns the Palaeolithic

Dr Pepper

Like Opa

I bite my tablets

Unable to swallow whole

I’m drinking Dr Pepper

To lessen the harsh chemical flavour

With sweet chemical flavours

Aware that it is shit

But it’s helping

Sunday Afterlunch Walk

Our first walk after the surgery

To one end of the village

Turn around and to the other end

Sunlight and snowdrops

February air seasoned with

The sound of birds

Dancing around the hedges and trees

Coffee and hot chocolate is planned

For our return home

The stream is not visited

Saved for another walk

Where we are less tired

Re-minded

Much like during treatment for the brain tumour

My attention has been brought to the illusions

Of property, capital, technology, as salvation

False promises of vile domesticating despotism

And I am now grateful for this being re-minded

I’d rather not live in illusion, despite truth’s harshness

Slavery to property, capital, technology, statism

Has not saved the king from this disease of civilisation

Nor those whose conformity his position depends

Rather are the conditions which birth that disease

The irony of salvation’s promise condemning

Those saved to find their bodies host to corruptions

An irony that is unfunny, much like the not funny

Joke that, in attempting to escape the impact

Of global warming 10,000 years ago, early civilisation

Builders built the conditions for worse global warming today

Stitch Removed

Oh the relief

With this gone

From my face

No longer scratching me

No longer under my skin

I am glad

This is gone

Conversations With Activists

Speaking, storytelling,

Conversing, sharing

Direct actions

Impacting thought

Fuelling fires

Arming desires

With words

Powerful enough

To shatter

Realities destroyed

Collapsing like

Ruined castles

Of empires

Laid low

Broken down

Decaying and

Rotting as

Returning to

This world

This life

Meditating/Caretaking

I’m not trying to clear my mind

Or trying to make my mind full

I’m not following any teaching,

Teacher, pathway or tradition

I am noticing myself

This body, being, animal, life that I am

Noticing thoughts and feelings and sensations

Being holistically attentive

Taking care of the different life forces

Residing within this body

As without them I would be dead

The whole of me is not greater than

These individuated aspects of me

As they fertilise the ground

From which I grow

And keep me caretaking

This habitat I am

Dawn Chorus

In midst of great struggle

The dawn chorus arises

The opportunity of the day

The potential for living

As the sun has not fled or died

We are not doomed to lifeless indifference

The cold unearthly cosmic void

This world will live on

If only for one more day

As there’s no certainty

That there will be another

Valentines Day 2024

To celebrate love

To revel in our love

As we love deeply

Throughout this ordeal

We face together

As partners, lovers, friends,

Husband and wife

I am so grateful to celebrate

Valentines Day

Not for religious or consumerist reasons

But from a desire to celebrate

Our relationship

Absences and Solitude

With mum’s death and dad’s struggles

Absence is a painful encounter

For me

I desire presence intensely

As I take exquisite joy

In friendships, tribe and ecological co-existence

(There are absences within this experience of overcoming disease that are painful

As there are presences that are joyous)

I have come to find solitude as

Deeply experiencing the presence of me

Rarely found in isolation

Felt most intensely

And with the greatest pleasure

With friends, tribe and immense experiences of ecological co-existing

(I experience the impact of this tumour in the solitude of my individuated experiences

Amidst the joyous presences of those I co-exist with)

Metastatic-colonialism

Colonial expansion

Spreading through the world

The cancerous push

Of empire

Of industry

Nasty lumps

Of corrupted life

Breaking from the tumours

Named civilisation

To colonise new areas

New bodies

How the fuck do we heal?

No cure for cancer

No cure for colonialism

Cut out the tumour?

Poison the body?

Fuck.

Giacomo Leopardi

Pessimism is a truth

Better learned through I believe that

Real affliction than by The affliction of illness

Reason or reading Like Cioran’s insomnia

And Schopenhauer’s grief

Taught Leopardi pessimism

And that

Like Cioran and Schopenhauer

In not being able to

Overcome and heal

Leopardi became miserable

I am more like Nietzsche

As a pessimist

Taking strength

And healing

Through walking

Amidst the living with the

Awareness that suffering will return

Had Leopardi found healing

Found strength and overcome

Perhaps the Icelander

Would not have tried to flee

From the world

I am not like Leopardi

I am not miserable

I do not reject the world

I have no desire to flee

Gilgamesh

Thinking about Gilgamesh

King of Uruk

Deforester and civiliser

Tyrant and abuser

Trying to escape death

Upon realising that

Property and status save none

There is no inspiring heroism

In this epic tale

Perfect

These poems won’t be perfect

I’m dyslexic

I’m recovering from surgery

Tyler Durden’s words are in my head

I’m going to die with scars

These poems won’t be perfect

If I were to die tomorrow

What would I wish I had

Done with my life?

So many thoughts

I don’t need to give a shit

About these poems

Being perfect

Or about dying with scars

The Despotism Of Tumours

Like capital and emperors

The despotism of tumours

That all is governed and controlled

By the despot

A true lie

An existing illusion

A reality that is not real

To be confronted

While not being consumed by

(Life holds more potential

Than that affected

By capital, emperors and tumours)

Taken

I remember those I loved who have been taken

By the Mesopotamianist totalitarian agriculturalist disease

We call cancer

Taker of life

Taker of loves

Taker of potential

With Ishmael

In mind

How to heal?

(The dead cannot)

How to survive?

(No salvation or programs)

Maybe stories

Shared as tribe

Of those lost

Great pre-historic rememberings

Can return the taken

(I remember

Daniel Quinn with gratitude)

Depression

Pain, rage, sadness attacking

The body they reside within

Discontentment with civilisation

Repressed and corrupted

Into cancerous growths

That are deadly

I am glad to have rid my body

Of this dis-ease

Of Mesopotamianist psychology

And am revolted

By the efforts it took

Diabetes

Diabetes runs in my family

I tend to comfort eat

Do I not eat this food

For fear of becoming diabetic?

Another disease of civilisation

Claiming my attention

Oy (fucking) gevalt

I wonder if it is possible

To be unpolluted

By the dis-easement

Of totalitarianism

This shit is tough

If some sweet and pleasant food and drink

Helps me survive

I’ll take it!

Strokes

Mum died young

A stroke and then a brain aneurysm

Nan had a mini-stroke

Later in life

The radiation therapy

To kill the brain tumour

Has increased my risk of strokes

Another disease of civilisation

Of Mesopotamianist totalitarian agriculture

Industry and the work machine

Of course individuals eat shit, drink shit and smoke to try and survive this culture

I comfort eat and comfort drink

I also eat and drink as healthily as I can

I don’t smoke

Trying to become infertile ground

For a stroke

Feels impossible

And it’s what I’m attempting

The Wandering

Forest bathing

Intentional aimless wandering

Embracing nomadic instincts

Psychic-Bedouin praxis

For living amidst Mesopotamianist growths

While trying to live well

With wellness and health

I go to woods and traverse

Pathways and pathlessways

To wander with the living

No destination or destiny

With intent to be well

Summoning strength

For tired muscles and bones

In wandering I find no escape

No separation or means of desertion

Rather I find that the body

Of this world is home to far more flesh

Than the diseased lump civilisation

Old Photographs

I look at a photograph of me

Taken shortly before diagnosis

And wonder who they were

They are not who I am

I am not who they were

Sick Holism

A dark and subscendental holist affirmation

Just as living bodies may be

Less powerful than cancers

Who subscend them

Die and decay

The claim

“The whole is greater than the sum of its parts”

Rendered empty by Leviathan’s ability

To kill this earth

Which would be Leviathan’s death

Would death and rot fertilise

A dying and rising?

Can this be cut out and killed

So the body may heal?

In sickness holism affirms

The whole is less than the sum of its parts

Deep ecological transcendence

As appeals to the universe and spirit

Rendered flesh avoidance

With sickness untreated

The whole is sick

The whole is sick

The body is sick

How can this flesh heal

Without subscending into our flesh

Into the flesh of Earth

Meeting blood and muscle

Piss and shit and spit

Soil and rock

Bile and water

Breath and mycelium?

It is not enough to simply recognise

The larger whole of the body

Without affirming the lesser power

Of the whole

Before sicknesses and tumours

How the body needs the organs

Needs the organisms

That reside within

And the need for remedies and medicines

Gifts from other bodies

To restore life and heal flesh

There is no whole

With no care for who resides within

Radical monism imploding

My body is a forest

This forest cares for badgers

And walks in woods

Where trees are infected with ash dieback

Culls are a disease of civilisation

A dead machine

The fungus in these trees is alive

The woods cannot kill the dieback

Living beings fell trees

Trying to preserve the health of the whole

The woods cannot prevent culling

Rebels enter to preserve

The badgers within the wood’s body

The whole is sick

The whole is sick

Dis-eased

Diseased

The fucking whole is sick

Pollution like blood in shit

This planetary ecosystem

Needs biodiversity like

My gut needs a healthy microbiome

Fuck the sick holism

Of deep green collectivist indifference

Towards those who reside within

That gangrenous ecology

Happy to let flesh die

With spiritual non-attachment

Sorry

Messages from a former friend

“I’m sorry”

Repeated and repeated and repeated

Has he heard about the tumour?

Have I been gossip?

Does he want me say he’s forgiven?

What is forgiveness?

Is this a confession of sin?

Am I being asked to be priest?

I am no road to heaven

I offer no salvation from this world

The rhythm of the moment

I am skeptical

There’s no energy in me

To really care about him

I have no energy

For him to drain

He says he just wants me to know

That he’s sorry and hopes

That I’m the “good”, “happy”, “amazing” and “well” Julian

He apparently knew

Flattery tastes foul and metallic

This has all the feeling of social theatre

I have no energy for this

Were this a taking responsibility

For harms and damages

With intent to not repeat

And desire to heal

I’d feel more open

I respond by saying

“You can know that I know”

I share a little of where I am

And communicate

“This is as much energy as I care

To share with you”

Pushing the limits of my kindness

A ridiculously dramatic response

Asking questions and “don’t reply … heal”

“Get better”

Better than what?

I am unable to find any appreciation

For whatever the fuck this is

I’m tired and you are a distraction

At best

At worst

You are a vampire

And I am giving no blood

Confrontational

My disposition

Generally confrontational

Not from a place of violence

Or abusiveness

But from the grounds of

Care and play

From which I seek

Tribal relationships

Pain

Cramp in my leg

Early morning

I’m not yet out of bed

I can’t remember when this last happened

This is happening

Right here and now

This is true and real and my freedom

Is how I respond to this

I bring my leg up to my core

I could complain that this isn’t fair

Massaging my thumbs into muscle

After all I’ve been through, cramp

Every press into the muscle hurts

Life isn’t fair and that’s invariant

The massaging releases the pain

This is my freedom

My leg feels tender and sore

This is my responsibility

I move my leg gently

A solitary experience of individuating pain

I will need to tread gently today

If I want this to hurt less

There is no arguing with pain

The philosophy this inspires

Beyond words, reason, logic or dogma

Primal, animal, elemental, raw and real

Screaming life affirmation

Respond to what is happening

Or disassociate and corrupt yourself

Like how civilisation corrupts

Through attempted disassociation

With life

Healthier

I don’t want to be better

I don’t want the world to be better

Improvement is undesirable to me

As all improvements have seemingly only

Worsened and ruinated life

So that real wellness

Is a true rarity

What I desire is health

If there is a measure

For me to value and desire

Not from the authority of experts

But from the honesty of lived experience

Health is that for me

The Paradox Of Painful Art

A favourite subject

During undergraduate days

My life continually confronting

This aesthetic paradox

I am returning

Grindcore, post-hardcore and noisy grunge music

Nirvana, Gallows, The Dillinger Escape Plan

Abrasive and dissonant sound is soothing

My mind turns my

Appreciation for Nietzsche and Thoreau

With revolting feelings towards

Benatar and Zapffe

Life and pain are not bad to me

I desire both

In different ways and intensities

That much I am certain

Why does not matter to me

Without Cause for cause

How can I justify or explain?

Affirming absurdity, there’s no need

The Paradox Of Enrichment

Have the riches this culture has claimed

Created conditions fit for its end?

Has property, population and surplus food

Rendered poverty as certain as sunrise?

I’ve seen financial riches bring nought

But ill health and unhappiness

A form of psychic poverty

My eyes have been horrified

By the sight of penury

In cities monument to affluence and luxury

Those who have seemed to live

With the greatest abundance

Of health and joy and relationship

Have placed little concern in riches

The Paradox Of Care

When full of care

It is easy to be careless

As in caring less

There is space

To be full of care

To not do harm

It is worth being careful

And care less

To avoid being careless

The Rant

Evading the pale horse Death

So sick of teleologies

I can taste every breath

Fucking keep your apologies

This is not about you, no

You fucking vampire

(I’m alive and I’m still screaming)

This isn’t fucking about you

So don’t try to interpret my meaning

Not part of any plan

(Even if I’m a mistake)

I will not be erased

All that lives

Dies, gets lost and is free

Quit the apologies

And start fucking screaming

Suddenly I slow down

Noticing this heart within my chest

Certainties, habits or expectations

What does knowing mean anyway?

The rhythm picks up

There is blood within these veins

The flesh upon these bones

Was never a permanent feature

If when I die I fossilise

And turn to stone

I’ll become a scar

Underneath the surface of the planet

With layers of rot and decay falling upon me

New ground for the living

To walk upon

And scientists say that eventually

Entropy will result in universal heat death

Isaac Asimov’s last fucking question

But before that the sun’s gonna explode

So the planet would be long gone before then

But what the fuck do they know

Technology is not a well of truth

Every animal already knows it’s going to die

So what the fuck are we gonna do?

Dis-eased and displeased

Oh so fucking literal

My eyes despise this cruelty

And I’m not so God damn pitiful

If you ever expected me to just

Lay down and die

You were sorely mistaken

I refuse to be part of your plans

Even if you didn’t want me there

This rant is coming to an end

But I’m not

And you just might well be

I couldn’t be awakened

This is no dream

And I’m not sleeping

In this slugfest with God

I’ll roll with the punches

But I’m not throwing in the towel

Gonna sip some water

Get cleaned up and ready

For the next damn round

The Migraine

Piercing pain

Like a dagger in my right temple

Sharp and harsh

Clock says 4:30 am

For fucks sake

The pain is searing

I can’t get back to sleep

I get out of bed

This is not hydrocephalus

I can stand

I am not dying again

I can walk

Two paracetamol tablets fizzing in water

Tastes like cancer treatment

The cat greets me

I can’t tend to her now

I return to bed

Lying in bed

In my mind I repeat

Like a mantra

I am alive

I will die

But for now

I will survive

Over and over

I don’t need to go on a spiritual retreat

To be awakened

To the truths of my existence

I don’t need a teacher

To show me how to be here and now

Or find acceptance for my temporality

Here I am

Now I am

I will die

I am awakened to my life

My mind wanders

I think about

Eco-capitalists deforesting jungles to build their mansions

The wild animals who die in the production of plant based milks

The solders killing children because some prick in charge told them it’s for the Cause

I imagine myself taking a drill to local car parks and planting trees in the liberated soil

The pain is less intense

But not gone

When the clock shows 7:30

Katie’s alarm goes off

I ask her to get me codeine

I tell her I’ll have the smallest dose

She gets me tea

Massages my temple with balm

Kisses me

Gets me a hot flannel

It’s all helping

Robinson Jeffers poetry comes to mind

Words of stones, inhumanity and cruelty

The pain is easing

I think about those who adorn black Xs on their hands

Crying out that they don’t need crutches

Whilst never experiencing pains

Such as a hydrocephalus migraine

I notice my breath

My pulse

The feeling of hunger

My tiredness

I’m quite gently stoned

As I write this poem in bed

I’m glad to have had the opiate

My head isn’t entirely comfortable

But it’s easing

I feel a great and powerful tiredness

Perhaps I will sleep after eating

I need to piss

I remember

I am alive

I will die

But for now

I will survive

Emma Goldman

My earliest encounter of

Anti-state and anti-patriarchy

Thought, politics, philosophy

A huge inspiration

Continuing influence

Fellow diasporic Jew

Fellow appreciator of Nietzsche and Stirner

We are very different

Though I still find myself

Impressed and attracted

I want to dance with her

Put roses upon her table

It took one stroke to silence her

A second stroke to kill her

The disease of civilisation

Achieving what police could not

What politicians could not

My thoughts turn to her words

On free love and that this

Is a love poem

The Spreading Of Diseases

A species with Cretaceous evolutionary roots

Amidst the worsening global warming

Birthed from industrialised totalitarian agriculture

A potentially devastating force

I am revolted by the idea

Of pesticidal culls

Comparable to the ignorant abuses of Mao

Mosquito

Mosquito

Mosquito

Mosquito

You shall prove fearsome

Of this I feel little doubt

Mosquito

Mosquito

Mosquito

Mosquito

How may it be possible to care for you

Whilst resisting the spreading of diseases?

Enemies Of God

“The doctor. God’s enemy: he fights against death.” Camus

How beautiful my wife a doctor

In conflict with God’s will

Nurturing life

I find great beauty in healers

Medicine-practice people

And others who also rebel against God’s will

How terrible it is

The machinery of industrialised healthcare

Monetising and bureaucratising this rebellion

The therapy praxis I am creating

Will be impossible to entirely separate

Whilst being as different as possible

I am tired of revolutionary promises of salvation

I desire more honest rebel praxes

Of real enemies of God

Plague Praxis

“The plague: abolishes all systems.” Camus

The Covid pandemic

Laid bare to me

Primal anarchy

How politics is powerless before

Life so small and mighty

Seeding the thought

Terrible, revolting and horrifying

That best rebellion against totalitarianism

Might be to infect it

Not with illnesses that would harm the living

But with thought, ideas, stories and healers

To contaminate Hegel and the dialectic

To render the system plagued by wellness

As civilisation thrives upon the ill health

Of those it captures

And their perceived dependence upon it

Hunger

With dexamethasone tablets

I learned intimately

The agony of insurmountable hunger

Seemingly endless and unquenchable

The thought of how many absent meals

A civilisation might survive

And impending food crises

A continuing spectre in my mind

Great feelings of sadness and horror

Accompany these visions and images

I desire suffering for no one

Though see no life without it

My mind wanders to famines and starvation

To how Leviathan takes the living

From a wild banquet of abundance

And in dependency manufactures scarcity

I hunger now for life to be well

From the dark abyss of my belly

I hear groaning desires

May we eat well

Changing

There is a grieving

In noticing myself changed

That I am not who I was

That in some ways I will not be

Who I wanted to be

That I have become different

Metamorphic destruction

Killing the lost of me

Creating who I am becoming

While I am alive

And have survived this horrific ordeal

I have also died

Decayed and become ground

For who I am now

And who I am becoming

These be the horrors of changing

Another Existential Crisis

Another existential crisis survived

I have overcome oblivion again

I live with the confidence that

The next will be easier

With the strength gained from this one

My Tribalism

Being-with as meeting

Gatherings of ecologically differentiated

Individuals co-existing

Coming together

Desiring relationship

Tribe as non-separations

Members as unique presences

We are One means we are one

Directly together

Unbounded as without bindings

Aperion as limitless and indefinite

The origin of all life

The creation of the world

The wild roots of life

Primal and primordial

Re-membered in song and story

Folk anarchist rebellions

Mystical and numinous encounters

When open life is bare and unclosed

Tribe reorients Being to no-Thingness

Not escape or salvation from

But how the void may be lived in

How the living survive the abyss

Existentially alone

Psycho geographically connected

Diasporic scatterings displace

Destroyed indigeneity

Cuts and wounds and traumas

So much forgotten in domestication

In returning to tribe

In remembering

Healing

Deus Ex Machina

Technotheological indifference

Godly despotism

A will for followers to follow

“Bow before your lord,

Kneel before your saviour

And you shall be saved

In the afterlife

In his Otherworld

Devoid of body, flesh and breath”

Before deus ex machina

I am an iconoclast

I am this idol’s twilight

Crying out that the machine saves none

From this life, this world, death

Tolerance

I feel intolerant

Towards that which Unrest

Is harmful to my wellbeing Unrest as

And the wellbeing Not dead

Of those I love Life as

Revolt!

Biopsy Results

The results have to be chased up

They were sent away for a second opinion

Waiting for a telephone call

This shit is tense

This is fucking real

The doctor gets a call

They’re emailing the results now

A singular fibrous tumour

It’s benign

Not cancer

They think they got it all

This should be monitored though

In case they left a few cells

This is fucking brilliant

Another ridiculously rare tumour

The doctor says

“You’re like the most lucky unlucky person”

They were worried it was cancer

The speed of growth worried them

This could have been worse

This could’ve turned cancerous if left

It wasn’t cancerous

Benign is a great sound; I hope it does not turn cancerous

Floods

Delaying trains

Roads rendered more dangerous

The impact on getting to the hospital

Is minimal

We left plenty of time

I think about climate chaos

Rising sea levels

Increased rainfall

The hills where I live

May become islands

I think about the soil erosion

Were this land still forested

Aged roots would hold the ground

And drink deep these waters

Reforesting this archipelago

Harm reduction at best

Less harm is better

Less harm is more potential for healing

It’s incredible how

Seemingly insignificant raindrops

Fall and disrupt technological systems

How worse this could be

How worse this will likely get

Battles

Standing on the train platform

To go home

This battle feels won

This feels like a moment of victory

I say to Katie

There will always be

Other conflicts

Other confrontations

Other challenges

More to overcome

And I am happy now

This feels like returning home

After a battle

She calls me a warrior

I tell her she is too

We’ve been at war

With this disease of civilisation

This is a moment of victory

Albert Libertad

A fellow celebrator of life

Individualist rebel

Overcomer of illness

Survived and lived

With absurd passion

Love and joy

Symmetry

My face will never be symmetrical

This scar on my left eyelid

Is here on my face

Fuck this western beauty standard

Harmony and balance be damned

Architecture

The flesh of earth

Corrupted mutations

Harming the body

They reside within

Civilisation is a cancer

Architectural legions

Spreading with

Corporate-colonialist encouragement

Bodily inflammation

Fires spreads

Globe warming

These tumours

Appear as part of

This body as hands and feet

Until they are seen

To be as alienated

As corrupted and deadly

As carcinomas or leukaemias

Lymphomas or sarcomas

Ruined flesh

Ruins and ruins and ruins

Cancer ruins lives

Cities are ultimately ruins

Radical Monism

Return to flesh

The body

A plurality of bodies

Non-separated Oneness

Ones differentiated

I am of the mind

That ecological healing

Needs this radical monist return

As I have found

With mine

Bodies sensing and breathing

Dynamically permeating

Twisted and tangled

Together as a-part

A-part as a-whole

To heal holistically

The plurality of bodies

And bodies within bodies

Must be affirmed

Radically returning to flesh

Winter

This has been a difficult winter

Inside myself I’ve found comfort

In the evergreens and summer lands

Who subscend and reside within

I am spring is being born now

I hear Dallas Green’s voice singing

“Oh winter” in the song Burial

Crisis, a song about a blizzard, too

The sky is grey this morning, rain falls

Check the weather forecast, all day

I could walk with a coat or get wet

I think I’d rather stay at home

Internalised voices of macho wild men

Too often rewilders and primitivists

Perpetuate the civilised stupidity of

“Man vs Nature” adventurism

I have survived a harsher winter

This disease of civilisation is crueler

Than the seasonal cold and death

Meaner than Cailleach’s humour

This moment calls for replenishment

The primal call of the wild within

Crying out for sleep and easing

This winter call is heard

Will To Fight

Energetic resistance

Bodies in collisions

Refusing to be defeated

Life always includes conflict

Embracing life

Affirming fight

War corrupting will to fight

Levitationic war on life

Repressing and sublimating

Fight turned against itself

Self harming to be a soldier

In civilisation’s army

In fighting for my health

In conflict with diseases of domestication

This confrontation is warring

A war that I did not start

A war no living individual began

A war waging and self-defeating

There is no end to war

Without embrace of will to fight

Ending soldiering repression

The fight for our preservation

The fight for those we love

Fight, or die!

Will To Care

Caring: positively affirming presence

The will to care

Born from the desire

To preserve life

The active expression of love

Direct actions

Deeds may be propaganda

But authentic care

Values deeds more

Than political spectacles

There is no privileging

No fetishisms

Of violence or non-violence

When care is real

The surgical removal of tumours

Is a violent action

Violating the body

Confronting a bodily violation

With non-violent experience

Needed for healing

Will To Survive

The absurd refusal to die

Life affirmed and lived

Challenges overcome with strength

The will to survive

I see this most intensely

In wild spaces

Wild individuals

And those who refuse

To be annihilated

By this totalitarian industrial death machine

Rebels against

Mass extinction culture

Survival as glorious victory

I am victorious

In my survival

Of these diseases

And I will survive

Until I die

Anarcho-normativity

A cancer within the anarchist conversation

The push for normative absolution

The erasure of all that

Does not conform to the thesis

A killer of rebellions

The ending of lives revolting

Can the body kill this legion

Like T cells?

Can the body cut this tumour out

With blades and other implements?

Will it kill anarchists?

Will it kill the conversation?

I don’t know

It won’t kill me!

Vision improving

Colour is returned

More definition to my world

With the tumour removed

Radiation therapy’s impact remains

My vision will never fully recover

This is a scar upon my body

That will never fully heal

Healing this grief V

Reorienting to my visual needs i

My visual experience s

Yes I often wear glasses i

Simulating an experience o

Of life before cancer n

Before this tumour

I do not forget who I am

What are my limits

My scars

It is such a joy

To have reds returned

To the sight in my left eye

As there is intense revolt

For the impact of disease

Upon this body I am

I have visions of life

Healed from the tumours of civilisation

That I doubt I will see

The images still bring joys

Less intense

Than the return of red

Recovery

What does recovery mean?

What is being recovered?

There is something desirable

About the idea

And then

Is recovery real?

There’s no going back

I tell people that I’m recovering well

I’m know what I mean

And I don’t know what I mean

It feels true to say

And yet not real

Is this the Maya paradox?

A reality that exists

And is not real

This isn’t “overthinking”

This is authentic self exploration

Am I recovering?

Perhaps recovery can mean to me

The discovery of who I’m becoming

Without going back

To who I am no more

I Am

Preserving

Flesh and breathe

Healing

Body strengthening

Revolting

Life as rebellion

Loved

Meeting tribe

This body

Becoming

Metamorphosis

Alive

Tired

Enduring struggles

Survivor of civilisation’s dis-eases

Ecdysis

Shedding dead skin

Nudity is honest

Bare flesh

Bare life

Inspired by naturists and John Moore

Healing from civilised dis-eases

Becoming at ease with naked flesh

The body is beautiful

Celebrate it

Through ecdysis

The Future

A single definite promise

Death and extinction

Birth is a terminal affair

Bástom

The limit of all preservation

The certainty of death

All ends eventually

Global warming

This mass extinction event and civilisation

All will end and this is certain

I doubt all futures

Other than death

Techno-progressive

Communist or Christian

All seem hollow to me

How to survive the future?

In grieving

Re-orientation made possible

Learning to live

In this new world

A Visit To Eggesford Forest

I wake up and hear the forest calling

Like Muir listening and responding to the call of mountains

I feel a need to go and be there

I prepare food and lemon honey and ginger tea with fresh ingredients

It is a slow morning, as we are both tired from recent experiences

Life has been tough and we are in no rush

We arrive at midday, eat pasties and fruit and drink tea at a table near the car

Giving uneaten food to the forest as an act of thanks

I feel deep appreciation for this space as one of the grounds for my shinrin yoku praxis

We walk along the path made for walkers, under non-native trees

These woods are owned by Forestry England and this is not a natural forest

I wonder what the fuck “own” and “natural” mean, as neither seem real

These trees are real, this stream is real, the wild animals who live here are real, they are alive

We walk the path

This feels like healing

Smiling faces of folks walking with dogs pass with greetings exchanged

Katie spots the face of a bear in a tree looking down towards the stream

There are ghosts wherever I travel upon the isles, of those culled by domesticators

Eventually we reach a small bridge going over the stream

I remember walking here with Twm Gwynne a year ago, a brilliant poet and beautiful creature

We stop on the bridge to watch the waters, impressed by tree roots holding the ground

I speak of maps made to show what the isles will likely become with sea levels rising

Of how new islands are likely to be born, new areas of sea and rivers birthed

How, alongside forest gardening, subsistence farming and pastoralist animal husbandry

Any human individuals surviving here in 100 years, perhaps our grandchildren

Will likely need to survive as really attentive fisherpeople

This is just a story in my mind, not a future, politics, or program

We stand and watch the waters moving for several more minutes

Walking on we sip the last of the tea in turn

I feel replenished for this walk and appreciative of the air and sunshine

The lingering flavour of pine needles I had chewed upon earlier is dissipating

And Robinson Jeffers’ words about uncentered and unhumanised, confident minds come to me

When we get into the car to go home it starts tor rain, like it had waited for us

We are both grieving the ordeal we have endured and this has been wonderfully reorienting

On Love

1

Agape: a disembodied concept of love. Care sublimated towards God, away from those we are with, away from where we are. This concept that has served the church as a means of capturing living beings strikes me as the same conception of love employed by that of political Cause. Love of Race. Love of Nation. Love of Class. Love of State. Their love for their followers and the follower’s duty to love their serving the will of these God-like presences, with gnostic-disregard for the bodily, physical, presence of the world that is most immediate to us. Flesh may always be sacrificed before the altars of God and Cause — this feels revolting to say, but not nearly as revolting as to bare witness to those attempts to sacrifice living flesh upon the table.

The contempt I feel for agape is visceral and intense. This hostile feeling towards Ecclesiastical “higher love” comes with an intense and visceral feeling of love and care for flesh, bodies, physical living presences I meet in ecological relationship. These feelings of hostile contempt and loving desire are undoubtedly as intense as they are from my lived experience of great suffering and grief, and my choosing to delve into these experiences and value them as I do, rather than seeking renunciation or transcendence. Perhaps agape, more than anything else, is an attempt to flee from pain and death. A love of the non-dying not-born. Love for that which cannot really be empathised with, as real empathy requires meeting, being-with, presence; rendering this love one devoid of any real experience of that which is loved’s pain. The love of that which does not live, existing only through capturing the living and draining them of their lives.

Agape is the love that Jordan Peterson advances, in his positioning of love as truth and truth as God. It is the love pushed by leftists, who treat self-love and love of immediate relationships as criminal, when not sacrificed before the altar of the Other, Cause as Moloch, consuming the living. To me, agape is a corrupted and ruinous love; affection, care, desire diseased by civilisation’s Master/Despot fetishisms. In agape there is a great repressive sublimation of desire, care, energy, attention, effort and activity, away from the living presences of those we are with, chained and bound and captured into the work that must be done for the Master, the Despot, the Cause. This is the love that longtermerists and other technophilic-salvationists, revolutionaries and collectivistic-socialistic-utopians, and conservatives, nationalists, fascists and other carrion cultists, share as common ground. As love chained, bound and repressed, agape is not real love, not authentic meeting, caring, desiring and not free, which reminds me of that affirmation of real love being free made by the great Emma Goldman.

2

Amour de sol: the primal self-love of the living, at the core of will-to life; and a criminal conception of love to many of the servants of Cause. All of my experience of loving life, loving my-life, loving those I am in relationship with, grows from the soil of my amour de soi, the primal love for myself that I feel intensely — eco-egoism affirming the pan-solipsistic experience of the world I encounter and those I am in relationship being a part of me, as I am a part of them and we are individuated aspects of the holism of life. In desiring their presence and preservation, I desire my presence in the world and my preservation. The ground from which my care praxis grows is this eco-egoist amour de soi. In my healing from the diseases and dis-eases of civilisation, I find this self-love/care intensifying more and more.

Yesterday I happened upon my dear friend Simon Bramwell/Crow, co-founder and poetic speaker for Extinction Rebellion, whilst in Exeter city centre. We got some lunch and ate together by the cathedral. I shared with him how intense my amour de soi is, as I have been continuing to overcome great challenges and with where I am in the healing from the tumour that was behind my left eye, as well as the ridiculous responses my sharing this with activists I am in conversations with. Simon laughed and affirmed my self-love, sharing how activists who care more for Organisation than living beings had attempted to pull him away from caring for his mother and her health needs, towards the end of her life, with the rhetoric of he should be attending meetings, for the Cause. In my love and affection for Simon I love myself, as I love my experience of relational non-separation and holistic individuation — I love that Simon is a part of my life, habitat, experience of being-in-the-world and that we meet together, as different living presences, part of each other. In many ways, I would not be who I am were it not for my relationship with this friend and I love him for that, in how he has been part of the soil from which this presence I am, which I love intensely, has grown.

3

Amour de propre: self-love’s cancerous mutation, corrupted by agape, transformed into vanity and the false-egoism of those who care for social performances of hierarchy, status and property. The shallow-egoisms of Rand and Stirner worshippers, who seek social validation through posturing a position of aboveness, through entrepreneurialism and chaining themselves to productivity and property; of Marxist-style revolutionary-activist organisation/party leaders, individuals like Max Wilbert and Derrick Jensen, of Deep Green Resistance, and Roger Hallam, of Just Stop Oil and Burning Pink; and those whose vanity has brought them to believing that they can provide the path, or the way, as guruistic figures, providing salvation from suffering and transcendence from the world as it is — these all bare the appearance of amour de propre to my eyes.

Like how my body is continually fighting cancers, I recognise that I myself fight off amour de propre within myself, as I engage in personal conflicts with the diseases of civilisation. I feel a great sadness when I see those I love — and have found that love rendered far harder, or impossible — are consumed by amour de propre and what they do to feed that cancerous presence, what they sacrifice before the altars of agapeic-devotion for the promises of status and wealth. I resist this disease through returning to my flesh, reminding myself of the body I actually am, and the primal-anarchy of wildness that the world really is and is the ground from which my preservation endures.

Amour de propre is not real love of the ourselves, Being the being an individual self is in, the love of relationship whereby an individual self is experienced in relationship with another/an-other who they are apart from, a-part-of, is apart-from them and a-part of them. Amour de propre is the love of being seen by a sanctified Other, be it God, the-Collective, or whatever else, and being granted value through them; rather than affirming the value of one’s life upon the ground of self-love.

4

Amour de soi and amour de propre: I wonder if what distinguishes these different self-loves might be the qualities that are felt in noticing when a friendship feels healthy or when friendship feels toxic, polluting, exploitative or abusive. The term for self-love that was used by Ancient Greek philosophers, like Aristotle, is philautia, which means to be a friend towards oneself and was used to refer to both socially performative vanity and the self-love that is oriented towards personal wellness.

It seems to me that healthy philautia happens with deep feelings of positive affirmation for ourselves, as grounded awareness of ourselves as is possible and good humour and playful activities, as well as other qualities that I have no doubt neglected to think of here, as these are what I notice most in healthy friendships I have experienced, as well as what has been lacking in friendships that have been less well and been most depleting. When my love for myself feels polluted by social performance or status, my friendship towards myself has the feeling of a friend who is seeking to exploit me without concern for my wellbeing or health, and I’ve really lost myself within a miasma of shallow behaviours and relationships. When my self-awareness is grounded, I hold positive feeling for my presence within the world and I am playful or of a decent humour, my love for myself is attentive to my wellbeing and the wellbeing of the other individuals I am in relationship with.

5

Philia: the matter of philia, of friendship, is one that I am intentionally approaching tentatively here and with care. Two different contexts come to mind and I feel to describe them here, with an awareness that they are ecologically non-separate.

The context I am looking to describe here first is friendship as a form of relationship that is intentionally non-conforming towards the systematising totalitarianism of Organisation. The ferocious post-left anarchist writer Ziq affirms friendship in this way in their in their piece Against Community Building, Towards Friendship, and I am largely of a similar perspective to them, as I have intentionally avoided Organisational-activism and largely only engaged with organised projects from a liminal position, on the edges. Perhaps where I am more pessimistic and differ most intensely from Ziq is with regards to the matter of discarding. While Ziq posits discarding as a means of separating from “bad relationships”, I do not see this as possible, as ecologically living beings are relationally inseparable; though I certainly am of the mind that it is possible to create greater distance, through moving-away that intensify psychogeographical distance, which might make easier the dis-eases of Organisation. While I have very much sought to create greater distance between myself and Organisations and individuals, who have been unfriendly and treated me poorly, we are non-separate upon the ground of life and they are part of me, if only in memories. It also seems worth affirming that healthy and rebellious friendships might manifest within the trappings of Organisations, infecting the narratives, undermining social performance and disrupting productivity, through playfulness, humour and distraction.

The friendship that has been most intense, meaningful and which I intend to share about here is the friendship at the core of my relationship with Katie, my partner, lover, wife and greatest support. Our friendship is different from our others, the friendships we find within the Organisational totalities we engage with and the friendships we find outside of these structures and systems, whilst also being non-separate from them — in many ways, we both survive our engagement with Organisational totalities due to our friendship with each other, our meeting and being a place that is psychogeographically distant and different. This friendship that is at the core of our relationship and what feels to be the ground from which all other aspects of our relationship grows, is nurtured, fed, refreshed and kept healthy through playfulness, humour and what could be easily called childish silliness.

6

Play: playful behaviour and activity is so much part of my home life, social engagements and experience of the world, that I largely cannot imagine how to live without some quality of play. From the beginning of our coupling at 15 years old, throughout our relationship and continuing into our marriage today, Katie and I thrive on playfulness, games, banter and fun, not at the diminishment of recognising struggle, not to avoid recognising pains and difficulties or to distract ourselves from any disagreements that we might be having. Play is how I generally seek to connect and strengthen relationship with individuals I encounter throughout my life; though when intuition and instinct render me feeling like a particular individual might not be safe to play with, I will frequently adopt more serious behaviours — that is, assuming I am not in the mood to test boundaries and my personal strengths, which happens on occasions where I meet someone who seems inclined towards abusive behaviours, but who I feel I have the strength and ability to overcome any attempts to treat me poorly. These meditations bring to my mind the thought that perhaps play is taking pleasure in safety and strength, orienting ourselves upon the ground of being aware of being able to survive where we are.

Play as taking pleasure in safety and strength, with the feeling of orienting ourselves towards our ability to survive where we are, is no doubt difficult, at points near impossible, within the contexts of existential crises. I am mindful now of the seriousness and worker-aesthetics of many individuals who are disturbed and revolted by this mass extinction event and the machinery of this culture that mass produces death, and how much play is detested and intolerable within the activist Organisations that are largely individuals trauma bonding and struggling to reorient themselves within the world, with intense feelings of despair in grief. The despair is certainly an experience I can empathise with and appreciate, however I see nothing healthy in sitting in grief and no real rebellion feels possible to me without reorienting within the world of the living — to paraphrase Emma Goldman, if I cannot play, I want no part in your revolution!

The subject of play as an aspect of rebellious activities, or rebel activism, has been one that individuals sympathetic to post-left/post-Situationist thought and aesthetics have engaged in continually, though I must admit myself to feeling largely disappointed with this engagement. Bob Black treats play as soil upon the ground of constructing, organising and arranging new political-systems, within some Otherworld, some other-life, a utopia for anarchists to reach. Honestly, I find this engagement with play-praxis as pathetic and do not feel very kindly towards it, as I care more for how play is a way of surviving this world, this life, and being connected in healthy relationship. I feel untrusting of systematisers, largely as I have lived experiences of systems continually failing and of those seeking to push systems for others to conform to frequently behaving in manipulative and abusive ways. I would like to feel more affirming of Wolfi Landstreicher’s encouragements of “fierce play”, as I do appreciate them as considerations of play engaged in this world, rather than some Otherworld or as a means of systematisation. However, Landstreicher, as a pusher of insurrectionary ideology, pushes for violent games, with rhetoric of play-as-insurgent activity. As I have no desire to martyr myself or find myself imprisoned for the insurrectionary Cause, nor wish that for anyone else — as that helps no one, especially not myself — I find Landstreicher’s conception of play revolting. With both Black and Landstreicher, play is valued for its utility as a social technology, seeking to produce some-Thing, rather than as an aesthetic appreciation of life and relationship, done for the sake of itself. This utilitarian quality to their thoughts is a huge aspect of how I differ in praxis to them both.

7

Xenia: The two greatest sources of inspiration for thoughts on xenia are my Nan, who made every effort to be a hospitable host for those who entered into her home (unless they were abusive guests), and the tumours which I was a host of and who were examples of unwelcome presences who I would not tolerate within my body; one of which was killed within my body through radiation therapy and the other was removed by surgeons and died in the process. Nan’s desire to welcome those who entered into her home with gifts of comforts, food, drink, conversation and all other means of providing caring relationship was as intense as her hostility towards any presences who posed a threat to the preservation of her loved ones and her home. The stories that have been shared about her from before my birth, such as her taking in a young lesbian woman in the 1980s, who had been rejected by her family due to her sexual orientation and her having become host to the aids virus, are stories of xenia that I hold dear to me. And from a very similar aesthetic of care; my being revolted by the presence of tumours within my body, as presences that have posed as intolerable eco-existential threats, has brought my mind to a harsher perspective, which might be entirely ugly to those who advocate “universal compassion”, “non-violence” or of similar morals (particularly from deep-ecology or anarcho-pacifism ideological lenses); that there are occasions and situations where self-preservation and the preservation of those who we love and have become aspects of ourselves through love, calls for intolerance towards those who are eco-existential threats. Defending my body, my life, me, from the tumours I was host to involved killing both of them both and as I write this my attention turns to how they were both living presences, though life forms corrupted and mutated by civilisation, and ultimately living beings with no potential for survival, as they would have killed the habitat that they depended upon.

With global warming already rendering areas of the world less hospitable for many who live in those areas and migration being a means of surviving and self-preserving; it seems likely that many living beings, human or non-human, will seek to migrate to more hospitable areas as global warming worsens over the coming years. Those diasporic individuals and populations will likely meet hosts of all manner of different temperaments and attitudes; some who will respond decently and some who will respond indecently. For a survivable praxis of xenia, there seems to be a mutual responsibility between migrants as guests, to be as unharmful and do as little damage as possible in their relocating, as there is with hosts to show as much welcoming care as possible, to minimise the potential for harm to arise with the arrival of new presences within the habitat. As the world is changing, adaptations and alterations to habits and habitats are becoming increasingly necessary aspects of preserving life. The absence of active xenia-praxes will likely inspire the worst aspects of nationalist and conservationist politics, such as state fetishisation, reproductive repression, population culling and border controls. The presence of healthy xenia-praxes would seemingly involve the tribalist intolerance of those who are a threat to the habitats they have entered. These are intensely difficult matters to think about and I don’t believe that there are any easy or simple answers that are worth trusting.

I live upon this archipelago due to diaspora, as a Jew whose family were scattered throughout the world. I take great pleasure in the presence of wild garlic growing in multiple parts of the area that is my habitat, with garlic growing here due to diaspora often being part of my thoughts on the plant. We are parts of this ecosystem, surviving here and the preservation of this ecosystem means the preservation of our presences.

One of my favourite joys is that of welcoming folk into my home, preparing food and drinks, sharing stories, playing games and doing whatever I can to help them feel comfortable and provide a hospitable environment for them, while at my home. There’s a sweetness to this experience that I am utterly attracted to. Thinking about the sweetness of dark ecological thought; does this situation, with all its revolting and uncomfortable aspects affirmed, also present opportunity for those of us who care about surviving this mass extinction event and the preservation of life here on this planet, to take pleasure in the joy of being decent hosts? Maybe there is potential for taking joy in embracing these circumstances as opportunities to destroy nationalism, through better xenia-praxes? There’s a revolting quality to these positive affirmations, in that they are somewhat sickeningly sweet, inspiring the desire to vomit up far more bitter and angry feelings about the situation; which no doubt need to be purged and released from the body and into the world — though I wonder if the sweetness of embracing xenia-praxes as embracing the world as it is and is becoming and how we may survive and co-exist, is where that vomiting is best directed towards. The thought of an even more sickening and sweet dark ecological idea comes to mind; that global warming is Earth becoming inhospitable for civilisation, like inflammation in animal bodies fighting/killing off viruses, bacteria or toxins, and that surviving this mass extinction event requires becoming better guests within this planetary whole hosting us.

The sickening quality of the dark ecological sweetness, which comes with these thoughts on xenia-praxes, to my mind has the quality of emetic-medicines, used to purge the body of toxins and poisons. It seems entirely healthy to purge the body of the poisons and toxins of this culture and dark ecological sweetness strikes me as a healthy way to do this. The direction of this vomiting and the impact it has upon where it lands and who is there, are also matters to consider.

Nan comes back to my mind. In her final years she needed more and more support within her home, in ways that are entirely unsurprising for someone approaching 90 years old, while still making every effort to be a welcoming host to whoever arrived on her doorstep. This included the need for personal care during periods of sickness and I am reminded again of Nan taking in the woman who was rejected by her family due to her sexual orientation and being host to disease. The preservation of hosts and guests, as co-existing presences, seems to require attentiveness towards health and care, for any xenia-praxis or praxes. This brings to mind the need for hospitable homes and habitats to contain medicines and for those residing in those homes to have the skills to heal through medicinal-praxes.

8

Obsessive love: it is unsurprising that Hakim Bey advocated for obsessive love, though this is is no less disappointing for this lack of surprise, given the fetishes he pushed, with little regard for the health and wellbeing of those he fetishised, or himself. Obsess, which etymologically comes from the latin word obsidere meaning to blockade, besiege and take possession of, strikes me as having all of the qualities of propertarian violence, with little-to-nothing of care or will-to-preserve the lives of those involves. Often this notion of possession is looked upon as something that happens to those who are experiencing the obsessive love internally, though it seems to equally, if not, more so the case that, usually, it is the one desired who is regarded as property. Ahab’s obsession to catch the whale he regards as his rightful property, as him taken captive by that which he is obsessed by, until eventually he is slain by the harpoon line he tried to capture Money Dick with, caught around his neck. In Ahab’s obsession though, the besieged party is the whale he hunts, as Moby Dick makes no efforts to capture Ahab. Likewise The Phantom, who could be said to be “captivated by Christine’s beauty” as she sings in his opera house, seeks to take possession of her and claim her as his property. This obsessive desire for beauty is seemingly rooted in Phantom’s young experiences of social cruelty in his childhood, an entirely likely ground for the obsessive inclination to grow; a poisoned soil, sickened by the dis-eases of Parisian urbanisation, domestication and ecological-ill-health. This environment of Paris is the same that Jean-Baptiste Grenouile was born to in the novel Perfume; the murderous perfumer who’s obsessive desire to create a perfume from the women he found beautiful (so that he would be desired by society). Surrounded by property and having none himself, just a few personal possessions, to call his own (so much so that he does not even have a scent) Grenouile seeks to take possession of the women he kills, to capture their scents, and in so doing become desirable to the society that showed him no care, as he possessed so little. Ahab, Phantom and Grenouile are all fictional examples of obsessive love, but they seem to speak to truths that are laid bare through lived experience.

These thoughts on obsessive love bring to my mind Berdyaev’s affirmation of “(t)he enslaving of the other is also the enslaving of the self”, which is very similar to Thoreau’s attitude towards property, as well as mine — I am reminded of Tyler Durden in Fight Club stating “what you own ends up owning you” and how much he became the property of the revolutionary organisation he was the possessor of. In the same way that those with financial wealth become captured and consumed by their property, so much so that maintaining and retaining it becomes the sole focus of their existences (with their lives largely renounced to the obsession to Own); obsessive love strikes me as a poisonous will, wherein slave and slaver, property and proprietor, owned and owner, or however else we name those involved, are rendered captives, psychically bound and chained to ruin, if they do not have the will to overcome such dreadful relationships. This brings to mind the socialist obsession with property, seemingly born from being besieged by ownership and considered as objects of industry. Like Heathcliff, who is considered the possession of the Earnshaw family and the obsession of the daughter of the family Cathy — so much so that she loses her sense of self with the need to possess him, treating him as her — and seeks to capture Cathy, possess her as her family possessed him and ends up the legal owner of the farm the Earnshaw’s captured him within, but with his life eventually ending in ruin; the dictatorship of the proletariat, as an obsessive love of property, technology, industry, capital, appears to be nothing more than a pathway to ruination, given the impact of attempts made in this political project. Jacques Camatte’s affirmations of capital’s despotism and the inability of revolution to overcome this situation harmonises with Emily Brontë’s affirmations of obsessive love and the desire to possess the one whose obsession has rendered the other toxically infatuated with them — both seem ultimately ruinous. The similarity of obsessive love as love poisoned and the socialist push for collectivised ownership (collectivised slavery to capital) as will-to-overcome-propertarianism rendered toxic seems so familial, like they are siblings.

In affirming these thoughts; I am reminded of my personal aesthetic preferences for health over property. I have seen many become possessed by their property, obsessed by it and in retaining it, or in the property of others; so much so that their ability to love strikes me as utterly toxified. I have sought to overcome these propertarian obsessions, that seem to spread like disease, by intentionally not seeking to possess those who I love and instead seeking to care for their health and wellbeing, as best as I am able. I have some minor obsessions, as I have a small amount of property, and I am likely somewhat infected by these propertarian afflictions; though in reminding myself of what is of real value to my experience, such as health, freedom and life (which are seemingly inseparable), property becomes my eyes what the Greek cynics, who rejected property, called typhos — nonsense and smoke.

9

Care: I am very much of a similar mind to Heidegger, in as much as I see care as the basis of being-in-the-world, rather than spirit — as is pushed frequently by advocates of political Cause and historicisation — and have come to understand myself and other living beings as Being that-which-we-care-for; meaning that we both only survive and live through caring for ourselves and those which we care for in relationship become a part of ourselves — eco-egoism. In his book Being and Time, Heidegger describes care as existing in 3 basic modes; sorge, which is reflective and concerned with the past; besorgen, which is concerned with what is present; and fusorge, which is concerned with the future — this enframing largely coming with a focus on historicity, which could well have been Heidegger conforming to the Hegelian interest within the academy and allowing himself to be (somewhat) assimilated within that totalitarian-machine — my attention moves to Heidegger’s assimilation within the Nazi machine, though I do not consider him to be intolerable, like many, as I respect that surviving within the context of that environment would have likely presented few desirable choices. Later in his life, perhaps with a deeper regard for authenticity and fundamental-ontology (both are keen interests of Heidegger), he comes to affirm a more ecological perspective of time-as-presence, captured within the book On Time and Being, which strikes me as harmonising better with and understanding of the preservation of being-in-the-world, will-to-life, as an expression of care, rather than spirit — perhaps this came with reflections regarding the Nazi attempt in dialectical-totalitarianism and feelings of revolt for the historicising-machines(?)! (Perhaps not! I am not here to defend Heidegger.)

My deepest feelings of loving and being-loved come with those of care. During my recent experiences of undergoing treatment for the ocular tumour, much like my experiences during treatment for the brain tumour, I have survived through the amour soi of self-love and the loving care I have experienced through those individuals who have found me to be part of their lives, their worlds, their egos/selves; most intensely through the love shown by Katie. Likewise, when I notice my love for habitats and wild living beings, the feeling of care that arises invariably involves recognising them as part of my life, part of my world, part of who I am, not as property or possession, but as individuated-holistic-relating, as different non-separate presences. In non-separation we are not bound together or captured, as property, but permeate each others presences, as moving through. Our bodies are not rigid, closed off spaces. Through our senses and openings, others enter into us, directly and indirectly. The gap between us is our ecological individuation, our presences as unique beings within the world, which I entirely see as the lived experience of difference, without which it would seemingly be impossible to care for ourselves or those we encounter within the world. Without noticing Katie as being-there and having an experience of the world that is different to mine, it is impossible for me to find her within myself holistically and recognise how I can care for her, to preserve her presence within the world.

In as much as Cause signifies historicisation, the sublimation of care to spirit, and the attempted negation of individuation through collectivisation; Cause largely seeks the annihilation of care. I see this occurring most intensely with herd moralities that seek to distract individuals from the immediate presences that they are in direct relationships with, towards working within political machines that these individuals largely become the property of. The sheer horror of how much ecological praxes have been assimilated within the totalitarianisms of Cause is utterly revolting. My desire here is largely to encourage individuals to embrace care as love and in so doing sacrifice nothing of themselves and those they love to political machines.

10

Eros: if rebellion is born from love and eros, the erotic, is the instinctual, animal, love for life, oriented towards the preservation of lover and beloved; preservationist revolts seem to grow from the ground of eros. The desire to preserve the presence of habitats and living beings seems to be born from instincts that subscend reason. Eros is unreasonable. I cannot explain or justify my love for those I desire the presence of. There is no why that gives cause/Cause to the preservation of woods or badgers or myself. The will to life of eros is irrational, as death is invariant.

The rationality and reasonableness of ecological Causes, who seek to justify the presences of habitats and living beings, are thoroughly denuded of life preserving love. Love does not conform to systems of arrangement or organisation, but is wild and passionate, in its absurdity. As I write this, I am reminded of my friend Simon Bramwell articulating how little love for wildlife there is within Extinction Rebellion and how focused it is on the rationality of Organisation and Cause.

Wolfi Landstreicher/Feral Faun’s affirmation of paneroeticism, the desirability of all life, all living beings, affirms a non-reductive eros of ecological preservation that is both beautiful and absurd. Paneroticism is an experience that is both true and impossible; a paradox. I feel love for the entirety of life, whilst also being eco-existentially limited and being revolted by many of the presences that I experience. Absurd questions arise. How can I preserve all the life I encounter? I cannot. Bataille’s eroticism is oriented towards affirming the connections between the erotic, death and sensuality. Life preservation’s connection to death is undeniably intensified within the context of mass-extinction machinery, death camp culture. The sensual quality of preservationist praxes are intuitively obvious, given how eco-phenomenologically immersive they are.

11

Kamadeva: Kamadeva, who is a Hindu god of love who’s arrows harm and inspire feelings of longing, is killed by Shiva, who is destruction and creation. What I take from this story is that longing is destroyed by creation. The longing for healthy habitat is destroyed by the creation of healthy habitat. Now there are two other questions. The first question regards what might need to be destroyed to create healthy habitat. The second question regards what destruction is.

Exploring the second question first, I would begin by differentiating destruction from annihilation. Annihilation negates presence into absence and is perhaps best articulated in descriptions of concentration camp violence and the ecocidal machinery that is this mass extinction event we are attempting to survive. Destruction — and perhaps I am admitting something of my Heideggerian/Derridean orientation here — is the positive de-structuring and de-constructing of structures and presences, so as to actualise different presences in a creative process. It would be easy to put this as a dichotomy or dualism or dialectic, but this is not something I am seeking to do. That annihilation negates and destruction is positive doesn’t mean one is good and the other bad. As a brain tumour survivor, all of my creative efforts since then required the negation of the life of the tumour in my brain, which allowed me to survive and live. Equally though, in the context of a totalitarian death camp culture actively manifesting mass extinction, negation feels less desirable that destructive, maybe revolting, positivity.

Returning to the first question of what might need to be destroyed to create healthy habitat; this question seems insurmountably huge to comprehend. Taken on the planetary scale, I would trust no answers to this question, even if the answers included capitalism, industrialism, patriarchy or other abusive aspects of this culture that I find revolting. This lack of trust in planetary scale answers is rooted in a complete lack of belief in the authority of anyone providing the answers. Of course, many who are concerned about this mass extinction event, which is a planetary scale presence, desire planetary scale answers and will often idolise individuals who seek to posture themselves as authorities and Answerers. There is a comfort to answers provided by Answerers, in the push to negate and/or transcend eco-existential uncertainty. The longing to have such questions answered is real. In not answering these questions for ourselves, at the level of lived experience (which is not planetary but local to the habitats we occupy), but seeking planetary scale answers provided by Answerers, a form of philosophical suicide, which might be ecologically-suicidal, is performed, with responsibility and creativity renounced. The question of what might need to be destroyed to create healthy habitat seems only answerable as it is confronted within lived experience, without political systematisation, organisation or arrangement. To do this without worsening ecological-annihilation seems to require care and love; destruction that is ecologically-careful and born from a love for life and the living.

12

Bhakti: so often pious devotion is looked upon in religious contexts as unhealthy behaviour and yet so rarely is piety before technological-salvation, deus ex machina, considered unhealthy. It seems to be very much the case that to question the healthiness of technological-piety is to be to admit some quality of ill health, which may be infectious, given the responses I have seen to skepticism towards these promises of salvation. To my eye, such piety and devotion are philosophical and ecological suicides, and I have no desire to renounce life.

13

Free Love: Emma Goldman’s words regarding free love and love simply being free are at the forefront of my attention as I sit here, thinking about the politics of free love. Then the memory of hearing an anarchist instructing a younger individual, whilst handing them a zine on polyamory, informing them that monogamy is inherently authoritarian and needs to be ended. Immediately following this remark I shared that I married my best friend, who is my first real girl friend, and that we are still together with no intentions of separating; which the polyamory advocator did not find the courage to seek to challenge, but simply said to the younger individual that they might find the zine interesting. Another memory has also come to me, when, in the weeks leading up to our wedding, a different polyamory advocate asked me why I was getting married and not embracing polyamory — my response was basically that polyamory is not what I want and that this was a choice that we had freely made for ourselves. The choice to live a monogamous and married partnership does not, in my experience of relationship, negate any quality of free love, or relationship anarchy. Of course there are situations where monogamy and marriage are repressive, conformist, abusive and undesirable; much as there are situations where polyamorous relationships are repressive, conformist, abusive and undesirable. I share much in the feeling of those who call their relationships radical monogamy, when the partnership is a mutual and autonomous expression of desire, love, affection, and care, is done expressively and with the non-conformity of differentiating individuality — in radical monogamy there is the expression of individuals differentiating others from the individual they desire, from a place of being affected so as to care especially for the individual they love, seeking more sensually intense relationship with them. I wonder how either of the individuals advocating polyamory above monogamy, who I mentioned earlier, would respond to these thoughts. The push for queer-normativity, to negate hetro-normativity, is something that is understandable from perspectives that are appreciative of the violence and repression that queer folk have experienced; and yet this seems simply reductive and an alternative mode of normative-politics — Daniel Quinn’s words regarding there being no one right way to live spring to mind. My perspective is largely that it is not enough to consider these matters as a dialectic between heteronormative conformity and repression and the queering of relationship through polyamory, with each ultimately seeking to negate the other, or to engage in such reductionist politics. With this, it seems desirable to be able to engage in dialogues regarding relationships and relationships that appreciate the differences in how individuals love each other and express their love, with an intention to not enable abuse, repression or reductionism.

Harry Chalmer’s essay on the moral permissibility of monogamy, which seeks to push for the moral superiority of polyamorous relationships, is somewhat laughable. The entire thing is founded upon the premise that expressions of love need to justify themselves, from which Chalmer’s seeks to attack monogamy and force it to defend itself, which is done through Chalmer’s descriptions of the defences monogamists might give. The defences for monogamy are reduced to those of specialness, sexual health, children, practicality and jealousy, and through a negation of these apparent defences of monogamy the conclusion is reached that monogamy is morally not right. The first thought that comes to my mind when thinking about Chalmer’s essay is that no love, which is autonomous and non-abusive, needs to justify itself to anyone, regardless of repressive normative moralities; and that I find normative moralities revolting — of course, real love is free and therefore autonomous and non-abusive. Equally, the notion of love needing justification brings to mind the matter of causal/Causal reasoning, to which I find no ontological or cosmological basis for, and to the appeal I would respond with the aestheticism of “I am in this monogamous relationship to be in this monogamous relationship”, which might be an unreasonable and absurd response, but it is far more honest than any appeal to reasoning and justification. Finally, and perhaps most laughably, Chalmer’s conclusion seeks to position the fundamental difference between monogamous and non-monagmous relationships as being that monogamy requires something of closure, whereas non-monogamous relationships are open; perpetuating the inside-outside false dichotomy, which civilisation is based in, and the illusion of ecological separation — I would respond to Chalmer’s that all life is actually, radically, Open and that there is no escape from openness, really.

Ontologically and in a primal sense, love is inescapably anarchistic/free, whether monogamous or polyamorous, and affirms that authority is no-Thing. The normative encoding of loves expression and politicised repression of this is inherently secondary and performative. This is not to say that the political repression doesn’t exist, but that it is an example of the Maya paradox, where it is a reality, which exists, but is not real — a symbolic order to be shat on and have bricks thrown through. Chalmer’s attempt to be a despotic presence and encode monogamy to signify something of moral unacceptability is merely performance and has no power to stop any authentic expression of love; much like the aforementioned polyamory advocators. My mind returns to Emma Goldman and the affirmation that love, real love, authentic, is always free.

14

Unfriendliness: so much of unfriendliness is rooted in bigotry and shallow feeling. I wish for a better praxis of unfriendliness to become more of what “unfriendliness” refers to. Absolute friendliness is obvious dangerous, ill advised, impossible and undesirable. There seems a need to practice unfriendly behaviour, which is ecological and psychological. But could this unfriendliness be based not in collectivised stereotypes and the ideologies of political machines seeking to dominate other political machines?

My mind turns to hedgehogs. Hedgehogs, the spiky little creatures who to me show that wildness means more of caution and care than anything of recklessness or uncaring feeling (both of which seem like very domesticated attitudes), have never struck me as particularly friendly creatures; at least not towards me. The experts suggest that they are basically solitary creatures, only forming social bonds whilst mating, which would suggest something of them being essentially unfriendly — though this feels like speciesist stereotyping and I feel skeptical of the experts ability to talk about any species in universal terms; my anti-speciesist nominalism/egoism questions the notion of species further. Continuing with the absurdity of thinking in terms of “hedgehog stories”; I feel appreciative of the unfriendliness of hedgehogs, though was frequently disappointed by this when I was younger and wanted to find a feeling of friendship with hedgehogs I’d meet. The unfriendliness of hedgehogs is one with nothing of aggression or abusiveness, but one entirely based in the will-to-preserve-life. This differs hedgehogs from anarchists who are unfriendly towards those who don’t share their political vision, or nationalists and racists who are unfriendly out of racial or nation-based bigotry. I respect the unfriendliness of hedgehogs, perhaps more than any other unfriendliness — though this is somewhat of an absurd notion, as I do not believe in a universal hedgehog essence.

15

Loss of friendship: the loss of friendship is a painful matter to confront, at least it is for me as I remember the friendships that have ended under unfortunate circumstances. I have lost friendships due to political differences, whereby friends have seemingly come to see me as Kafka’s bug and chosen to relinquish the relationship and cut ties. There are friendships which have ended without warning or without any explanation or anything that I can locate as a reason, other than the former friend deciding that they no longer desire friendship. I have ceased making contact with friends, to end the friendship, when I have come to see that the friendship is to the detriment of my wellbeing, particularly in the contexts of a bullying humour and psychic-vampirism. And, of course, there are friendships I have known that have ended well and simply been the parting of individuals who are journeying through different spaces within the world, with all qualities of affirmation of presence and willingness to respond to the other, should we meet again, retained, in good humour and will.

When I was employed at a school that supported young people with “special educational needs and disabilities” (SEND) there was a boy there who, after having been friends with one of his classmates for 7 years, having shared a class together since nursery, was having to deal with really significant emotional struggles with the friend deciding that they no longer wanted him around them. The impact on the boy was so significant that for several months, at the end of every day, we would have a conversation about how his day had gone and try to notice all the other friendships he had and all that he had achieved throughout the day; which could be difficult at points, as he struggled to not fixate on the friendship that had ended. The biggest challenge between us was that there simply was no means of explaining it with a reason that would justify what had occurred, to give it logical form, and to just simply sit with the uncertainty, which I tried to help him find acceptance of. I do not know if my efforts had or will continue to have any meaningful impact on his life. I’d like to imagine that he found something comforting in the friendship I sought to show him, which might ease the loss he experienced; or even that he has regained that relationship with his classmate that they had, though that will be different. Changing employment means I am no longer working at the school and simply do not know what has happened to him. There is a beer glass that he and his family gifted me in my cupboard, which I drink from with fond feelings.

16

Loss of love: the death of my mother, in 1999, when I was 7 years old, was the first loss of love I ever endured, and still endure somewhat to this day. The visceral feeling of grief is a real presence within me and one that spirals as a gestalt process of experiencing life and will likely continue to spiral until my spiral ends with my death. The vast majority of my experience is of the grieving process satisfied, though it does return like an old injury that the body still holds. This satisfaction is largely dependent upon my responsiveness to the sensation of grief, which I am well practiced at.

Still being partners with my first girlfriend, romantic relationship, sexual coupling and now wife, I have not directly experienced the loss of love in these contexts. Through others, such as my father and friends, I have seen these encounters of the loss of love. There seems to be a different but similar quality of grief to that of the death of a loved one. How well the grieving process goes is in many ways the result of how healthily responsive they are to the sensation of grief. Those friends who have seemingly sought out this experience of grief, through relationships that had little chance of lasting and imploded with all kinds of drama, and choose to sit in despair, have often cried out to be rescued from themselves and I do not have any desire to indulge this behaviour — a particular poet is at the forefront of my mind. This is not from a place of unkindness, meanness or a lacking of care, but an awareness that there is no way of rescuing someone from themselves or their choices/freedom.

Comprehending the loss of love pertaining to ecological grief is monumental. The loss of northern white rhinos in Africa due to poaching, badgers upon this archipelago due to culling, glaciers in Pakistan and Venezuela due to industrial-pollution-birthed-global-warming and trees across the town I live a few miles away from, all stick in my mind as I write this, with an awareness that this mass extinction event is the annihilation of far more life than this meagre list includes. The grief spirals and likely will not end within my life experience, as planetary ecological collapse due to industrialised totalitarian agriculturalist violence continues. I do not resent the grief, nor do I sit in or hold onto it. The experience of grief is motivational to me. Responding to the sensation through making contacting with living beings and seeking to preserve the presence of life, which I do as well as I am able (given eco-existential limits), renders the painful feelings dissipated. There is an obvious absurdity to the situation, in that there are still living beings being annihilated and the existential given of death and extinction for all living beings. There are individuals who I have known who choose to sit in the grief and despair, wallowing in sadness. The choice to wallow in the loss and despair is an option any individual experiencing mass extinction grief can choose, much like how any sick person may choose to neglect their health and not respond to their bodily needs. I find nothing desirable in that choice though and wouldn’t choose it for myself, nor would I encourage anyone else to engage in those behaviours.

17

Amour fou: I intensely appreciate Breton’s description of loving another involving learning something of yourself. This quality of love is sadly not noticed enough in many of the madder loves that nourish nothing of wellness in those involved. Not all amour fou’s have this quality of ill health and many are beautiful and glorious — my love for Katie continually teaches me more of my insanity and madness. What lessons do those mad loves that result in nothing but ruin for those involved have to teach those individuals involve? My instinct is that only they can say. What do I learn of my madness from my love for Katie? I learn that, beyond all logic and rationality, I have a primal internal strength that has the power to survive great challenges and be well in my survival; that where I came from was a fertile void, from which I have become something Other and can continue to do so as I will; and that there is a presence in the world who loves me with as much unreasonable passion as I love them. These are wonderful lessons to affirm and they nourish me intensely.

18

Amor fati: fate is a concept that I have a mixed relationship with. The classic notion of fate as events that are experienced by a person or persons, which are usually predetermined as the will of some god or god-like presence, I have no belief in and strikes me largely as an absurd attempt to find reason for the indifference life frequently shows the living. This is very much the perspective on fate articulated by the pagan writer Ramon Elani, in his book Word Against The Modern World, where he seeks to deny free will through pagan theology and Jung’s ideas of acausal synchronicity. Elani suggests that global warming is a punishment that the god’s are inflicting upon civilised humanity, thus justifying this ordeal as something of a bitter medicine, which the living deserve to suffer through. Fate is thereby explainable, through a logic based in pagan myth, and the ecological-absurdity of this situation is transcended and negated. Or is it? To my eyes, Elani commits philosophical-suicide and embraces an attitude of ressentiment that serves as a means of denying the responsibility of being able to act upon the situation. Fate signifying anything pertaining to a destiny that is determined through the will of some Other, be it God or Causation or whatever else, is a notion that I do not embrace, simply as I have no experience of any Other to determine such a destiny.

The notion of fate where I am most sympathetic is in the experience of amor fati, where I reflect upon my life and those experiences which I survived that I found myself thrown into, with utter indifference to my desires — the death of my mother, the abuses I experienced as a child, the two tumours I have survived and others — that involved suffering and struggle, with a feeling of affirmation that they happened and that I survived them, with an intense feeling of love for myself in the present and the presences I encounter following these experiences. Joyful appreciation for life now. I am not an optimist. I am confident that life will include pains and struggles until my death and will continue for those who live after me. I am not a hedonist. The love and joy I feel for my life, having survived what I have survived, does not justify those experiences — I do not need to justify them.

This morning I was gardening for a couple of hours, but I stopped with feeling tired, which is a residual impact of the ocular tumour treatment and having been intensely active recently. My body is not as strong or as fit as it was once. Still I have felt today an intense feeling of amor fati, with the songs of birds and bees and others I have encountered, for having met slugs, snails, worms, spiders, butterflies and self-seeding plants and the feeling of the suns warmth and the cooling breeze.

Where my amor fati differs with that of Nietzsche, who is most associated with the term, is that I affirm difference and becoming-different, which I consider to be at the core of the overcoming of will-to-power. My experience of amor fati intensely involves a love for the becoming-different that I experience, which might involve something of grieving what was, but is a joy for the present presence of what has become different. In as much as amor fati relates to Nietzsche’s notion of the eternal recurrence, I find myself struck by a feeling of absurdity and utter disbelief. The eternal is not something that I have any belief in, in part due having experienced a great deal of death within my life, as well as comprehending my mortality from a young age. If I am fatalistic in any way, it is the positive sense of affirming death as invariant and that nothing is eternal, which brings me great joy regarding much that I wish were different in the world. The love for the presence of living beings that is inseparable for me to this perspective of death’s invariance. This love of fate that includes a love for death that allows for new life by no means justifies death with reason or Cause. The questions regarding why we live and why we die are responded with equal indifference by the world and both strike me as absurd — all I see is that we live and die and then there is new life, which eventually dies, and I feel love for the presence of life and love those who die and make space for new life potential. Death here is not glorified or fetishised, but accepted and appreciated. With this, my amor fati is a yes-saying to life that includes death, rather than an appeal to eternity.

19

Nietzsche: I have largely considered Nietzsche’s thoughts on love to be his most significant failure as a philosopher, though as I write this I wonder if actually his most significant philosophical failure was actually to not be-in-love. Nietzsche’s writings on love almost always limit love to the practical and therefore reducible — I can think of no example of Nietzsche writing on love in any other way, so perhaps it is always. In only considering love within the practicalities of civilised-reductionism, which in the 19^th century industrial period were becoming increasingly reductive (much to the dismay to the Romantics), Nietzsche’s reflections on love are limited entirely to the Apollonian features of logic, illusions and boundedness, missing the Dionysian qualities of instinct, emotion, ecstasy and unboundedness — with civilised-reductionism being far more intense today, those 19^th century Romantics would be horrified. This failure is to not recognise love as where Apollo and Dionysus, I and Thou, the living and absurdity, individuality and holism meet. That love is irreducible and largely impractical — being thoroughly denuded and diminished by practicality — appears to be an intuitive awareness, shared amongst those I see to love intensely. (Nietzsche affirms in Twilight of the Idols that there is nothing outside of “the whole” — I would change it to “wholes”, as I don’t have any experience of any universal/absolute The — and is this not affirmed so intensely in the worsening nothinging/negating-mass-extinction-machinery of civilised life attempting to escape the irreducible holism of earthly life, with progressive, productive and ecocidal practicality?) That Nietzsche failed so considerably, in this respect, is a sincere disappointment for me, as I intensely value his thought.

One of the places where I can speak favourably about Nietzsche’s writings on love is where he observes that it is not a lack of love that makes for an unhappy marriage, but a lack of friendship — I can’t remember where I read this, but my instinct is that it is in Aphorisms on Love and Hate. With regards to my marriage, that we have found such joy and happiness together, amidst significant health struggles and other challenges that life has brought us, is very much rooted in the intensity of our friendship. Nietzsche regarded friendship as the highest form of love. I personally don’t ascribe to any notion of hierarchy in love, but I have a definite feeling of different intensities of love and strength of love. With this, the intensity of friendship between us has very much intensified the strength of our relationship and marriage. The happiness that we experience in this relationship is the greatest and most glorious aspect of my life.

20

Goldman: I can only imagine that Emma Goldman, who was fond of Nietzsche and Stirner and a fierce opponent of political absolutism, would be utterly revolted by her words being used for the political absolutism that I have witnessed many anarchist-polyamory advocates show towards marriage. I cannot imagine Goldman desiring some absolute law forbidding marriage, a dogma akin to those religious dogmas she encouraged rebellion against. While there are obviously oppressive marriages, that are lacking in love, where marriages are full of love there is great freedom — as Goldman affirmed, love can only really be free — and I know that within my marriage there is great love and freedom, which I will not abandon for the Cause of polyamory.

21

Bell Hooks: Hooks affirms loving as dangerous, with great risks of pain and grief — such as there is with living.

22

Armand: my first individualist-anarchist fascination was Armand and I am fond of his philosophy of love today. While his focus is mostly on the carnal and sexual, regarding love, Armand affirms love that is emotional and sentimental too. He also affirms a hatred for dead love, wanting love to be full of life — as well as a dislike for pornographers.

23

Shelley: the ecology of Love’s Philosophy, perhaps my favourite Shelley poem, is one of erotic-contact. Rivers touching oceans, mountains kissing the sky, sun and moonlight impacting the body of the earth. It ends with a singular encounter of asking to be kissed by another, some “thou”, which intensifies the appreciation for the “sweet work” of this erotic-ecology. There is some aesthetic quality that is apparent that appreciation for the eros-of-life is rendered easier when there is some-One, some love, who we can feels love for us.

24

Berdyaev: In his book Slavery & Freedom, Berdyaev states — “It is impossible to love everyone unless we use the word in the sense of caritas.” As charity, it is possible to love all individuals — Berdyaev is a Christian, here upholding the Christian theological virtue of caritas/charity, affirming that which, according to Thomas Aquinas, “unites us to God”. The phrase “solidarity, not charity” is often thrown around within activist conversations and as part of propaganda, usually with some notion of charity being an inherently top-down affair. Is solidarity though not, in these settings, not merely some notion on slavish duty to Cause, as a capturing of the desire to give and care, sublimated towards the ideology? Is this desirable? And what renders charity inherently top-down? If an individual with very little in property and social status sees another, who has property and high social status, who is perhaps say grieving the death of a loved one, approaches them in a charitable fashion and seeks to ease their suffering through contact and conversation, is this a top-down, hierarchical, act of dominance? The suggestion seems utterly absurd to me. The presentation of solidarity in “solidarity, not charity”, as slavish duty to Cause, seems to lack the feeling of love. In the sentence following the one previously quoted, Berdyaev says “(l)ove is choice”, affirming that there is a freedom in charity, which can hardly be said for the ideologies that push for solidarity, as the negation of charity — and their fucking totalitarian bullshit! This is not a rejection of solidarity itself, as I feel intense appreciation for many acts of solidarity, with the Sobibor and Treblinka revolts within Nazi concentration camps being examples that I particularly value. The rejection of solidarity is limited to that of solidarity-as-capture and solidarity-as-negation-of-charity.

I want to be able to love all individuals, not from the slavish duty of Cause, nor from the dogma of Christian virtues. My desire to be able to love all individuals comes with a quality of will-to-power/will-to-strength, and is of course absurd, as I have no ability to come into contact with all individuals and know that I fail to be loving towards all individuals I come into contact with. Charity/caritas is very much how I most often engage in loving-action, particularly with individuals who are strangers to me, as voluntary acts of giving, usually in an entirely non-political sense. I very rarely find myself practicing solidarity, as supporting others due to shared political perspective and some notion of “my struggle is your struggle and your struggle is mine” — this limiting of action to that of supporting only those with “common interests” lessens the terrain of loving-action to those deemed “worthy”; a mode of judgement that seems entirely top-down.

The absurdity of wanting to love all individuals is the possibility of the impossible being brought into awareness. It is possible that it is impossible to love all individuals, but is it impossible that it is possible to love all individuals? Does it matter if it is possible or impossible? If I want to do it, by what reason do I need to let some notion of futility prevent me from attempting it? A feeling of being free to attempt, with the possibility of impossibility is present.

25

Bataille: eroticism, within the thought of Bataille, is assenting to life up to the point of death. An experience of such intense presence, the limits of presence become overwhelmed and life affirmation morphs into the annihilation of the present, the self, the living individual — this reminds me of the paradox of enrichment, whereby the enrichment of an ecosystem will frequently produce its decline, as it becomes poorer for it. In truth, I appreciate Bataille’s notion of self-annihilation through erotic experience less than I appreciate his affirmation that taboo requires transgression to achieve something of completion — though does anything really complete? His fetish for self-annihilation strikes me as running on basically the same line of reasoning as those who preach spiritual transcendence and salvation, which I find to be at best absurdities and at worst false-hope. His thought on transgression and taboo reminds me that laws require illegality, in much the same stupid dance. As much as I feel no need to prohibit myself from any transgressive act because it is considered taboo, I question the need to act in such a way for the sake of it being illegal, as this merely affirms the law. Really, what matters to me is not “is this or isn’t this a transgressive breaking of a taboo?”, but “what do I want and what am I doing or going to do?”.

Kingsnorth and Hine, in their Uncivilisation Manifesto, describe “the myth of civilisation” as “the last taboo”, which for a period excited me, with their transgressive appeal for the breaking of this taboo. Does this transgression complete the taboo of the myth of civilisation, or if not completing it move it further in its completion? But I’ve neglected to state what this myth is, really, before I’ve asked the question. They call this myth that of progress, human-centrality and that of separation/nature. I notice myself feeling skeptical regarding the impact of mere transgression and breaking the myth of civilisation, which I, like Kingsnorth and Hine, find revolting and desire the end of. Transgression invokes the affirmation and reenforcement of taboo, such as we are seeing with conservative voices today seeking to repress sexual liberation; what is broken often can be fixed and made stronger. What I desire is the destruction of this myth, as the creation of far more beautiful stories; an iconoclasm akin to that of the destruction of a temple who’s ruins become habitat for all manner of creatures and lives who would have been forbidden.

26

Deleuze and Guattari: in their book Anti-Oedipus, Deleuze and Guattari write about “desiring-production” and write largely in terms of machines interacting with other machines, treating living beings, such as trees, badgers, bees, hedgehogs and hurricanes, as productive machines. This choice in concept, which strikes me as more than just one of language or wording, seems to be seeking to bring together their radical-monist ontological position with their Marxist politics and the Marxist fetish for industrial-productivity. The affirmation of life being oriented towards a desire for the creative, rather than towards death, as Freudianism pushes, is one that I share. But the difference between creation and creativity, and that of the industrial narratives of manufacturing produce, is phenomenologically and ecologically plain, in my eyes. While creation/creativity is an affirmation of the freedoms of life, industry and productivity embody what Camatte described as “the despotism of capital”. While Deleuze and Guattari excellently seek to revolt against the despotism of Freudian signifiers, they in turn push desire towards an (arguably more horrifying) mode of despotism.

Personally, I do not desire productivity, industry, capital or anything of the machiniverse. My desires are oriented towards creation, creativity, metamorphosis, becoming and genesis.

27

Abram: Gravity is affirmed as the force of love in Abram’s eco-phenomenology, which invites us to consider this planet as holding us all in loving embrace. With this, love is collapsed into; an involution, to borrow from Deleuze and Guattari. Love isn’t built, but falls and is fallen into. In this gravitational sense, maybe love is coming together in falling apart.

28

Jensen: Derrick Jensen is perhaps best known for his statement “love does not imply pacifism”, which I’d agree with. However, I do not share, though was certainly more sympathetic to the idea when I was younger, in the notion that love implies warfare, as Jensen pushes in his rhetoric.

29

Carpenter: Much like Abram’s philosophy of love being rooted in gravity, Carpenter affirms attraction (and repulsion) as fundamental aspects of life. Is love attraction or attraction love? Certainly in my experience of love there is the quality of attraction. Perhaps attraction is the coming together, with gravitational falling apart?

30

Snyder: where I have found Gary Snyder to most honestly share his love in poetry is when writing of the death of his wife.

33

Camus: the existence of rebellion requires love. This is perhaps my favourite aspect of the philosophy of metaphysical rebellion that Camus articulates. I notice that the more intensely folk love, the more intense revolt becomes.

34

Thoreau: to make a living, to live a life, through loving is an aspect of Thoreau’s anti-work philosophy that I intensely appreciate — so much so that I largely based an entire chapter of Revolting on it. Perhaps it could be said that work is that which is done without love. Activity done not for reasons or needing justification through monetary or spiritual gain, but with that great irrationality that seemingly subscends all reason or justification, called love, continually has that wonderful glorious quality about it.

35

Shepherd: in her poem titled Real Presence, Nan Shepherd wrote -“So simply to look on anything, such as a mountain, with the love that penetrates to its essence, is to widen the domain of being in the vastness of non-being. Man has no other reason for his existence.”

The love that Shepherd feels for mountains, beautifully articulated in her book The Living Mountain, is beautiful. Yes, to love deeply and intensely is to widen life before the vastness and awesomeness of death. Does this give existence reason, justification? I don’t know that existence requires reason or justification, and largely feel that such a notion is revolting. However, I appreciate Shepherd’s reason here, if only for it being so intensely not industrious or utilitarian.

36

Ramon Elani: in his essay Finding Strength in stones, Elani affirms that a love of life can inspire a desire to fight civilisation. How disappointing it is that his later philosophy became so much one of renouncing the fight and staying at home.

37

Bellamy Fitzpatrick: it is such a shame that so much of Fitzpatrick’s essay To Love The Inhuman involves so little of articulating love for the inhuman/unhuman/nonhuman, especially that pertaining to the animals who so frequently get call humans. With the rationality and intense reasoning that I encounter so much in his anti-civilisational thought, there is little space for that irrational love that I imagine subscends that rationality and reasoning. His movement towards “liberty and logos” (the title of a podcast he hosted with Amory Devereux), with liberty being a concept generally referring to state-granted “freedoms” and with logos generally referring to the appeal to logic, speaks to what has appeared to be an increasing lack of love in his philosophy.

38

Simone de Beauvoir: From The Second Sex — “[l]ove at a distance, however, is only a fantasy, not a real experience”. Is love real when close? Perhaps not only real when close, when love is regarded as a feeling. Love that is active though, felt and engaged in relational activity, where experience is of greater intensity, does require closeness, in my experience. Desire and attraction and care render distance maddening.

I want to be close to those who I love. I feel loved when individuals seek closeness with me. Katie puts her hands on my skin in a caring fashion; the cat we live with rubs herself against my leg; a friend asks to hang out together; all experiences where love feels intense. Likewise; when I place my hands on Katie and hug her; when I stroke Shiva, the cat who lives with us; when I suggest an opportunity to hang out with a friend; all moments when I am seeking to actively love.

Situations such as diaspora and migration in general can make closeness harder and this can impact on the quality of the love. I am glad to not have experience of fleeing the habitat where I have resided, due to war or global warming or colonialism, and found myself further apart and at greater distance from those who I love — that is a struggle I hope never to experience. This experience of exilic-love is one though that I imagine will be felt by many over the coming years and decades. I have known what distance can do to love, through the experience of my internal emigration within this archipelago, from London to Devon when I was 14. The closeness of friendships lessened with geographical distance and with that the active act of loving ceased. There are childhood friends who I can remember from London who I can imagine myself loving as fully as I did when we were close, should we meet again in body — this is fantasy though and currently not a real experience.

Of course, closeness is not enough to create loving relationship and there is a, as Sartre described, hellish and nauseating quality to the experience of prolonged closeness to individuals who we find no or little love for. With this thought, my mind turns to the worsening urbanisation and totalising closeness of folk flooding to cities, with little quality of love for each other — I remember this with a feeling of gladness for living where I do, nowhere near to London. The nauseating and hellish quality of urban-totalisation is one I have no desire for. There are those who would respond to this affirmation with something of an appeal for some notion of universal-Humanistic love; to which I would respond by affirming that cities are built upon the repression of love for life in a non-anthropocentric way and that I desire greater closeness and intensities of nonhuman/unhuman/inhuman experiences of love.

39

Rachel Bespaloff: “For Hector, love is the forgetfulness of self. For Achilles, self is at the centre of love.”

Does Achilles not lose himself in glory, forgetting who he is amidst social status? Is not the great tragedy of both Hector and Achilles that their loves became twisted and corrupted amidst statism and Empire?

“Homer and Tolstoy have in common a virile love for war and a virile horror of it.”

That love and horror so often co-exist, twisted and entangled around each other so that they are often barely distinguishable from one another. My love for badgers is so often twisted around my horror regarding the culling of these animals. My love for wildlife is entangled around my horror and revolt regarding domestication and mass extinction. The love and horror are different, but often barely distinguishable. I articulate my love for life through attempting to write horror stories, whilst voicing horror for the repression and annihilation of life in love poems.

“Against the eternal blindness of history is set the creative lucidity of the poet fashioning for future generations heroes more godlike than the gods, and more human than men.”

I’d rather be a poet than a His-Storyan and I find real value in writing love poems. Schopenhauer also affirmed the value of poetry over history. The rejection of history by Perlman and Quinn is anti-civilisational, unlike Bespaloff’s and Schopenhauer’s poetic rejections, affirming individual experience. My anti-His-Story/anti-history praxis is undoubtedly a blending of these affirmations of poetry and uncivilised life; though not a dialectical-synthesis. Thinking of this and Bespaloff’s affirmation of poetic heroism reminds me of the heroism Benjamin Fondane affirms in his essay Man Before History; where he articulates that heroism is to admit spiritual defeat and have the courage to continue with life regardless, which he did in writing poetry right up until he was murdered by Nazis at Auschwitz — perhaps, for me, the best heroic praxis I can embrace is to write love poems until I die!

40

Chekhov: the character Alyokhin, in Chekhov’s On Love, states in the penultimate page, as he finishes sharing his story with Ivan Ivanych and Burkin, this: “I declared my love and realised with a searing pain in my heart, how unnecessary, trivial and illusory everything that had stood in the way of our love had been.” Yes, how trivial, unnecessary and illusory is all that stands in the way of love. I look upon all that stands between the love for life and the living, civilisation, war, industry, etc., as trivial, illusory and unnecessary; and see love as the most untrivial, most necessary and real aspect of life.

41

Nietzsche’s words regarding actions being done out of love being beyond good and evil are well known. But, what is beyond? Also, what is good and evil? Beyond to me suggests God-like transcendence and disembodied Otherworlds, and good and evil feel like Causes and reason. I would rephrase Nietzsche’s notion to say that what is done out of love subscends good and evil and all reason. Love subscends, as is underneath at the radically earthly root of action, which temples to reason and Cause are built upon. Love as the most immediate unreasonable and irrational absurdity of life strikes me as being at the core of the aestheticist affirmation of “this for the sake of this”. When I act without seeking to justify my action within reason and Cause, without logical rationalisations about my activities, I notice a primal experience of love motivating me, fuelling the fires of my desires.

The question of whether or not to preserve life, which I largely consider to be the fundamental eco-absurdist question and the only significant philosophical question, I answer with the absurd “yes” to preserving life, believing fully that all die and that death is the only guaranteed promise of the future. For the question of why preserve life, my answer is the aestheticist preserve-life-for-the-sake-of-preserving-life, which is motivated by the absurd irrationality that is love. Why preserve my life, when I will die regardless of all efforts to preserve it? To love and be loved is my answer! Why seek to support the preservation of the lives of those who I love? To love them and experience loving relationships with them. In the darkest chasms of despair, the poetic qualities of love, the warmth and tender sensitivities of contact and care, empower and bring strength to the tiredest and most desperate of parts of our Being. When Viktor Frankl writes of the preserving power of love amidst the despair of concentration camp, he affirms that which subscends the reasons he affirms to survive; that Frankl found a reason to survive concentration camps, despite the loss of so many he loved, in rewriting and protecting The Doctor and The Soul speaks to me of love motivating his practices as a therapist — I marvel at his ability to do this in the conditions of concentration camps! What an intense experience of love I imagine he experienced, amidst the horror and grief and carnage and despair!

Philosophy of Ecological Despair

1

This morning I visited Flashdown Wood and walked there until just before lunch, after which I made my way over to Eggesford Forest by car. When I arrived at the larger forest site, I sat on a tree stump not far from my car to meditate, before I had my lunch and then went on another walk, this one much slower and more familiar than the earlier one — I have walked Eggesford Forest often and feel familiar with it, whereas the Flashdown Wood visit was my first (but certainly not last!). Neither are “natural”, in that they were planted in 1919 with the introduction of the forestry act, though that feels gross to say. Both are utterly beautiful and intensely wild spaces, save for the paths that are mostly used by dog walkers and families. That they have survived wars and live amidst worsening pollution and global warming inspires me. While walking through both, I took immense pleasure in meeting small ash trees, who I am fond of with ash surviving amidst the disease of ash dieback; many holly bushes, who I find beautiful for being evergreens and for being upfront about their hostile spiky dispositions; innumerable wild flowers, in particular foxgloves who I love for their strange and slightly sad shape; and the smallest oak tree I have ever met. There was a little light rain that I put my hood up (of my Earth First hoodie) for, many many birds singing and the frequent rumbling, rattling and growling metal sounds of industrial machines moving along the roads that were never too far away, or in the sky.

These walks were primarily done with a desire to care for my health, both for the ecotherapeutic qualities of forest bathing and for some gentle exercise, both of which I am feeling a need for more of — Daniel Quinn’s voice is in my ear encouraging me to get more of what I am needing. As well as these motivations, I came with a desire to reflect upon the matter of ecological despair before writing this. Ecological despair has been a subject I have thought about ever since the ecological shift in my thinking, following reflections on my experiences as a brain tumour patient. The feeling of despair, which is unique and different to each individual, seems to be a point of familiarity and familiar-feeling that intensifies relationship between individuals who are ecologically oriented in their care. While there is a certain beauty to these meeting in grief, there is also an entirely horrific quality to this, in as much as many of these individuals seem hellbent on worsening the ecological despair on others, whilst wallowing in their own — this frequently taking the form of “I am traumatising information dumping on you” and “if [insert preferred solution] were to happen this would all be fixed, but it won’t, because everyone else is too stupid” (and I am aware that I have behaved this way when I sat in despair). Through my days activities, the walking, encountering, meeting, reflecting, listening, seeing, smelling, I have reaffirmed for myself that which I wish to articulate here within this writing; that underneath this despair there is a deeper, darker, more primal feeling that lives in my core, and that connecting with that might be how I can survive this despair.

For several years I have been fascinated by the (“religious-Nietzschean”) philosophy of Lev Shestov, partly due to Camus’ disdain for it and the hostility he showed Shestov in The Myth of Sisyphus. This fascination intensified after finding Shestov’s translated works online, which I took to like flies on shit, and read with excitement, intrigue and painful stubbornness. Alongside the subjects of freedom and moving away from Athens (logic and rationality) to reach Jerusalem (religious-faith through resurrection and, as Leonard Schwartz describes “Hebraic passion”); Shestov pays most attention, within his thought to the matter of despair. Shestov views despair as a matter arising from the perceived loss of freedom, which occurs through the concepts of reason and necessity, as well as the loss of meaning and perceived certainty with the death of God in western thought (also a casualty of reason and necessity). But this despair Shestov regards as just the penultimate word, rather than final word, which is God for whom all things are possible, wherein Shestov’s affirmation of freedom is found. Shestov considers the push for reason and necessity within Athens as stemming from a fear of God, as absurd and unreasonable possibility, and ultimately an anti-life effort in philosophy, to which he refuses to conform — Shestov ultimately seeking to articulate a philosophy of life affirmation.

In The Myth of Sisyphus Camus accused Shestov of committing philosophical suicide for his embrace of religious life and faith, and to a point I agree, though I feel that Camus embraces ecological suicide, through his embrace of reason that conforms to the practicalities of civilised-domesticating reductionism, as the everyday normal life of this culture. When I consider Shestov’s rejection of Athens, reason and necessity, what I encounter most of all is a feeling of hostility towards reductionism; and like Shestov, I am more attracted to irreduciblity, though encounter it intensely differently. Camus finds reason in the practical and absurdity in the irreducible, whilst making the claim that “reason is useless and there is nothing beyond reason”; he makes this claim alongside describing Shestov’s position as “reason is useless, but there is something beyond reason” (which is God) and this is a fair comparison of his position and Shestov’s. My position is similar and different to both, in that I feel that reason is useless (though ecologically devastating as “usefully” applied through practical-life) and feel entirely agnostic towards there being anything beyond reason, but have a deeply visceral and primal experience of something underneath reason. Putting this another way; while Camus sits in the despair of reason and Shestov seeks to transcend (perhaps escape?) the despair, I want to subscend this despair and connect with what lies underneath — this being much of the focus of my Feral book writings. What I find underneath this despair is love, intuition, instinct, aesthetic-desires and will-to-preserve/life/power/survive, all of which are strikingly absurd and yet true, real and present.

When I met the tiny oak tree in Flashdown Wood, underneath my feelings of despair for it living in amidst mass extinction, dehabitation and industrial totalitarian agriculture (differing heads of the same hydra), there was a feeling of love for the presence of this living being, an aesthetic desire for it to be there and live well, a will to preserve it as well as I am able to, and an instinctive and intuitive feeling of responsibility for its welfare in that encounter (given my size, strength and ability to do it harm). In throwing myself into what lies underneath the despair, I am not sitting within it and do not find it too much. I have not negated nor transcended the despair. In caring for the oak’s life, the possibility of it’s survival is intensified, which is an absurd and fantastical notion in a great many ways, but still true.

2

From a desire to broaden this philosophy of ecological-despair, I wish to dialogically respond to some of Shestov’s statements that I feel are relevant to this matter.

*

“Philosophy must have nothing in common with logic; philosophy is an art which aims at breaking the logical continuity of argument and bringing man out on the shoreless sea of imagination, the fantastic tides where everything is equally possible and impossible.” Shestov, All Things are Possible

The logic of ecological despair strikes me as being that of reductionism, which is arguably that which Shestov is opposed to in his philosophical revolt against Athens, reason and necessity. Mass-extinction today is the result of the violence of industrialist and totalitarian agriculturalist reduction of habitats and non-Human life. Equally, the defeatists of ecological despair, who renounce their care for the health and wellbeing of life within this world and resign themselves to positions of enlightened-indifference, continually strike me as occupying positions of reductive reasoning (as Enlightenment just is), through sitting in the logic of ecological despair. I share much of Shestov’s affirmation of philosophy as an art for breaking logical continuity and feel that the invitation to invoke the imaginative affirmation of possibility is very much an invitation towards art. This is not to suggest art as a means of negating or transcending ecological despair. In this sense, art is a means of co-existing with ecological despair and surviving its presence, and revolting before the machinery that gives birth to this despair.

*

“For a sick man we call the doctor, for a dying man the priest. The doctor endeavours to preserve man for mortal existence, the priest gives him the viaticum for eternal life. And as the doctor’s business has nothing in common with the priest’s, so there is nothing in common between philosophy and science.” Shestov, In Job’s Balance

Shestov views the difference between the doctor and priest as the difference between philosophy and science. I view the difference between the doctor and priest, much like the difference between a healer and a revolutionary, as the difference between one who offers care, support, love and the possibility of wellness within this life, and one who offers promises of an-Other world and an after-life that resides in death.

To resign this world, this life, to death, in an escape to flee ecological despair for an-Other world and after-life, strikes me as hideously ugly. More than this though, I have no experience or belief in an-Other world or after-life and so do not embrace these promises. Amidst worsening ecological despair, I find most attractive those individuals who are skilled or learning arts of healing and healing arts.

*

“The obscure streets of life do not offer the conveniences of the central thoroughfares: no electric light, no gas, not even a kerosene lamp-bracket. There are no pavements: the traveller has to fumble his way in the dark.” Shestov, All Things Are Possible

Following this observation by Shestov; there strikes me as no pathway out of ecological despair. Travelling through ecological despair has the quality of fumbling-in-darkness. With this affirmation, it feels desirable to treat kindly those who bump into us in the darkness, without intent to do us harm and so no real need to defend ourselves; with an egoistic-desire that were we to bump into them through accident that they would not seek to harm us in response.

Those who are blinded by the brightness of their own Enlightenment and claim to provide paths out of ecological despair, will often seek to bite off the heads of those who bump into them and don’t immediately fall to their knees in adoration of the light. While it might be better to see the light from a distance and use it as a means of avoiding such individuals, I would be lying if I denied taking pleasure in art of avoiding their attempts at biting off my head. (Again art and logic.)

*

“Indeed, teachers live only on the alms of reason, and the students whom they force to submit to a nonexistent omnipotence are thereby weighed down and tormented.” Shestov, Athens and Jerusalem

This statement of Shestov’s immediately brings Derrick Jensen to my mind, as a teacher of the logic of ecological despair who instructs his students to submit to the omnipotent Other-worldliness of revolutionary politics, weighed down by Organisation and tormented by despair.

I have no desire to be a teacher, but wish to practice the arts of healing and healing arts.

*

“There are truths that one can see but cannot show.” Shestov, Potestas Clavium

The logic of ecological despair is shown over and over and over and over and over again, in writings, on television, online, in picture, in video, repeated over and over again ad nauseam, until individuals are so overwhelmed by revolted feeling that meaningful revolt is all but unattainable — or so it seems. Philosophies of ecological despair cannot be shown, in as much as they are felt in their arrival, as they are born with the individuals who embrace them. This genesis, as coming-into-being, can be seen and is seen, is visible, by an-Other, but attempting to show their presences manoeuvres them into the reductionism of the logic of ecological despair, which has the potential to cull them.

3

When reminding myself of Shestov’s thought for this book, I stumbled across a description of Benjamin Fondane as his student and, as I began to explore his poetry, immediately felt to bring Fondane’s voice into this — due to both his relevance to these writings and to honour this almost lost voice. Fondane was a Jewish-existentialist(/“co-existentialist” as philosopher Ann Van Sevenant describes him) and metaphysical-anarchist (as described by Laura Riding Jackson) poet, who was killed by Nazis at Auschwitz and who might have been completely lost and forgotten, were it not for his friend Emil Cioran and others writing of him. His poetry, which I have read through the collection Cinepoems and Others, and his philosophy, which I have read through the collection Existential Mondays and Other Essays — both translations are excellent — speaks deeply of a philosophy of despair that is intensely ecologically situated. Like Shestov, Fondane affirms the position of “all things are possible”, rather than concluding with despair.

*

“Yes, I was a man like other men,
nourished on bread, dreams, and despair.

Oh yes, I loved, I cried, I hated, I suffered,” Exodus: Super Flumina Babylonis, Preface in Prose

Like bread, despair is something that we are fed and, like Fondane, I do not feel to deny that it is part of me, us, this experience of living amidst the machines of mass extinction. As bread fuels the body and enables activity, despair fuels the will of individuals and gives life to creativity; also like bread, there are despairs of better and worse quality, greater and lesser nutrition, that will fuel and feed more or less healthily. Bread is not a food that can sustain an individual alone; other foods are required to sustain the body and nourish health. Likewise, despair is not enough to sustain an individual and preserve health and wellbeing alone, as will and creativity and revolt and desire and life requires more. The presence of cheese and eggs and spinach and tomatoes and olives and hummus and other foods upon a plate does not negate or transcend the bread, but provides a more holistically nutritional plateful; and likewise, despair might nourish us when it feeds us with courage, love, joy, revolt and other feelings.

*

“Know that one drop of blood

is an everlasting trumpet!” Exodus: Super Flumina Babylonis

The figure of The Absurd Man, with Sisyphean amor fati, is seemingly so present in Fondane — or, at least, was in his life (and haunts me now, as a friendly ghost). To find love for life within ecological despair is such a joyful encounter, though one that is so antipodean to the logic of ecological despair that to those logicians it will seemingly always be worthy of negation — such is the attitude of logic towards the irrational. But no logic can truly negate what a living individual experiences, unless they repress or renounce their experience before the authoritarianism of logic.

*

“but where was the homeland, mankind’s great homeland[?]” Exodus: Super Flumina Babylonis, Chorus

Loss is central to the despair within Fondane’s Exodus, such as it is for ecological despair. With loss, there seems to be a need for healthy grieving. That Fondane was denied the possibility of grieving, through being annihilated in the Nazi Shoah, is fucking revolting to me.

*

“He still sings badly, but he will get there

—what good will fleeing do him?
His discovery of the world is at an end ...” Exodus: Super Flumina Babylonis, Chorus

Amidst this global totalitarianism of industrial-agriculturalism, there is nowhere really to flee to and escape. Pollution can be found seemingly everywhere and global warming affects even those locations where this culture seems absent. Escapism, such as is advocated by those post-leftists and nihilists who advocate desertion, has all the qualities of false-promises in ecological despair. And yet, exodus, as wandering, nomadism and the abandonment of Empire, Leviathan, the colonial machinery of mass extinction, is undeniably attractive. Every day I sing and often it is terrible — will my wandering and nomadic exodus bring me to the “there” of the end of Empire/Leviathan? Radical skeptical doubt is an undeniable presence within me when thinking this.

*

“we have lost everything, we have lost everything,

all we have left is the road, the night,
and this shadow, which instead of destroying
the flame brings forth.” Exodus: Super Flumina Babylonis, Visionary Anger

Amidst night and shadows, fire brings warmth and light and despair may ease. There is an exquisite pleasure to be found in a campfire at night or in the warmth found in winter through a log burner while behind doors and under a roof. As I write this now, I have a candle burning; it is late spring and this is not needed for the warmth — this candle is burning for the aesthetic joy that it’s flame brings amidst ecological despair.

The fires of industrialism cast a shadow and terrible darkness upon the world, where ecological despair can undoubtedly be found. The fire and warmth of love might seem like an absurd suggestion as a means of surviving this space and it feels true to me.

Fondane’s night and shadow brings forth flames, and the night and shadow are brought forth by flames. This is a paradox. As we begin wildfire season, which is seemingly worsening with each year (as global warming intensifies), I am struck by the apparent aesthetic paradox of a wildfire’s awesomeness and terribleness. That fire can be so devastating and comforting is another seemingly paradoxical aesthetic quality; my candle comforts, while a wildfire burning through a forest will devastate those who live amidst or close to the forest.

*

“O real things, real but perishable! Real because perishable!” Elegies

This line within Elegies speaks to me intensely. That what is real has the quality of realness in its perishability speaks to the absurdity of preserving what is real, in that preservation doesn’t transcend or negate perishability, but reaffirms the potential for perishing in how it remains real through preservation. Here I would differentiate preservation from conservation, as antipodal in relationship, while perhaps seeming similar — like how there may be some similar qualities to the forests of Japan and the forests of Turtle Island, but they are geographically distant and different in many many ways. In preservation, we might seek to support the presence of wild strawberry plants to grow in habitats where they might flourish, or where they self-seed, without any aesthetic for culling and with an awareness that they and the habitat will one day perish, but a desire to support life as much as possible. In conservation, which has all the qualities of jam making and artificiality, it might be that the strawberries are harvested and their seeds retained for plantations within managed spaces, fruits perhaps made into a conserve that will last long past when the fruit would have perished and all quality of realness lost, along with any living beings culled for this retention of “natural resources”, which must never perish. The antipodal non-dialectical relationship between preservation and conservation, of similar but different, seemingly lasts up until conservationism, with its fondness for culling, seeks to dialectically negate the preservation of living beings under the Cause of conserving a resource deemed more acceptable due to utilitarian purposes. I have seen this happen in woods close to Torrington in North Devon, where exilic trees were culled and felled to plant native species — while this is revolting just for the killing of individual trees, that revolt is intensified with the awareness of how little forestation there is upon this archipelago, due to totalitarian agriculturalism and industry. Those perished exiles feel more real to me, even now as ghosts, than those saplings who have been planted where they stood and that is a horrifying experience to affirm!

*

“But is it of any importance
that this day be inscribed
a significant date in the motion of History,
of any importance that someone deceives himself on the staircase

or by the door, believes himself to be more than nothing in time,

not merely a handful of human odors ...
a guardian of the lighthouse, half mad with terror.” Ulysses XXI

Half mad with terror, guarding the lighthouses that aid those who seek to traverse through History; what is the other half doing, feeling, witnessing?

Too much a student of Camatte, Perlman, Quinn and Schopenhauer, I find myself continually revolted by History and its devotion. A cult of carrion, whose worship continually involves sacrificing the living for more carrion. How terrible it is that Fondane, like many others, was sacrificed for this cult, devoured by History.

*

“Empires newborn, empires crumbling

emerging from each other, lost
in each other.” The Sorrow of Ghosts, Case Dismissed XIII

Will new empires rise amidst the collapses occurring within this ecological crisis? Who can say? Those who claim they will for sure, such as Rhys Wildermuth and some (other) nihilists I have encountered, are seemingly politically optimistic, believing in Leviathan’s ability to weather all storms. I am not so convinced, but still cannot say.

If empires crumble into each other, which they seem to me to do, then perhaps my feeling that this Global Empire we live in is nothing more than an extension of the Roman Empire and that then Roman Empire is an extension of Mesopotamianism, may be right? Is it politically optimistic to think that Mesopotamianism survived through Rome and that the Roman Empire never fell? Perhaps not! As I say, I am not convinced that Leviathan will survive this mass extinction event, though I cannot say for sure. Ecological-existential uncertainty is true for Leviathan too it seems.

*

“The world expires. Old ghosts, get packing!” The Sorrow of Ghosts, Case Dismissed XXI

Be gone old ghosts! I see no place for you in whatever world will be born from the ruins of civilisation and this ecological collapse. Goodbye!

*

“Logic may well be unshakeable. It cannot resist a man who wants to live.” Existential Monday and the Sunday of History

The logic of ecological despair might be unshakeable; I do not know and cannot say for certain. That it cannot break my will to live, my desiring-life, my love for this absurd world, is an experience I have affirmed often.

*

“When reason pushes us into the abyss, it is the absurd that saves us in every instance” Fondane, Rimbaud le voyou

The abyss that reason has pushed life into is that of mass extinction, global warming, war, industrial servitude and all else that comes with Leviathan. Then there is the absurd, absurdity, absurdism, absurd-life. I do not believe that the absurd saves us, as I do not believe in salvation. Who gets saved, what is saved, when we all die in the end? No, absurdity has not saved me. In absurdity I find my preservation, as I live with death being one of the possibles that is affirmed in the affirmation that Shestov’s and Fondane’s philosophies make in the statement “all things are possible”, where my impossibility exists — a paradox where “all things are possible and impossibility exists” and “all things are impossible and possibility exists” throw me into a confusing affirmation of birth, death, genesis, extinction, creation, destruction and the unspeakable. My preservation is absurd, as the possibility of my impossibility exists. I still refuse to be pushed into the abyss.

*

In his thesis titled “Speaking from the ruins: Benjamin Fondane’s irresigned poetics”, Andrew Rubens affirms two aspects of Fondane’s poetry and philosophy that particularly stand out for me. The first is Fondane gesturing towards “affinities of anguish” and the second is of Fondane affirming the “unspeakability of violence”. Amidst the unspeakable violences of Leviathan, might it be possible, while absurd, to co-exist as affinities of anguish?

*

“You see then, that “barbaric” as he may be, Mr Hitler is not only reasonable but is Reason itself, sincere at last …” Fondane Man Before History

Hitler was not the conclusion of “sincere Reason” — will we see that conclusion in this mass extinction event as the conclusion of civilisation or the conclusion of life upon this planet and the conclusion of civilisation? As absurd as it feels to say, my instinct is the former possibility. Logic and reason, if these are really forces of Enlightenment, like the sun, then at a certain size do they not collapse in upon themselves into darkness, like a sun becoming a blackhole? This has been my feeling, my perspective, for many years. Is not this endarkenment, this collapse, not the true conclusion of “sincere Reason”? Fucking hell, I want it to conclude — so that possibility may emerge, liberated from Reason!

4

In a letter Kafka wrote to Albert Ehrenstein, Kafka is cited as having stated “[w]hen worries have penetrated to a certain layer of existence, the writing and the complaining obviously stop,”, with regards to his struggles with tuberculosis that eventually became his end. I read this as intensely speaking towards the limits of language and the absurdity of attempting to describe the experiences of pain and suffering (and love and joy) through words — the absurdity of seeking to reduce irreducible experiences to the logic and structures of language, of attempting to speak the unspeakable and the despair that this presents; and this could easily be compared to Fondane or Shestov.

“When worries have penetrated to a certain layer of existence, the writing and the complaining obviously stop,”. The empathy I am experiencing towards Kafka’s ghost right now is intense. The struggle to overcome illness and disease, Kafka tuberculosis and me tumours, has a quality of profound individuation, where familiarity with an-Other happens through the experience of Otherness; which strikes me as somewhat absurdly paradoxical (familiarity-as-Otherness). Friends who have also experienced disease and the individuation that the experience invokes, have held this paradoxical of our finding familiarity through our Otherness. In the points of relationship where eyes meet and there is a felt sense of the unspeakable being spoken in ways that language cannot articulate, writing and speaking are not needed. Where language fails, relationship can render despair survivable — if only Kafka could have found other beetles, chimpanzees, dogs and other dehumanising Others to have found relationships that enabled him to write amidst his suffering; I imagine his final stories would have been horrifying and great!

5

The conservative philosopher Edmund Burke supposedly stated “[n]ever despair, but if you do, work on in despair” — I have not read where he stated this. Whether or not he did state this or not seems unimportant to me. That the statement fits so well within the attitude of conservatism very much affirms that this is the type of position he would probably have postured. As with all conservatism, lived experience does not matter, needing to be repressed and/or negated, as what matters is the work, industry, productivity and “the way of” engaging in work/industry/productivity; as in route, pathway and destination — conservatism is a road map, leading to Rome (as industrialism, colonialism, empire, propertarianism and the state), with conservatives fearing straying from the path. This is the position put forward by Michael Oakeshott, in his book On Being Conservative, when he writes “(t)o be conservative, then, is to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the tried to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbounded, the near to the distant, the sufficient to the superabundant, the convenient to the perfect, present laughter to utopian bliss”. From this rationality — with the supreme-champion of conservatism Hegel (who is bizarrely loved by many who align themselves with rebel praxes and engage in revolts) stating “(t)he state is absolutely rational” — all manner of statist repressions being justified under the ideology; and it does seem to me that there is a link between repressive rationalising and the state.

But repression does not negate despair; it doesn’t really make despair go away. Irvin Yalom stated it well when he affirmed in his novel When Nietzsche Wept that “(d)espair is the price one pays for self-awareness. Look deeply into life, and you’ll always find despair” — conservatism as looking away from life, attempting no-saying and resignation. When I look into life and into myself I see deep and dark unknowns; untried experiences and activities; mysteries that I cannot articulate for their ineffable awe; an anarchy of irreducible choices, with the anxiety of no certainty on what to do; unbound and untameable inhuman wildness, without boarders; nearness and distance; a confusing terrain of abundancies and scarcities, sufficiencies and insufficiencies; nothing of convenience or perfection, with attempts at conveniences and perfectionism being utterly ruinous; and little of laughter in the present, with most conservatives seemingly seeking utopian bliss. This rationalised looking-away and no-saying, manifest in repression and self-denial, is easily seen in Jordan Peterson’s Kierkegaardian-type rational leap-of-faith — Peterson doesn’t encourage anything of self-awareness of looking deeply into life, but knights-of-faith, willing to sacrifice themselves (and their sons) before the state, rationalisation and repression. Thinking on this brings to mind these words from Rachel Bespaloff: “(t)hrough cruelty force confesses its powerlessness to achieve omnipotence ... We see weakness dawning at the very height of force. Unable to admit that total destruction is impossible, the conqueror can only reply to the mute defiance of his defenseless adversary with an ever-growing violence” — thinking about cruelty, powerlessness, weakness and violence, I am unable to turn my mind away from the sound of Peterson’s voice and feel horrified when imagining the cruel violences he has seemingly inflicted upon himself, to repress his feelings of powerlessness and weakness.

The conservative attempt to repress, deny, flee from and not engage with despair strikes me as an utterly insufficient response to this presence within the world, if it can even be called a response (if response means engagement-with). Despair lives on, lurking in those spaces that advocates of conservatism do not wish to look. The ecological-despair of global warming and mass-extinction lives on, regardless of Peterson’s denial and attempts to repress ecological-conversation; as does the homosexuality of a child living amidst a dogmatically-religious conservative household, the trauma of folk who have been brutalised by industrial-productivity desiring something different from that reality, and other aspects of the world that conservatives would deny and repress with state violence and rationalisations.

6

Many of the pessimists who I have been inclined towards calling miserablists have embraced fully the logic of despair, attempting to conclude with despair. Today it seems that Eugene Thacker is the loudest voice I have heard for the miserablist-pessimist call for despair — despairing-pessimism. In his book Infinite Resignation, Thacker states that; “the pessimist is a logician with an aptitude for disappointment”; “(p)essimism is the logical extension of humanism.”; and “(p)essimism — a sorrowful logician, dutifully at work” — Thacker is similar to Shestov, in that he affirms that logic/reason concludes with despair, but unlike Shestov concludes with logic as the final word, rather than treating despair as the penultimate word. Thacker’s logical rationalisations leads him to affirm 3 ontologies-of-world (or ecologies) in his (disappointingly uninsightful) book In The Dust Of This Planet: the “word-for-us” (anthropocentrism), the “world-in-itself” (objectivity) and the “world-without-us”, which he describes as lying “somewhere in between” the earlier two “in a nebulous zone that is at once impersonal and horrific”. What Thacker misses in his 3 ontologies-of-world, which doesn’t conform the logic of (ecological) despair, is the ontology-of-world that strikes me as being most immediate and intimate, which is the world not for or without “us” or anything of the objective in-itself; but the world-with-us (and us-with-world), which is also the world-as-us — “us” here being used in a non-anthropocentric sense to refer to living beings in a non-reductive sense, which is not Thacker’s meaning. The world-with-us and the world-as-us are where I am when I move passed despair — the world of presence, contact and love.

I feel to affirm a pessimism-of-despair, that I see as being far darker than that voiced by Thacker and other advocates of despair. Despairing-pessimism is not the same as a pessimism-of-despair; in despairing pessimism, despair is considered enough, which it’s not and that’s why it ends with suicide of resignation or self-annihilation — neither of which are sufficient conclusions to me. Pessimism-of-despair follows Shestov’s affirmation of despair as merely the penultimate word, with there being life after despair. After the last word, after life, there is the silence of death; and death and suicide are not the same, though some may say that they are and that both pessimisms have the same conclusion. In some unspeakable way though, my instinct is to say no, that they are utterly different. Perhaps this is an absurd notion, yet it feels utterly true to say. How is this pessimism-of-despair darker than despairing pessimism? How is the world-with-us and the world-as-us darker than anthropocentrism, objectivity and the world-without-us that lies between the logic of anthropocentrism and objectivity? It is darker because it affirms that logic and reason cannot enlighten a way and that not even suicide and despair are answers to this situation.

To Thacker’s logic of (ecological) despair, my response is simple: despair is insufficient, as is resignation and suicide.

7

If logic and reason articulate the penultimate word that is “despair”, how can the last word of a philosophy that affirms despair, rather than seeking a pathway out, and overcomes despair be articulated? Benjamin Fondane wrote poetry whilst living as a Jew amidst the ecological despair of Naziism, which as I imagine his experience and try to empathise with him, am rendered feeling intense feelings of heroism. I think of other Jewish poets writing at that time and look over In The Blue Mist by Abba Kovner, with a mixed feeling of appreciation for his early anti-Nazi rebellion and horror for his Nakam activities. The heroic poem We Still Fight On by Turgenev comes to my attention, with the last two stanza’s going

<em>“And, meanwhile, high overhead in the heavens hovered a hawk, destined,
perhaps, to devour that little warrior.

I looked, laughed, shook myself, and the mournful thoughts flew right away:
pluck, daring, zeal for life I felt anew. Let him, too, hover over me, my
hawk.... We will fight on, and damn it all!”</em>

Death’s Absurdity

1

In his absurdist philosophy, Thomas Nagel suggest irony as a means of meeting the absurdity of life, as opposed to despair or heroism. Perhaps the absurdity of life can be met with irony, if an individual is inclined that way. But for the absurdity of death, irony feels like a weak response. Irony does not meet the question of “how is it that death exists?” in any way that I am capable of seeing. To a child who has lost their mother at a young age or an individual seeking to apprehend that their friend has committed suicide, irony would be a revolting response, as such moments call for sincerity. With this, I feel that Nagel’s absurdist philosophy is utterly weak and insufficient.

2

In Man Before History Fondane wrote — “(a)n immense howl of terror rises up from our wretched earth and we ourselves are half crushed.” This could easily be a description of the first moment of grief, upon realising the death of someone we have love has died. What half crushes us is the absurdity of this moment. “How did they die?” “Why did they die?” and other questions that are ultimately unanswerable, when taken seriously, are crushingly heavy loads that arrive as terrifying howls from the darkest places in life.

3

“In that sense, life is only worth living for what it is; beyond it, only remains the nothing.” Bespaloff

Beyond life there remains only the nothingness of death and life is only worth living for life. Are Bespaloff’s words not a beautiful description of absurdist-aestheticist revolt against reason? The wherefore of life is life, which is not reason or purpose or justification, as there is no beyond. What then is the wherefore of death? In as much as reason, purpose and justification all pertain to the beyondness of the living, are they not all gestures towards death? The purpose of death, what lies beyond that beyondness, has an intense absurdity to think about.

4

My mother’s death when I was 7 years of age has rendered death a fascinating subject for me. I have also been intensely interested in freedom and creativity. These mutual interests has brought me to a perspective that is very similar to Shestov and Fondane, with this affirmation — all things are possible, including the possibility of impossibility.

5

Nietzsche’s cause-of-death is said to be pneumonia, some years after having had a stroke. It is said that he probably had a retro-orbital meningioma (a brain tumour), but who can say? Perhaps he was poisoned and the murder went completely unrecognised? Perhaps! What seems most obvious is that Nietzsche died as he was born into a life that contains death. But the cause-of-death’s existence strikes me as the most absurd of unanswerable questions that demand confrontation, even if no answer is reached.

6

Camus questions if suicide is a “solution” to the absurdity of life, but does not question if suicide is a “solution” to the absurdity of death. Does suicide solve death’s absurdness? I don’t believe so. Perhaps, when considered to be something that is coming anyway, at some point, death might be a means of avoiding the absurdity of suicide — it could be said that it is not worth the bother of committing suicide, when death will arrive regardless.

7

When reading these words from The Myth of Sisyphus “(a)t any street corner the feeling of absurdity can strike any man in the face”; I remember when I was out hunt sabbing in 2018 and discovered a badger sett that had been blocked, almost certainly by local cull enthusiasts, with those within dying unable to escape — an intense feeling of absurdity struck me in the face, before this death.

8

“The absurd depends as much on man as on the world” says Camus — and I believe that the absurd depends as much on death as on life.

9

In The Myth of Sisyphus Camus states that “(t)o Shestov reason is useless but there is something beyond reason. To an absurd mind reason is useless and there is nothing beyond reason.” Shestov’s absurdism is an appeal for beyond reason and Camus’ an appeal to reason that affirms reason as useless. My absurdism is an appeal for what subscends and is beneath reason, which I find in love, instinct and life. Does death transcend or subscend love, instinct and life? Also, how could such a question be answered?

10

“Living is keeping the absurd alive.” Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus

Is this not the first part of a paradox? Living keeps the absurd alive and, with death’s absurdity, absurdity is immortal!

11

Camus affirms that “(s)uicide, like the leap” (of faith) “is acceptance at its extreme” — and my recent health struggles have affirmed for me that I can do neither acceptance nor fighting at either of their extremes, as both would be my ending (in quite a suicidal sense), with survival and healing being a nomadic movements between the two. The struggles have also affirmed that suicide and the leap of faith are not answers that I find any truth in.

12

Camus draws from the absurdity of life three consequences — his revolt, freedom and passion — and these are certainly brilliant consequences, that I largely share in. However, his failure to respond to the absurdity of death means that he does not affirm any consequences from this aspect of absurdity. For myself, I can affirm these three consequences — my acceptance, responsibility and love.

13

For Sartre death is alien and that is at the core of death’s absurdity. I do not share in this experience of death — I find it uncanny, as strange and familiar.

14

Jordan Peterson states, amidst his rules for life, that death shames the living, which strikes me as the core message Peterson preaches — Peterson’s message is that living is shameful.

15

When my Opa died from throat cancer, after having recent had surgery on that part of his body, and when my Nana died from pneumonia, during the Covid Pandemic, amidst the sadness and loss there arose a confusion in me — how did they die in these ways? The answer to this question seems truly out of grasp. I have pondered this most with regards to my mother. Did she die from an administrative error at the hospital that meant she did not get a CAT scan or did she die from a brain aneurysm? The confusion regarding this remains some 26 years later. Rationalisations for cause-of-death are always limited in scope and never fully meet the question regarding death’s existence. How is it that living involves dying? How is it that death exists at all? Could life Be without death? Such questions seem to be the very death of answers, as answering them at all feels impossible.

16

There was a moment that Cioran attracted me as a philosopher and I wanted to explore his philosophy. This moment soon passed when I began reading him — much to the offence of a particular anarchist I was in conversation with. Cioran’s exhausted-absurdism and the ressentiment he articulates towards life, through his philosophy of death-as-immanent-to-life, feel very much to fit what Nietzsche called “despisers of the body” — I do not go Cioran’s way of despising the body.

17

“Fear of death is explained conclusively by the desire for self-preservation.” Shestov, All Things Are Possible

“… explained conclusively …”? I don’t know and don’t believe so. Replace those words with “… affirmed authentically …” and I’d wholeheartedly agree.

18

For Shestov — “(a)ll the best poetry, all the wonderful mythology of the ancients and of modern peoples have for their source the fear of death.”

My creativity has always been almost at its best when inspired by my fear of death and at its best when inspired by my love for the living.

19

“One might be compelled to die, no doubt, but nothing in the world can compel you to accept this death.” Benjamin Fondane, Rimbaud Le Voyou

Fondane wrote poetry as rebellion, as he did not accept the death that was Naziism, and he willingly entered Auschwitz, compelled to die by Naziism out of love for his sister who he refused to leave. One might say that these were meaningless acts that did nothing to stop Naziism’s industrial death machine. I do not say this though. I say that these are, to my eyes, triumphant acts of revolt.

20

In perhaps my favourite piece of writing by him (Man Before History), Fondane wrote “(y)es, even today, even empirically, the greatest heroism that we can ask of a man is to not sacrifice himself to an idea.” Is this contradicted by his choosing to enter Auschwitz with his sister? If it did that would not matter to me, or Fondane, as paradoxes exist and are true to me. But this does not have the quality of contradiction to me, as I do not experience love as an idea, but as an experiential awareness that is primal and subscends ideas.

The ideas that Fondane encourages the heroism of rebellion before, as I understand him, are those of sacrificing oneself for Cause and otherwise committing suicide out of despair for the ecological conditions one resides within — perhaps this goes part of the distance for affirming how I have not yet found anything really heroic in Walter Benjamin. While Fondane in his anti-Hegelianism encourages the heroism of not sacrificing himself to the Idea, Benjamin, devotee of Marxist-Hegelianism, commits suicide to avoid being captured by the Gestapo, avoiding all possibility of heroic rebellion whilst captured.

Both arguably pointless deaths by Jewish individuals who lived amidst Hitlerism and yet I feel affirming of Fondane’s love and disappointment for Benjamin’s despairing self-sacrifice before an idea.

21

The Sorrow of Ghosts is a fantastic poem by Fondane, full of fight and earth and struggle and death and phantoms and flesh. There is nothing of salvation in these lines, such as there isn’t in life. There is nothing of soteriological transcendence, as Fondane is ecologically affirming of this life, earth.

22

In Being and Having Gabriel Marcel states that “(t)ime is like a well whose shaft goes down to death — to my death — to my perdition. The gulf of time: how I shudder to look down on time! My death is at its bottom and its dank breath mounts up and chills me.” This is a very personal affirmation and can death be anything other than personal? I don’t think so. The personal quality of death is seemingly insurmountable, when considered authentically — which goes some of the way for accounting for how reductive, logical, de-personalised, analytic philosophy fails to articulate anything on death, or anything else, for me.

23

When I read Thacker’s article Dark Life: Negation, Nothingness, and the Will-To-Life In Schopenhauer, I find an individual desperate to validate the idea that death does not matter, because nothing matters, and, with this, find myself suspecting that, affirmed through fear, death does matter to Thacker and, though he would probably deny this, that all life matters to Thacker.

24

I appreciate Thacker’s necrological-politics, in as much as he affirms the decay of politics as the decay of the flesh. Attempts to deny the decay of our flesh are absurd, as death arrives whatever we do — regardless of necromantic technologies or rituals — as it is with the decay of politics. Soteriological-politics have all the qualities of necromancy, to my eyes, and I do not trust necromancers.

25

Anne, my mother’s mother, told me when I was about 9 or 10 that my mother would not have died if I hadn’t had been born and I carried that guilt with me for many years. Her life expectancy, had I not been born, is impossible to know. Perhaps she would have lived a long life and perhaps not. Finding a reason why for her death has always felt impossible. Was it the stroke, or the missed CAT scan, or the aneurysm, or the stress of raising children with a husband struggling with drug addiction, or having been raised in a repressive household with nothing resembling good health in any way, or some lingering impact from her past domestically abusive relationship that bore an aborted child; “all things are possible” feels true to this — and the realness of my mother’s impossibility is also apparent. Taken holistically, there are an irreducible multiplicity of potential aspects of my mother’s death, with the most prominent to me always being the missed CAT scan and the brain aneurysm that followed; and attempting to reduce that holism is an absurd task, bordering on existential vacuum.

26

“Extinction also presumes an ontology with respect to the emergence and passing away of life forms.” Eugene Thacker, In The Dust Of This Planet

Is this ontology not life? — during my childhood I was obsessed with dinosaurs, early hominids, mammoths, Devonian era fish and pre-Permian giant arthropods, and I now look at this as an affirmation of life as the ground from which the living rebel before extinction.

27

Nietzsche is well known for saying that “God is dead”, but what if it that instead it were “God is Death”? If so, could the cruelties of Nietzsche’s prolonged dying have been the revenge of the God who Nietzsche rebelled against so openly?

28

The cruelties of civilisation were to Fondane a byproduct of boredom, with murder and vengeance being “the supreme flower of a fully realised civilisation” — colonialism as the result of an existentially barren life makes sense to me, with a revolting bitter taste in my mouth.

29

In Slavery and Death, Berdyaev says “(l)ove conquers death, it is more powerful than death and at the same time it leads to death, it sets man on the verge of death.” Love conquers and leads to death — Berdyaev is a philosopher of paradoxes; and are paradoxes not living-absurdities (or perhaps living-absurdities are paradoxes)?

Absurdism might be a philosophy of unending paradox, which ends with the death of absurdists (perhaps).

30

Sustainability politics continually has the quality of a lie to me and inspires feelings of intense revolt. Nothing is sustainable, as everything dies. The attempt at sustaining civilisation, the machine of mass extinction, strikes me as nothing but prolonging ecological-abuse.

Permaculture also continually has the quality of a lie to me, but one that is more disappointing than revolting. I prefer permaculture praxes to that of sustainability politics, and nothing is permanent, as everything dies. Permanence is an absurd notion.

Perhaps eco-absurdist praxes is of unsustainable anti-politics and impermaculture? “Damn, this is all fucked” comes to my mind, with a mixture of sadness and gladness.

31

Turgenev’s poem To-Morrow! To-Morrow! is not long and then articulates so much of life and death and absurdity, and of revolt — his affirmation of to-morrow as comfort is a call to embrace the present as rebellion.

32

Abba Kovner’s poem Death Is Not To Be Preferred is a beautiful work of life-affirming rebellion — and I am continually disappointed by Kovner’s nakam, his attempt at mass slaughtering in revenge for the Shoah. Had he succeeded in killing 6 million Germans what would that have achieved; within his reasoning that the Shoah granted Cause for such slaughtering and with the slaughtering attempting to transcend the horror of what the Nazis did? The idea that the later killing would render right the former is utterly stupefying, but a popular one today — I often see the idea that executing a few billionaires would make right the deaths and suffering experienced due to their activities (and, like Camus, I have no desire to be executioner or executed). Death is not to be preferred and Kovner’s push for slaughtering is revolting.

33

When reading Thacker’s claim in Infinite Resignation of “(s)uicide: there is hope …”, I am reminded of Camus’ affirmation in The Myth of Sisyphus that “(o)ne kills oneself because life is not worth living, that is certainly a truth — yet an unfruitful one because it is a truism” — and I imagine Camus describing Thacker’s philosophy as being that of unfruitful truisms. I now have a craving for dried figs.

34

The lines from Shelley’s Ozymandius —

“Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare”

… come to me with warm feelings of even the “King of Kings” being rendered silent. I wonder if in rebelling against Reason, rationality, etc., I have become inclined towards Romanticism — perhaps I could be accused of this! (Romanticism feels like an accusation, which renders the idea more attractive.)

35

“I demand to speak to my palaeontologist!” Homer Simpson — palaeontology is the science of eco-absurdism, if there is a science of eco-absurdism.

36

From the depths of Earth’s flesh, rocks revealing fossils of anomodonts, temnospondyls, Devonian era sea-scorpions, leptictidiums and all manner of extinct creatures, the deaths of whom served no apparent objective, no ideological Cause, no great purpose and seemingly achieved nothing in the process, lay bare the awareness that after all this death that organismic life has experienced since the pre-Cambrian boom, nothing has been achieved that alters death’s arrival. The horror of cosmic-pessimism, found through the telescope, pales before that of this eco-absurdist affirmation revealed in rocks that may be held in my hand. I pick up a trilobite fossil in my living room and feel the weight of it in my hands with an intense feeling of futility and appreciation for this arthropod who I imagine fighting to survive.

37

When thinking about the Permian-Triassic droughts I feel a strange mixture of horror, for the struggle to survive that would have been experienced then, and relief that this ecological crisis in no significant or noticeable way impacts upon my life. Perhaps, long after this mass extinction event, I may be discovered as a fossil and some creature, in a new Earth, will take no notice of my skeleton made stone.

38

I enjoy southern gothic country music, with lyrical focuses on death and god.

39

Imagining Silurian era wildfires alongside the movement of aquatic creatures to the land, theres a certain absurdity to the thought of “why bother, there’s no fire in the water?” and here we are. As I type this there are reports in the news of wildfires in Greece, which have killed two people so far. If those Silurian plants hadn’t evolved and the creatures moved on to the land, those people wouldn’t have died, right; so it’s their fault? As much as this is sarcastic; is this not a logic used by many political ideologies?

40

The absurd existential-struggle to overcome extinction is not a new or modern phenomenon, but one of the most primeval aspects of organismic life upon this earth. The absurdity of this lies in the awareness that no organism has or will evade death. Still, these living presences will on — fools, perhaps, but heroic fools.

41

I prefer existential-primevalism to anthropological-primitivism, for its non-anthropocentrism and subsequent holism. The key difference, beyond embracing or not embracing anthropocentric-reductionism, is that the former actively affirms the absurd that the later flees from — John Zerzan is an advocate for hope, who wrote a whole book trying to convince the reader of reasons to hope. In this book he writes about certain academic’s views on origins (in his general negative-dialectical manner), the origins of political hierarchies and engages in other anthropocentric-historisations, but does not in anyway affirm anything on the origins of organismic life or extinction, whilst seeking to appeal for hope. I wonder if hope is possible without anthropocentrism?

42

Existential-primevalism is entirely based in the stories found in rocks, the stories of fossils, and in them I find a great and absurd pessimism-of-strength. Cosmic-pessimism is based entirely in rational-faith in the stories told by technologies of the extraterrestrial and seemingly entirely gestures towards encouraging cowardice and weakness. Both tell stories of futility, the later seeking to encourage defeatism and the former encouraging absurdity.

43

After the the K-T extinction event, where approximately three quarters of plant and animal species died out, during the Eocene, forests covered most of the lands of this Earth.

44

The anarchist publisher CrimethInc put out a short piece on their website titled Suicide and Despair that affirms life as the potential for rebellion. I like this piece, but prefer Albert Libertad’s writings on the subject, as I find him more passionate and engaged with the subject matter. Maybe this is my preference for individuals over depersonalised Organisations.

45

There is a piece, by that most infamous of anarchists called Anonymous, titled Sacrificing Life: What Did Zhlobitsky Recall? that valorises Mikhail Zhlobitsky as a martyr worthy of praise, as part of the Cause of Anarchism. As I cannot imagine how his suicide-bombing could have helped any anarchists in any way, or weakened the Russian state; I wonder if Mikhail Zhlobitsky actually killed himself to kill himself, but attempted to escape the absurdity of the action by granting it reason through ideology — an attempt to absolve himself of being responsible for his death, i.e. “I didn’t kill myself, anarchism killed me”.

46

Anarchist writer Joe Peacott wrote a piece in 1996 titled Death and Anarchy, published under the BAD (Boston Anarchist Drinking) Brigade. In this piece Peacott sought to defend the freedom to commit suicide and does so as if this were a right or liberty, very much in the fashion of libertarian-politics. I wonder if any thought was considered as to whether or not suicide is desirable, when Peacott sat down to write. The freedom to commit suicide strikes me as not needing to be defended, as anyone can take their life if they want to, with Peacott’s position appearing to be just bad faith. I wonder if, rather than attempting anything of defence, Peacott actually intended something of encouragement, wanting those who read his words to be inspired to commit suicide — I wonder the same thing when I have come across individuals seeking to defend the right to speak racist rhetoric, as if anyone could be stopped from voicing racist rhetoric if they wanted to do so. Perhaps this is bad faith on my part, but I cannot fathom another motivation for the piece being written.

47

In an article published in 2021 Revista Estudos Libertarios, Cello and Bruno Latini Pfiel wrote an anarchist-historical analysis of suicide and life preservation, which, like many anarchist-academic writings, is just so utterly impersonal and devoid of feeling. I am very much of a similar mind to Nietzsche, that the best writing is written with blood; though would say that with regards to suicide and life preservation anything less than a mixture of blood, sweat, dirt, tears, saliva and the secretions from genitals is utterly lacking. I wonder if I am being unfair, but then doubt it.

48

Raoul Vaneigm’s thoughts on death, in his work Address To The Living, are beautiful but anthropocentric. Vaneigm treats humanisation as an antidote to death’s “denaturation” and “desacralisation”, and throughout the text seemingly regards “the human” as ontologically greater than and separated from “the animal” — an anthro-supremacist account of life and death would be an unfair description and I want to be fair towards Vaneigm.

49

Death is perhaps the most attractive character in Pratchett’s Discworld books — a cat loving grandfather who is fascinated with humans.

50

An agriculturalist — the Grim Reaper wields a scythe.

51

John Zerzan’s writings on “the age of grief” include nothing of grieving — is this absurdity or disappointment?

52

A few years ago I had a brief online conversation with Patricia MacCormack, author of The Ahuman Manifesto, which did not go well. MacCormack’s philosophy is oriented towards encouraging extinctionist and antinatalist politics, promoting the Cause of a human-apocalypse — evidently she found my life-affirmations irritating, as I found her death-fetishisation revolting. The truth is that I find the idea that extinction is a means of improvement, meliorism-through-death, as stupid (in every sense of the term). Specicidal-suicidism or suicidal-speciesism? Either way, an absurd ideology and Cause, that I feel an instinctual hostility towards, a desire to reject and a will to rebel against.

53

I vastly appreciate Tom Hiron’s poetry more than his politics — the former has the qualities of courage and strength, which I see less of in the later. His poems My Dismantling Walls, The Dead Fathers and Songs For An Impossible Future, are all beautiful works that deal with the subject of death. The last of those poems, with its rejection of logic and affirmation of the possibility of the impossible, is perhaps my favourite by him — full of the qualities Fondanean heroism and Shestovian irrationalism (probably without any influence from these philosophers); it is a wonderful piece of writing, that I would describe as eco-absurdist in aesthetic.

54

Shestov states in All Things Are Possible that “(w)e must make use of everything, even of death, to serve the ends of this life of ours”. The immediate feeling is one of wanting to rebel against this notion of “must”, which by the point that I’ve reached the word “ours” has become something of strangeness.

55

“ … for it is only as an aesthetic phenomenon that existence and the world are eternally justified …” Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy

Life is aesthetically desirable.

Death is rationalised under Cause.

Both are absurdities, which we choose to embrace or not.

56

“Conscious of the truth he has once seen, man now sees everywhere only the horror or absurdity of existence … [art] alone knows how to turn these nauseous thoughts about the horror or absurdity of existence into notions one can live with …” Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy

Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy is an under appreciated great of philosophy of absurdity and aesthetics — full of pain and suffering, affirming of life and creation.

57

“Death. — The certain prospect of death could sweeten every life with a precious and fragrant drop of levity—and now you strange apothecary souls have turned it into an ill-tasting drop of poison that makes the whole of life repulsive.” Nietzsche The Wanderer and His Shadow

An irrational truth, which is true and irrational; followed by revolt — I read this as an appeal to heroic-rebellion.

58

In Beyond Good and Evil Nietzsche states that “(t)he thought of suicide is a powerful comfort: it helps one through many a dreadful night” — I notice that, despite the intense discomforts he experienced throughout his life, he did not kill himself.

59

“… a man would rather will nothingness than not will.” Nietzsche, Genealogy of Morals

Will-to-death is absurd and I am revolted by the male-suicide-crisis.

60

Following a message from a friend, my mind is somewhat full of thoughts about “maleness”, male-socialisation and being viewed as Man, and what that might mean to the viewer — and there are thoughts about my gender-nihilism and desires regarding healing-from-patriarchy. I have also seen, through the online spectacle, that today is apparently world mental health day, and I am re-minded of male-suicide rates, those I’ve known who have taken their lives, as well as those I’ve known who have survived suicidal-ideation (including myself). There’s a paradoxical and somewhat disjointed quality to desire to negate and heal from this thing of being told “you are a man and this is what a man is”, while also wanting to affirm this men’s mental health crisis.

61

“If a man knows the wherefore of his existence, then the manner of it can take care of itself.” Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

The above quote is often translated differently, but this is my favourite translation as I prefer the term “wherefore” to “reason” — “wherefore” strikes me as active, chosen and willed, whereas “reason” is something placed upon or the result of Causal-historisations. If I try to find a reason for my being alive then I encounter an abyss where I find nothing, but the wherefore of my life, what I have come here to do, is something that I actively create (regardless of its futility or absurdity).

While all sorts of reasons might be given for death, all of which would be absurd-reasons to me; death is not here to do anything, as it engages in no activities — this seemingly goes along way to describing what is at the core of death’s absurdity.

62

A reflection from Nietzsche’s Ecce Homo — fatalism is the inversion of revolt and revolt is the inversion of fatalism; and I might be an anti-fatalist-fatalist, or maybe a determined-anti-determinist(?).

63

Shakespeare’s character Hamlet’s soliloquy articulates the only real philosophical question — “to be or not to be?”

64

Marlowe’s Faustus: a man condemned to die; or, simply, a man — the real horror of Faustus has nothing to do with demons or hell, but in how ordinary and banal Faustus is.

65

John Muir wrote that “(t)he woods are full of dead and dying trees, yet needed for their beauty to complete the beauty of the living.... How beautiful is all Death!” And yes, there can be a beauty to death — a tree felled by strong winds, with mushrooms growing on it and all manner of beetles, woodlice and others making a home from the decaying corpse, is a gorgeous sight. But this is not all death — I do not see this beauty in war, rising suicide rates, the annihilation of habitat for industrialisation or the culling of wild animals.

66

““Like trees in autumn shedding their leaves, going to dust like beautiful days to night, proclaiming as with the tongues of angels the natural beauty of death.” Muir, Steep Trails

I am enjoying the beauty of autumnal death — leaves falling to the ground and bursting with colour.

67

John Muir once wrote “I felt degraded by the killing business, farther from heaven, and I made up my mind to try to be at least as fair and charitable as the snakes themselves, and to kill no more save in self-defence.”

Self-preservation is a sensible motivation for killing — the only one that I feel aesthetically comfortable with — and it remains absurd, as regardless of how much anyone preserves themself, they will still die; rendering each killing an absurd act.

68

The notion of “win-win”, which is at the core of reconciliation-ecology, strikes me as existentially dishonest, given that there is always loss/death — almost always the loss/death of that which is irreconcilable with the push for systematisation (through culling) when reconciliation-ecology is put into practice. The tragi-comic quality of reconciliation-ecology is how much the push for systematisation is rendering the machinery of mass extinction more sustainable, in a way that strikes me as utterly lose-lose and in no way pertains to anything of encouraging co-existence. With this, my feeling is that ecological praxes of non-reconciliation that affirm the irreconcilable, encouraging co-existence rather than systematisation, are entirely desirable. Shestov and Fondane articulated philosophies of irreconcilable co-existence, largely through the notion of “Athens and Jerusalem”, where they chose Jerusalem (as freedom, poetry, faith, etc.,) rather than Athens (as necessity, logic, reason, etc.,) without seeking to deny or negate the presence of Athens. In as much as I see the push for ecological reconciliation as systematisation-within-totalitarian-agriculture (Mesopotamianism/Leviathan); my feeling is largely that Shestov and Fondane didn’t go far enough in affirming irreconcilable co-existing, which is something that could be argued as being due to anthropocentrism of the conversations that they were engaged in — perhaps/maybe. A holistic philosophy of irreconcilable ecological co-existence has all the qualities of unspeakability — perhaps I would do better to write this as poetry, which was Fondane’s approach to attempting to speak the unspeakable — and paradox, as win-lose = lose-win = win-win = lose-lose; and I notice the absurdity of trying to articulate what is irreducible through the reductive medium of language.

I know that there is no possible ecological reconciliation of tumours growing within me and my personal survival — that I can see. There is no win-win for me with these diseases of civilisation, whose survival would be the loss of my co-existence with those I love and co-exist with. My winning is the tumours loss. The tumours loss is my winning. My winning is the winning of those who love me and co-exist with. Loss is seemingly inevitable, as death is invariant.

Death’s invariance presents another irreconcilable ecological truth to me — that of will-to-life’s absurd trajectory towards death. I don’t know of a way to truly speak this unspeakable presence, as even poetry feels an absurd medium for this.

69

W. H. Auden wrote in his poem September 1, 1939 that the choice “we” need to make is between love and death, and I agree, until the point that choice becomes impossible and the challenge is to die and still love.

70

“Humility before the real, before untamable existence, is what we learn from the grief and supplications of the tragic poets and the exhortations and lamentations of the prophets.” Bespaloff

Before the absurdity of death the arrogance of reason is obvious foolishness, like a celebrity or a politician denying what is just plain to see.

71

Rachel Bespaloff affirmed that “(a)ny estimate of life must be confined to an awareness of its inexpressibility”, which I would say is also true for death — any attempt to speak about death is impossible (and I wonder what the fuck I am doing).

72

Camus stated in The Rebel that history is “nothing but a prolonged fight to the death”; so perhaps anti-History rebellion is a fight-to-life (sometimes prolonged and sometimes short-lived)? I don’t know which feels more absurd than the other and I question the notion of quantifying absurdity.

73

Alejandro de Acosta, in his book How To Live Now Or Never, looks to link absurdity with dry wit, also known as deadpan (emotionless comedy); and I wonder if he has ever attempted dry wit at a funeral — for the absurdity of death, dry wit feels like an utterly awful response.

74

Three personal truisms; first that death is meaningless; second that death serves no purpose; and third that there is no reason for death to exist. Now I feel embarrassed for having truisms.

75

In his essay in the infamous eco-extremist journal Atassa, Ramon Elani writes “(i)n being-for-war, death is a biocosmic event that produces alterity. The warrior rushes towards death. It is not clear that the desire for glory entirely eclipses the desire for death …”; that “(w)ar is pure aggression, the desire to annihilate your enemy, the desire to bathe in blood, to raise grisly trophies to the heavens …”; and that “(w)e must refuse to shy away from the importance of violence in the creation of community …” — and then went on to abandon his praxis of war-fetishism to articulate a quietist philosophy of homeism. I wonder if the absurdity of war became apparent to him, with this change (if it was not just an attempt to lessen the hostility he experienced from anarchists pissed off with the Atassa project).

76

In the second edition of the Atassa journal there is a piece by Ezra Buckley, arguing that serial killers act as antibodies to modernity; which is strikes me as an utterly absurd notion — is a serial killer anything less than modernity personified to the limit an individual is capable of (and is/was eco-extremism anything less than hyper-modernity, masquerading as anti-civilisational rebellion)?

77

Zafer Aracagök names Putin and Trump as the supreme advocates of what he calls suicide-bomberism — is this the supreme politicisation of reason (Cause, ideology, economics, manifest destiny) collapsing into absurdity (death and killing)?

78

Kafka: “(a) first indication of glimmering understanding is the desire to die” — and a second indication of glimmering understanding is following desire to live and choice not to commit suicide, which Kafka never chose for himself.

79

“Like a path in autumn: no sooner is it cleared than it is once again littered with fallen leaves.” Kafka, The Zürau Aphorisms

Every dying body decays and grows into someone new — like the absurdity of clearing a path that is immediately recovered by leaves; suicide is the absurd act of seeking to end life that will invariably arrive at life anew.

80

Kafka affirmed that “(n)o one can crave what truly harms him” and it is my belief that suicide is never, really, craved/desired/wanted; only ever rationalised and reasoned (and the end point of rationality and reasoning).

81

Augustine stated that “God did not make death, and he does not delight in the death of the living” — I somewhat bitterly think that God did not make death, because God did not make God, as death is God, and that God’s displeasure in the death of the living is in seeing “himself” (patriarchal language) in the living.

82

Listening to Emmy van Deurzen encourage individuals to think about their deaths and life, when fearing death, and to embrace existential-courage — I hear her and think of the absurd courage of pagan-heroes.

83

In an interview where he was asked about what he would want his final words to be, Andrew Tate speaks about courage and how it is better to die courageously and be remembered for being courageous, than to live a long life as a coward. I wonder though if dying-to-be-courageous and achieve something of immortality within the human consciousness, is actually a courageous death, but a narcissistic-suicide; which might just be what Tate is engaged in?

84

When Feral Consciousness first got published, an anarchist friend who went by the pen-name of Rudester asked me how it felt to have achieved immortality, through being a print-published writer, and I immediately felt like an absurd creature.

85

Husserl considered nonsense and absurdity as different, which they are — and this is not being denied. Ecologically where they meet and permeate each other is with the absurdity of death being the birth of non-sense; in death all sense is lost and the dead are senseless.

86

My mother had two abortions during her life. The first was before I was born and the second was after. The first occurred within the context of a physically abusive relationship and I understand the reasoning of aborting the baby to save herself. The second happened between the birth of my sister and my mother’s death 4 years later — I am not sure when and I believe was done due to the pressures of having two children already and a husband struggling with drug addiction. The tragic absurdity of both of these abortions is that neither saved my mother from dying aged 34 in April 1999. I can respect her choices and I grieve all three deaths.

87

Camatte’s proto-primitivism/proto-accelerationism — affirming the death of capital/technology/civilisation/statism/Leviathan and the absurdity of attempting to maintain this machine, is absurd as his Marxian-Hegelian method of rationalisation is rationalising-towards-irrationality — death is not rationalisable in its absurdity. The death of the System cannot be rationally justified or rationalised away. I largely agree with Camatte’s position, but do not need to turn to Causal reasoning to justify the belief that this culture will destroy itself, as instinct and intuition are fine for me. Like Camatte, what is important for me is to affirm the creative potential of what might grow from the decaying corpse of the machine — a fertile void of immense, horrifying and inspiring potential and possibilities. Yes, this is absurd; yes it is.

88

The deaths of Socrates and Aragorn! — it is absurd to connect them and they feel connected.

89

The ongoing wars between Israel and Hamas, Israel and Lebanon, Israel and Iran, Israel and The Muslim Brotherhood, etc., all bring bitter feeling to my mouth. Mass slaughterings justified under the reasoning of Cause are revoltingly absurd to me. Still the rationalisations go on and will do, until, as rationality does, they end in lived-absurdity or the absurdity-of-death.

90

All manner of rationalisations about death being an illusion may be constructed. Scientistic, spiritual or whatever other mode of reasoning may justify the claim that death is not real. Subscending this, as primal-truth, instinct, intuition, the phenomenological encounter of absence, love and grief, all affirm that death is real, whilst being absurd.

Tanz

1

I cannot imagine that Nietzsche’s affirmation that a day is lost if one has not danced would be limited to “dance” meaning only dancing, though definitely not excluding dancing. It seems better to interpret that affirmation of dance to pertain to all imaginable actions and activities where life is celebrated for life’s sake — which may include singing, sex, enjoyable conversation, a walk in woodland, good food and drink, joking and playing, and more other suggestions than I could list here. A dance, or tanz, praxis of daily life-affirmation appears to me to be both desirable and needed, both for myself and for those attempting to survive this culture. While on the harshest and hardest of days embracing tanz can feel near impossible; it is extremely rare for me to go a day without relishing a celebratory pleasure.

2

Schopenhauer rejects dance in The World as Will and Representation and is this not at the core of the failure in his philosophy? Music glorified, with bodily renunciation — yes, to me this is failure.

3

I agree with Emma Goldman — dancing is preferable to revolutions; in fact I would propose that tanz-praxes of life-affirmation are more desirable rebellions than any revolutionary-politics seeking to negate this world to construct a new one.

4

I am intensely attracted to Rachel Bespaloff’s affirmation of dance, where individuals embrace their bodies and celebrate their flesh, in her presentist philosophy of l’instant where — “… in the moment, happiness is in our reach.” - as part of an anti-Hegelian revolt against history. In my book Feral Iconoclasm I attempted a similar affirmation, where embracing the living-transient-egoistic-present was considered as dance; again as an anti-history/anti-History philosophy.

5

Peter Lamborn Wilson/Hakim Bey began his affirmation of poetic-terrorism with affirming “(w)eird dancing in all-night computer-banking lobbies” — and perhaps the real tragedy of his thought is that he focused more on the building of churches rather than on dancing.

6

“The revolt of the flesh is the absurd.” Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus

Tanz is flesh in revolt — absurd rebellion against History.

7

Erich Mühsam’s play Thunderation! is thematically centred on song and dance as aspects of rebellion.

8

Dancing the tango was apparently a significant aspect of Argentinian anarchist-culture and migrant-culture, as well as in other areas of Latin America, in the late 19^th and early 20^th century — intuitively this makes sense.

9

In an article published by Fifth Estate titled Roses and Nightingales, Wilson/Bey suggests Sufism as an Islamic-anarchism, and affirms music and dance as aspects of that praxis.

10

Tanz is a Yiddish word for dance that is also an expression of joy.

11

I feel pained that Zafer Aracagök’s essay Rhuthmos / Arithmos Deconsidered says so much on the deterritorialisation of rhythm but barely mentions dance; saying nothing of dance as a deterritorialising/decolonialising force.

12

When this period of health struggle has passed, I would like to learn capoeira — the dance that is a combat sport.

13

When I was first diagnosed with dyspraxia my mother put me in ballet and Irish dance classes, to help me improve my balance and coordination — this was when I was about 4 years old. At some point I was given videos of Riverdance and Lord of the Dance, which I would watch repeatedly, amazed by the spectacle of bodies moving to music. When Maria Pages and Michael Flatley performed the piece Firedance I had my earliest experiences of sexual attraction that I can remember. The dance lessons stopped after mum died and I watched those videos far less — there is a part of me that wishes that I had kept learning ballet in particular.

14

Thinking about diasporic-folk engaging in traditional dances I have mixed feelings. What is the preservation of a living presence? What is a conservative attempt at conserving what has died, preventing decay and new creativity? What is tanz — joyful embrace of the immediate, the present, l’instant, now, as revolt? What is a historising effort in politicising?

15

“And once I wanted to dance as I had never yet danced: I wanted to dance beyond all heavens.” Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathrustra

Yes.

16

When describing the experience of a earthquake John Muir stated that “(y)ou will then find your feet playing a tune, and quickly discover the music and poetry of these magnificent oak piles …”

An earthquake may be a “natural disaster” and it also might be an opportunity to dance with trees.

17

“I do not have enough faith in reason to subscribe to a belief in progress, or to any philosophy of History.” Camus, The Almond Trees

The more I write about tanz here the absurder it feels to do so. The choice to write about dance rather than actually dancing feels senseless. Soon I will dance, once I have written these last words on tanz.

I want to imagine a foolish historisation for a moment — instead of the syndicalist vision of the general strike, where all workers spontaneously abandon their labour and take to the streets on one glorious day, an alternative glorious day where all participating in the planetary worker machine stop to dance and make music and fuck and eat and drink and joke and sing and share stories and play games and it would be The Great Anti-History Festival. I have no belief that this would happen and can also affirm the Shestovian affirmation that all things are possible — this might be possible. This is not the point of tanz though, as I am seeking to affirm tanz here.

Dance is used in many different traditional medicine praxes for healing and I care for health more that History. In l’instant there is space away from the seemingly endless battering of History, where recovery is possible. History is not negated or transcended through tanz; but rendered illusory and de-structured/destroyed.

18

With my aversion to systematisation, I am not going to attempt to construct or design any choreographies here. My preference is for free creativity and I would feel like an imposter if I attempted to suggest how anyone else ought to dance.

Nihilism and Weird Positivity

1

No future — I am a nihilist in that I uphold the stance that there is no future; and I am an absurdist in that I don’t consider this very important, or reason to cease living, creating, caring, etc. Thus, weird positivity is born from nothingness — weird-positivity is revolting.

2

I like Max Cafard’s idea of “objectless-oriented-ontology”, as the inversion of object-oriented-ontology, and I find it lacking — like zenful non-attachment to flesh. I prefer the idea of organism-oriented-ontology, with organisms not being Things, but being living-presence as no-Thingness — Earth and all that comprises Earth, including rocks, rivers and other living-presences frequently excluded from the idea of being organisms, being a hyper-organism, rather than a hyper-object. (Between drafts of this book I have seen that Audronė Žukauskaitė has put out a book on organism-oriented-ontology, which I am glad to see.)

3

The nihilism of diets such as the keto-carnivore or veganism is apparent, as they require the self-denial and renunciation of “forbidden fruits”. It doesn’t take evolutionary or biological realism to affirm the self-awareness that practically all featherless biped bodies, save for individuals with specific medical needs, are in need for an omnivorous diet — my practice of vegetarianism is a mixture of the self-renunciation of boycotting the meat industry (an absurd act of banal-resistance that I willingly engage in) and the self-care of eating with care following cancer treatment. It also seems poignant to me that food-politics-activism falls into the nihilism of ethical-consumerist ideology and doesn’t surmount to anything of desirable praxis. This doesn’t matter to me at all at the level of individuals making choices for themselves about how they are surviving this culture — choosing the most desirable life for oneself in the context of totalitarian-nihilism is a challenge and individual aesthetics will differ between experiences and understandings. Where I feel hostile towards food politics is in the collectivist practice of policing the diets of individuals who do not conform to the ideological norm. The notion that I need to justify my diet or give reason to why I don’t embrace the collective-ideology preferred by another or others is nonsense to me and is frequently practiced as the performance of ridiculous micro-authoritarianism, which is such a shallow arrogance that I lose any attraction for those posturing themselves as an authority on the true path.

4

Gorgias’ trilemma — 1 Nothing exists; 2 Even if something did exist, it would be inapprehensible; 3 Even if it were apprehensible, it would be non-communicable.

In 2020 I wrote a piece drawing heavily from Gorgias’ trilemma, where I reversed the trilemma, turned it into an ontological-anarchist declaration, and added a level —

“First – nothing/no-Thing/nothingness exists and is all that has ever existed.

Second – nothing/no-Thing/nothingness is apprehensible and is all that has ever been apprehended.

Third – nothing/no-Thing/nothingness is communicable and all that has ever been communicated.

Fourth – nothing/no-Thing/nothingness will exist, be apprehensible and be communicated!”

The main idea I was seeking to communicate was that nothing/no-Thing/nothingness was/is/will-be the wild living world, as an objectless-oriented-ontology/organism-oriented-ontology kind of perspective. Rebelling against reductionism through a nihilistic weird-positivism — eco-absurdism.

5

I have no interest in gender-nihilism as a politics, revolutionary or insurrectionary — a mode of territorialisation/colonisation — save for critiquing. Gender-nihilism as a praxis interests me as a way of engaging with healing from gender-socialisation — as deterritorialisation/decolonisation.

6

Bobby Whittenberg-James — one of the less prominent names from the anarcho-primitivist conversation (but who I have enjoyed for writing with more personality than many in that conversation) — wrote of economic-nihilism, which was seemingly unnoticed and largely forgotten. I would be happy to see economic-nihilism discussed more, as a better response to the violences of capitalist and socialist industrialism than “eco-capitalism” or “eco-socialism”.

7

Monsieur Dupont’s book Nihilist-Communism is not one that I’ve seen any Marxist/Communist embrace, other than one old friend. That Marxism/Communism is a nihilism is obvious with the mass-slaughtering that continually embodies its application, the sterilisations forced by Marxist states and the encouragement of self-renunciation for Cause.

8

Hegel’s system is founded on self-negation and ends with totalitarianism — suicide and slaughter, nihilism at its worst. The positivity that Hegel placed in his optimism towards the thesis is entirely that of toxic-positivity. Hegelianism is the worst of nihilism and toxic-positivity.

9

Nietzsche called Christianity a nihilism for its rejection of this world, for its life-renunciation. The nihilism of Christianity is obvious in the annihilation justified under its concepts of the-great-chain-of-being and manifest-destiny.

10

Abba Kovner might be the individual who best embodied the dialectical-nihilist approach to seeking to negate negation; with his failed attempt to kill 6 million Germans following the Shoah, and eventual embrace of political organisation — a true Hegelian-Zionist. Today Kovnerism is alive and well and practiced in many contemporary militarist-efforts, not just in Israel’s Zionist efforts.

This feels heavy to affirm and I sigh with a great tiredness. Negation justified by negation justified by negation justified by negation justified by negation justified by negation, ad nauseam.

I wonder about that other political-nihilism that pushes for spiritually-rationalised self-negating non-violence, best exemplified in Gandhi(sm). Spiritual-self-negation to negate militarist-negativity is nonsense to me, though I am aware of those friends who avidly believe in this.

Again, I am left with a heavy feeling and tiredly sigh. Again, negation justified by negation justified by negation justified by negation justified by negation, ad nauseam.

The nihilisms of Kovnerism and Gandhism undeniably bring a feeling of futility to me and I am reminded of Camus’ book The Plague, which is largely an affirmation of action being futile amidst the absurdity of the world and still choosing to act.

11

Consumer-nihilists posturing as anarchists, rebels, individualists and egoists remains hilarious to me. Vegan-nihilists do not strike me as flower-bombs amidst this war zone of ecological-annihilation, but as moral-puritanists engaged in a religious war against the sin of non-conformity with their ideology — (paraphrasing a Christian metaphor) “sheep in wolves clothing”. Armed-preachers and war-priests, proclaiming the spiritual gospel truth. I feel embarrassed to have been attracted to those proclaiming this dogma, mistaking the clothing for flesh.

12

I am a nihilist in my affirmations of the void. I am an absurdist in my affirmations of the fertility of the void. Thus, from nihilism, weird-positivity (as revolting-positivity) is born, which will eventually die and become void again, I believe as fertile ground for new life. The dialogue between voidness and fertility, life and death, is unspeakable, ineffable, irrational and absurd. The dialectical push to rationalise and systematise and render reasonable this dialogue, corrupting it from communicating-expression to reductive-argumentation, is an entirely different nihilism that utterly revolts me.

13

Nietzsche is famous for having proclaimed that “God is dead”, but the statements “God is death” and “God is dying” strike me as truer. What might “Death is dying” mean?

14

I have an ophthalmology appointment in two days time, to see how things are behind my eye and if there is any signs of anything nasty growing there. My nihilism affirms that the test results will be meaningless and not prove whether or not there is cancer growing within my body; and my absurdism does not care about this, will still fight to live and appreciate the belief that the test results will be reliable, from instinct and intuition — which is not knowledge and I do not need to know. If there is a tumour growing behind my eye, my absurdism will embrace the nihilism of killing that tumour, like the others, from the absurd desire to continue living while aware that I have not transcended death.

15

“… the ethical commandment “you will sacrifice for the happiness of your fellow” has no common measure with the meta-physical commandment “you will preserve in your being”!” Fondane, Preface For The Present Moment

Fondane’s life-affirming rebellion against Hegelian-Historisation/dialectical-nihilism, in both its Hitlerist and Marxist manifestations, is something I intensely appreciate.

16

“It may be that the supreme heroism — I mean the most difficult thing for man — is not sacrificing one’s life but admitting spiritual defeat.” Fondane Man Before History

Optimism-negated with a pessimistic-will-to-life, I am spiritually defeated — without belief in salvation through politics or theology — and not renouncing life. I call this my heroism with loved ones and friends, my therapist and doctor; who look upon me kindly and affirmingly, which I deeply appreciate. Amidst the death of optimism, love’s power radiates.

17

“It is on the vast canvas of boredom that they will embroider cruelties and crucifixions, and there that they will strike down the enemy: the devil, nothingness.” Fondane, Boredom

Without boredom, can there be cruelty? Is boredom anything but inactivity before nothingness; and, with life being activity, is boredom not a death that happens before nothingness? Most philosophical accounts of boredom treat it as a disdain for the authentic experience of life, requiring distraction to escape. To my experience the inverse is true, with boredom being disdain for the inauthenticity and repression-of-life/activity amidst domesticated life.

18

Annihilationist-Christianity: God as the great nihilist — the wicked don’t get punishment; they get nothingness.

19

I love Sascha Engel’s thought and writing. They strike me as the anarcho-primitivist most dedicated to the task of negative-dialectics and a nihilist hell bent on negating all that they can negate. Equally, their hyper-rationalisations and elaborately constructed reasoning strikes me frequently as plainly absurd, with an instinct that their efforts in negating the tyranny of the latin-alphabet, as well as other abstractions of civilisation, are futile. I by no means want them to stop or feel that there is no value in what they are attempting — I certainly value their efforts. As far as dialecticians go, particularly anarcho-primitivist dialecticians, I feel particularly favourably of Sascha Engels.

20

Zafer Aracagök fetishises negation/negativity and paints water colours, which I continually find strange and love. Our perspectives differ greatly in many regards, and I appreciate much of his thought.

21

Alejandro de Acosta seeks to negate that which are not his concerns through regarding them as “typhos”, which is a term from the Cynics meaning smoke-as-distraction, and I feel very similarly to him on this matter. It is worth affirming as well though that where there is smoke there is always fire, alongside the power and potential of fire. Our cynicisms are not divorced from a world on fire and I have no desire to be consumed in flames.

22

My father survived his self-negation through crack and heroin only to embrace self-negation through Christianity, Buddhism, Jungianism and “spirituality”, and I have only recently (whilst writing this book) come to fully appreciate that, with his ego-deaths, he negated his desire to be-father (and I don’t believe he has come to appreciate this still). Instead for many years my father has been a ghost occupying the body of someone else — this somewhat amuses me, given how frequently he would accuse others of being “possessed by demons” throughout my life.

My brother’s nihilism is more that of eco-capitalist industrialism and ethical consumerism and of deforesting central-American rainforests to build mansions. But he too has embraced spiritual-nihilism and last I heard performs ayahuasca ceremonies, after 10 hours of working on his laptop on his own and around his daily gym visits.

The words “father” and “brother” here feel entirely ceremonial and meaningless. I’m probably using them just to be nice

23

Julie Reshe’s book on negative-psychoanalysis ends with “(w)e would practice absurd devotion to the absence of ourselves and the meaninglessness of our existence. We would collectively mourn and collectively laugh at how pathetic and messed up we are” — I find this weirdly positive. I have not read her book in full yet, having looked over a few sections and read the final section in full (with a guilty feeling), so I cannot, as I write this, make any real comment regarding the therapeutic practice she encourages. When I contacted her to say that I don’t feel able to commit to reading the book in full and writing a review, with needing to focus on my health and personal projects, her response was just kind, empathic and affirming, all of which I would call positive.

24

Kafka stated that “(d)oing the negative thing is imposed on us, an addition; the positive thing is given to us from the start” — the true horror of the Kafkaesque is in the imposition of negation amidst positive-desire.

25

Renzo Novatore is one of the nihilists I appreciate most because he creates, which in nihilism is absurd — a creative-nihilist/creative-nothing is an absurdity and an absurdist. Novatore was a passionate absurdist, in my eyes.

26

Timothy Morton’s advocacy for Marxism, Buddhism and Christianity, his nihilist attempt to depart from this world, seeking salvation and transcendence, is where I very much part ways with him and his thought. Like Daniel Quinn, I am “… straying from the path of salvation for love of the world …”. I wonder, if Morton were to find himself spiritually-defeated and disillusioned from these ideologies that have captured him, as they seek to capture or negate all, what brilliant thought might grow from the decaying carcass’ of his Marxism, Buddhism and Christianity?

I feel to also note that (paraphrasing Nietzsche), there has only ever been one Marxist, one Buddhist and one Christian, and they died on their crosses.

27

A paradox — I am a nihilist who is an anti-nihilist. My nihilism is anti-nihilism. (This seems true for all nihilists I have noticed.)

Another paradox — “positive” and “negative” are both meaningless and meaningful concepts, as they exist and don’t exist.

28

Real green-nihilism = “eco-friendly” industrialist-totalitarian-agriculture (socialist or capitalist in organisation).

29

Aragorn!’s weird positivity — he was a nihilist who used nihilism to affirm indigeneity.

30

Wild nihilism: there is no future; there is only wildness/wild-Being.

31

Biospheric-egalitarianism is a nihilist affirmation — the great chain of being is nothing and manifest-destiny is nothing; the negation of hierarchies, which civilisation requires most.

32

Dostoevsky’s anti-nihilist literature, attempting to negate the anti-state/anti-industry nihilism of 19^th century Russia, is little more than an appeal to the nihilism of Christianity. Self-negation/life-negation rather than socio-political-negation. Despite efforts and a desire to find value in Dostoevsky’s writings, The Meek One (also known as A Gentle Creature) is the only piece of writing by him I have ever really appreciated.

33

The term “nihilist” comes from Turgenev’s book Fathers and Sons, an anti-nihilist work — the absurd-irony that in seeking to negate nihilism Turgenev gave birth to the identity of “nihilist”.

34

Andrew Tate’s nihilism strikes me as the self-negation of attempting to kill his empathy, kindness, care, and sensitivity, for machoism and misogyny — Tate’s nihilism is male-socialisation and patriarchy is a nihilism.

35

Jordan Peterson attempts to negate the nihilisms of leftism through the nihilisms of Christianity, Jungianism, capitalism and the state.

36

Peterson or Zizek — Hegel or Dostoevsky — nihilism or nihilism — self-negation or self-negation. A thought: “dialectics are stupid”.

37

An absurd affirmation/paradox — nihilism is (weirdly) positive, when nihilism affirms life and encourages wellness.

Stories of Plague and Revolt

1

The highly rationalised critiques that Sascha Engels makes of the concepts of “hard” and “overcoming”, which are largely attempts to negate the idea of “hard” and “overcoming”, strike me as absurd and somewhat unhelpful. Whatever criticisms can be made of these concepts, the experiences that they pertain to — whether that be hard as in “rock-like” or as in “healing from a heart attack is hard”, or overcoming as “surviving cancer” — are not negated. This is one of the ways in which dialectical rationalisations and reasoning are utterly meaningless before perspectives that are born from experience, which are best responded to in dialogue instead of debate; I consider ideology meaningless before my experiences as a brain and ocular tumour patient — and I also don’t expect anyone to treat my experiences as more or less meaningful than theirs or to ascribe any special significance to my experience.

2

Whenever I see Marxists treat the 14^th Century Peasants Revolt as almost entirely being a reaction to taxes, the state and landowners, I feel intense skepticism. My belief is that The Black Death would have been a much greater motivator. Property is just social-performance, but health is life; which is not to deny that the insults and slights from landowners and the state and the taxes would have fuelled flames of rebellion as well, but I imagine much less than as I’ve seen presented as truth and fact.

3

Bubonic plague is born from a hyperparasite called yersinia pestis, which lives on the fleas who survive on rats. These hyperparasites have possibly been creating plagues since the Neolithic decline. When thinking about the preservation of living beings amidst mass extinction, I wonder how much I want to co-exist with these creatures; egoistically, I am aesthetically sympathetic to the idea of a world without them, as I have no desire to experience bubonic plague. Does that make me a monster, to desire the extinction of these creatures, or at least as little relationship with them as possible? This doesn’t feel monstrous to me, but an authentic desire for self-preservation.

4

The heroism of the doctor/healer/medicine-person is intensely preferable to the heroism of the warrior, for me, though both are fighters — it is infinitely more preferable to the heroism of soldiers.

5

A kind and caring doctor is a wonder to be in the presence of.

An unkind and caring doctor might be harsh but necessary in the pursuit of self-preservation.

An unkind and uncaring doctor or a kind and uncaring doctor are both dangerous presences, better to be avoided.

6

Having achieved his goal of being locked up in prison and rendered a symbolic-martyr for the Cause of Green-Politics, Roger Hallam writes of “reasons to be cheerful”, in much the same manner of someone with such shallow emotional intelligence that they would tell somebody going through chemotherapy and struggling daily with their disease, to “just keep smiling and don’t let it get you down” — alongside his revolutionary-posturing and martyrdom-spectacle, Hallam offers toxic-positivity as eco-activist praxis.

7

The notion of reparations feels meaningless in the context of health and recovery from disease — healing feels more appropriate. What about the ecological dis-eases of industrialised-(cancerous-)totalitarian-agriculturism and too-fucking-late-krapitalism? Again, reparations feel like nonsense — how to heal though?

8

Pacifist morality is nonsense when one has a tumour. Inside of our bodies we kill all manner of presences that might threaten our lives. The aesthetic desire for preservation is a will more powerful and authentic than the ideology and spirit of pacifism.

9

A stranger on the internet tells me to “be safe” and calls me bro, and this feels absurd and kind — they can’t do anything to help and are still trying, and that is wonderful in its absurdity.

10

It is said that the Antonine plague, which lasted 15 years and possibly killed as many as 25 million people, occurred following the Roman siege of the Mesopotamian city of Seleucia in the winter of AD 165–166, during the Roman-Parthian war. I see Mesopotamia as the birth of this culture of totalitarian-agriculture/civilisation/Leviathan, and Rome as the birth of modernity. The emergence of plague from their warring has a kind of horrific-tragic-poetic quality to it, which is barely speakable.

11

An article I am reading states the earliest documented cases of cancer are apparently from Ancient Egypt, though I have read elsewhere and imagine that cancers would have been part of Mesopotamian-culture; I believe that cancer is a disease of civilisation and that this will have been the case very much from the get go. When I have spoken about this I have been asked if cancer is found in indigenous cultures or in wild animals, I have responded by affirming that I am sure it has been found in these settings and that it is impossible to speak of indigenous cultures and wild animals, where it can be said if they do or do not experience cancer, without speaking of them in the context of a world infected with civilisation — to attempt this would be nonsense. My belief is that the world will heal from cancers, which are bodily corruptions, in the same breath that it heals from civilisation, which is the world corrupted.

12

The 12 plagues of Egypt: God is to be found in plague, illness and death.

13

The stories that I have heard of the Jacob and Simon Revolt, Kitos War (also known as Diaspora Revolt) and Bar Kokhba Revolt — a series of conflicts where Hebrew peoples sought to battle Rome; diasporic-folk vs colonisers/empire — suggest that the spread of disease followed these events. What do I take from this, as far as interpreting these stories/events? There is an absurdity to treating this as having hermeneutical potential, which I notice — I was not there being the most prominent aspect of this in my mind. Perhaps two interpretations — the first being that the victory of empire invites the spread of disease; the second being that, should there be some global-revolutionary uprising against empire (regardless of who wins or loses), the aftermath of this might intensify the potential for the spread of disease.

14

“Everything falls, everything collapses. Moldy morality, twisted and lying philosophies, out-dated rhetoric do not redeem the situation. The disease has advanced and there is no longer any way to prevent it. The tidbits that adorn the old structure have become the home of infectious microbes.” Bruno Filippi, Free Art of a Free Spirit

I always wonder, whenever thinking about Bruno Filippi, if the bomb he was carrying exploded by accident (as is how his translator Wolfi Landstreicher seemingly suggests the events transpired) or if this was actually suicide. Did Filippi attempt to remove himself from the presence of disease, seeing no salvation from this home of infectious microbes?

15

Edward Carpenter affirmed that civilisation is a health issue, in the essay that I know him best for. As a health issue, a matter of wellness or illness rather than good or bad, right or wrong, the matter of anti-civilisational praxes is not a moral, ideological or political one, but one of egoistic-ethics and existential-threats. I am largely in agreement with Carpenter and his approach to seeking healing from civilisation, other than his embrace of socialist-politics, where I see tribal-relationality as more desirable.

16

“The sick person cries out for ‘The possible!’” Fondane, Existential Monday

What possibilities I see. The possibility of cancer and the possibility of life without new tumours; the possibility of civilisational collapse amidst ecological catastrophe and the possibility of continuing annihilation for as long as the machinery of this culture can be sustained; and so on. In the preservation of life there is possibility. In preserving my life I am possible and so free to rebel and create and love, and do so as passionately as I may.

Amidst the feverish sickness of this global warming and mass-extinction event — a symptom of the cancer of civilisation — Earth/life/the-world/existence/Being cries out for possibility in anguished wails.

17

Like Spinoza, I feel that self-preservation is at the core of action. Like Schopenhauer, I feel this desire for self-preservation is an expression of a will-to-life. Like Freud, I see this repressed and sublimated into the neuroses and machinery of civilisation, which is founded upon self-negation. My instinct is that healing from the disease of civilisation begins with choosing self-preservation before self-negation.

18

“It is only when man has been broken, defeated to the point of caring to cry out that life is a tale told by an idiot, a nightmare, that the soul resorts to extraordinary measures.” Fondane, Man Before History

Those individuals who endure and overcome illness and disease and bodily afflictions that spiritually defeat them, finding great courage and extraordinary will, are heroes in my eyes whose lives are to be celebrated. The realisation that every individual undergoes such experiences of illness, disease and affliction, brings into question the extraordinariness of the situation. The ordinary quality seems to be the retention of (ordinary) spiritual-belief in salvation. It seems obvious that with illness and disease and bodily afflictions, there is an apparent strangeness that is intuitively and instinctually apparent. All individuals are strange and ordinariness manifests from spiritual-salvationism.

19

It has twice been put to me, by different individuals who both were somewhat Foucault-obsessed, that desiring health and wellbeing for another is “normative”; and both occasions I have been somewhat horrified by the bad faith, ressentiment and hyper-rationalised-disembodied reasoning the claim has gone with — none of which negated my desire for health and largely intensified it.

20

I appreciate Thacker’s writings on “necrologies” and what plague presents to the matter of multiplicities. I wonder the difference between an ideology and a necrology — one is a list of deaths and the other is a (?) ….

21

Thacker is at his best when writing about his struggles with chronic pain. I appreciate the personal over the general.

22

My brain is damaged; I have Dorsal Midbrain syndrome, following the brain tumour and the surgery to treat the hydrocephalus. The main impact of which is vertical-gaze-palsy, which is somewhat humorous when considering both my pessimism (being oriented to looking down) and environmentalist fixation with Earth. When someone in argument rudely argues with “do you have brain damage or something?” I can honestly answer “yes, and this probably affects my perspective more than we both realise”.

23

“A belch interrupts the loftiest meditation. You may draw a conclusion if you like: if you don’t like, you needn’t.” Shestov, All Things Are Possible

The eternal return to the body, to flesh, to life, interrupts all abstract reasoning and rationalisations. A mathematician or physicist or politician stops their activities to piss, shit or vomit — perhaps even to fuck (or masturbate).

24

“Deserve” interests me as an idea. When I got the tumour diagnosis last November Katie said on multiple occasions “you don’t deserve to go through this again”, which was in many ways her voicing her revolt for my situation — and her love throughout this has been wonderful. But the idea that I could deserve or not deserve to be ill is absurd to me. Where would deserving of illness come from: right, punishment, entitlement, wrath? That all feels Otherworldly and I’m feeling intensely this-body-I-am — and have been looking over Nietzsche books again for this writing project, as his words are harmonising with my experiences (again). Did Nietzsche deserve or not-deserve to suffer the illness he endured? Both “yes” and “no” feel like nonsensical responses.

25

“The finest wilderness perishes as it is stricken with pestilence” Muir, The Grand Canyon of Colorado

The pestilence that Muir is referring to is that of railways. I catch the train to Exeter and back on Thursdays, to see counselling clients, to try and help these individuals heal. This travelling does feel infected with pestilence — industrial travel is a disease, a plague. I try my best to meet the need for healing, while feeling revolted by the pestilence.

26

Muir wrote somewhere (I forgot to note where) this — “I know that our bodies were made to thrive in pure air and the scenes in which pure air is found. If the death exhalations that brood the broad towns in which we so fondly compact ourselves were made visible, we should flee as from a plague.” While I don’t know what purity means and find myself skeptical of the idea, I agree that folk would do well to flee from towns, as if from a plague.

27

I’m enjoying a beer this afternoon. During my short lived teenage embrace of straight-edge I often heard a friend who preached the word of straight-edge actively describe alcohol as a crutch, as if folks should feel ashamed for needing a crutch if that is what they need. The need for opiate painkillers throughout brain tumour treatment absolutely destroyed any residual attraction to straight-edge praxis in me, which I hadn’t kept up and had abandoned a couple years beforehand. I had seen my father’s radical-sobriety be something that had consumed him and his life, as much as crack and heroin had. Those friends who had embraced the praxis and ideology, quite dogmatically, never seemed as healthy or liberated as they would claim. Is this beer a crutch? I don’t feel so; if it were it wouldn’t matter. This is a pleasure. I am enjoying this moment of calm and easiness with a mild relaxant, which feels healthy following fighting for so long.

28

“Throughout the day, the doctor felt growing inside him the slightest sense of dizziness that he got whenever he thought about the plague. Eventually he admitted that he was afraid.” Camus, The Plague

A fear of disease is a desirable trait in any doctor, or healer of any other sort. I don’t trust someone who fights what they have no fear of, which is the activity of a bully.

29

“From that point on, it could be said that the plague became the affair of us all.” Camus, The Plague

Catastrophe is the birth of unity and unity corrupted, converted into collectivism/civilisation/totalitarianism, is a catastrophe become cancerous — amidst the many catastrophes that life contains, folk gathering together as tribe is a beautiful encounter, too often ruinated through organisation and arrangement, which today has birthed the catastrophes of mass-extinction, global warming, seemingly endless militarist violence and a Cotardian-culture that has forgotten it is alive enthralled by its servitude to its deus ex machina.

30

In a note about his book The Plague, Camus wrote “(t)he doctor, God’s enemy: he fights death” — one of his most poignant affirmations, disappointingly unnoticed.

31

Gabor Mate wrote a book called When The Body Says No, where he shares stories of individuals who, following long periods of neglect or holding unhealed traumas, find themselves experiencing severe medical struggles — their bodies “say no”. Is this not happening now at a planetary scale?

32

Disfigured: my face is strange to me, with my displaced eye and drooping eyelid. Barely recognising myself, I am a stranger to this figure in my mirror image. Who is this person in this photo? I look at scars on my hands that have been there for years and feel familiar. I’m disfigured by life. Perhaps life just is disfiguring?

33

In my experience, it is the presence of love that keeps will from turning ill and allows for healing — the will-to-heal flourishes when fertilised and nourished by love. Love’s irrationality, the absurdity of love, is just as true as the irrationality of healing, as there is no transcending or escape from death; and death’s absurdity is just as true. With no escape from absurdity, no exit, no way out; will, freedom and choice, is to be embraced, or renounced — and what is renunciation, but ill-will?

34

Hypochondria did not save Kafka from tuberculosis. From his unfinished short story The Burrow: “I have completed the construction of my burrow and it seems to be successful”. Kafka’s hypochondriac-isolationism did not save him from disease. This is the tragedy of Kafka — his ill-will.

35

Throughout my training in shinrin yoku, I have been in awe of the impact of woods and forests on the “Human” body, in terms of healing and as a preventative medicine. The possibility of a reforested world, with healing and regeneration is something that I believe in, though this might seem absurd to many. With this, I wonder if healing is possible, in a worldly sense, for those animals often called “Humans”. The idea of healing in a worldly-sense, for “Humans”, forests, or whoever else, is not to seek to construct an-Otherworld, as is so frequently done by revolutionaries and insurrectionaries, but to seek to care for this world.

36

During the spectacularised cultural panic around school children being overweight, in the early 2000s, my father fully embraced this panic with regards to my chubbiness, through a fixation on weight loss. My brother took this as an opportunity to bully and attempted to humiliate me endlessly about my weight, at any opportunity. These experiences have been fertile ground for body-weight insecurities my entire life, which remain still to some intensity, despite my being of a healthy weight and fitter than I would expect someone with my health struggles to be.

My body-positivity, which differs drastically from the health-renunciation of many I have seen embrace the identity of “body-positive” (with seemingly no praxis of body-care), is in part a rebellion against these experiences of bullying.

37

I feel intensely skeptical of the rationalisations made by those who identify as anarcho-primitivists that push for the carnivore as the sole healthy option for “Humans”. I am far more sympathetic to Quinn’s affirmation that there is no one right way to live and Aragorn!’s desire for praxes without roadmaps. This push for totalising-monologisation strikes me as functionally the same as those who call themselves veganarchist and push for a singular totalitarian ideology. There is no recognition that our lives, needs, habitats and options differ greatly, with normative pushes for their ideals.

38

The care paradox is something that I have experienced intensely throughout my health struggles — carelessness renders carefulness required for healing and recovery, and healing and recovery requires careful carelessness.

39

Paradox of enrichment: often the more enriched a habitat becomes the less healthy it is, which intensifies the possibility of collapse. Is this not a description of civilisation, as much as it could also be a description of a garden or a forest; and didn’t Camatte basically affirm this, in Marxian-language?

40

John Moore affirms primitivism as a medicine person practice, in his Primitivist Primer, and this is my favourite way of treating primitivism — not as a revolutionary-machine or an alternative form of anthropological-machine, but as a praxis of healing. If only those individuals who call themselves primitivists weren’t so frequently ill-willed, primitivism might have the potential to support living beings and habitats in healing from domestication.

41

I am attracted to Nick Totten’s therapeutic model of wild therapy, despite his fondness for Bookchin and anti-individualism. Totten’s model intensely gestures towards a primitivist medicine person praxis, though is certainly not one.

42

I am grateful for Lorraine Perlman descriptions of Fredy Perlman’s long term struggle with heart issues, which he correctly believed would shorten his life expectancy. I wonder how his intensely Real health struggle might have impacted his thought, particularly that in his most brilliant of works. Perhaps if he had not struggled in this way Against Leviathan, Against His-Story would never have been written, which is an intensely saddening thought — though one that intensifies my appreciation for the work. I wonder if that book articulates what Fredy Perlman learnt from his health struggles(?).

43

Paradox of possibility: impossibility is always possible and possibility manifests from impossibility and possibility is always possible, while it is impossible to never be impossible.

44

Alfredo Bonanno’s piece on illness, written during the Covid-19 pandemic and amidst many affirmations of obvious or banal truths, has within it one particularly poignant point; which is that self-understanding is a possibility from illness. Bonanno does not articulate anything of this self-understanding, keeping his writing political, which is disappointing.

45

While his use of the word “shaman” is cringeworthy, as it almost always is (as it is used indiscriminately to describe tribal or village healers or mystics in a decontextualised manner); I appreciate Peter Lamborn Wilson’s writings on the traces of the “shamanic”, which could easily be rearticulated as the traces of the will-to-heal that survives amidst civilisation. He is certainly no more guilty of being reductively-universalist in his use of the word “shaman” as any other proponent of “neo-shamanism”, when using the term to describe any and all mystics, healers, medicine persons.

46

Kazimir Kharza states in the mission statement for his Revolutionary Primitivist project that “… the possibilities for free, healthy and meaningful life are all but gone” — I appreciate his desire for freedom and health and meaning (whatever meaning might mean), while in the same breath find the reductive notion of “all but gone” to be a psychic and existential vacuum. Possibility has not gone, as far as I can see; rather the immensity of possibilities, many desirable and many horrifying, is a presence that is awe striking.

47

I was born with a brain tumour — karma is an utterly meaningless concept to me.

48

Today I was at the hospital again for an orthoptic appointment, where I was seen by the orthoptist I first saw 14 years ago when my eye was moving because of the brain tumour. Katie came with me and they were both lovely throughout the appointment. The existential tiredness of being back there having those tests 14 years later is true. Living with chronic health struggles is not easy, but is rendered easier by these wonderful presences.

49

Ernesto Spinelli writes about the constancy paradox, where change is the only constant. The movements between the experiences of wellness and illness render this paradoxical truth obvious. This thought invites suspicion regarding any notion of constant wellness, as some claim to experience — particularly when they have something to sell.

50

Nietzsche’s affirmation of what does not kill an individual making them stronger is one that I have frequently found to be received with negativity and hostility, particularly amongst individuals who I have known to align themselves strongly with left-wing politics. The caveat that what does not kill an individual can or might make them stronger is often used as a means of rendering the affirmation more acceptable. As I have seen, what does not kill an individual does make them stronger, though this is frequently in unnoticed or unwanted ways. When an individual does not want the strengths that they have gained through surviving what difficulties they have faced it is frequently positioned as unfair that they have had to endure such difficulties, with the notion of fairness/unfairness blocking healing and embracing the new strengths. That fairness is a meaningless notion to me doesn’t lessen my feelings of sympathy for those who feel this way and it is also the case that such bad faith, such ill-will, must be overcome by the individual in order to embrace fully their will-to-heal.

51

Rewilding praxes that don’t meet and heal from the traumas of domestication are seemingly prone to reenact many of the violences of domestication.

52

In the film Princess Mononoke, which is popular amongst eco-activists, lepers are employed make guns to kill forest spirit; such as it is amidst industrialism, where the sick are “put to use” and provided shelter, comfort and a means on survival, by those who seek to exploit them to justify and maintain the machinery of ecological-annihilation — this is a revolting truth to affirm.

53

I am aesthetically more oriented towards holistic medicine practices, rather than reductive. I am also skeptical of many of the practices that claim to be holistic, within the market place of alternative-medicines.

54

Big pharmaceutical companies are undoubtedly not the solution and I have survived my health struggles, at least partially, through what they produce.

55

Havi Carel excellently affirms that chronic illness creates metaphysical changes in the experience of life for those experiencing illness, which is something I intensely harmonise with. I appreciate Carel, in part, as she is also someone who lives with chronic illness.

56

Pascal’s illnesses are said to be mysterious — is illness ever not mysterious? Out of the darkness emerges this presence that renders life strange.

57

False hope is utterly unhelpful!

58

There are stories where the hero undergoes a wound that never heals, often due to some magical quality of the wound. Those of us who live with wounds that may never heal carry with us a kind of magic.

59

In The Importance of Being Earnest, Lady Bracknell states that “(h)ealth is the primary duty of life” — exchange the word “duty” for “desire” and I would agree.

60

Abandoning Buddhist practice and belief was in part a response to the experience of hydrocephalus, where pain was agonising and a valuable aspect of surviving the brain tumour.

61

It is frequently pushed by misanthropes, when discussing the “Human” population levels on this planet, that “Humans” are a disease, infecting the planet; with all manner of reasoning and rationalising, which render me skeptical and in disbelief. My belief is that civilisation-as-a-built-structure, i.e. urbanisation, architecture, domestication, industrialism, etc., as what might be called the technosphere is, like cancer, mutations within the body of earth; which “Humans” a frequently associated with, but are different from. The increase in population is more akin to bodily changes brought about through the presence of a tumour, than a tumour itself; and will likely decrease when the tumour dies — which has the potential to be intensely traumatic. What matters is how much preparation is made to heal from the tumour of civilisation, so that any population decrease happens in a way that preserves life, rather than intensifying annihilation.

62

“On a long enough time line, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.” Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

At a certain point the will-to-heal and preserve life becomes absurd for every individual, as well as every group of individuals, and even the planet. The notion that this grants reason for self-harming and self-annihilating activities is also an absurdity and a more pressing absurdity. The eventuality of death does not negate the value of health-care and life-preservation — perhaps, paradoxically, the eventuality of death intensifies the value of health care and life preservation; the value is found in the absurdity.

A following thought — reason pollutes value; absurdity intensifies value.

63

The alienation from biosemiotic and biopoetic experiences — where we would hear and see and interpret the myriad of living beings who are not overly domesticated featherless biped — appears to begin with the alienation from our own flesh, the bodies we are, these individuated and singularised aspects of life and the world, and our biosemiotic and biopoetic communications to ourselves; this alienation being rooted in the push to suppress health struggles and concerns, for the work-machine.

64

Bioexistentialism: I am my body, this flesh, these bones and muscles, etc., and I am in a constant state of individuated self-creation, where I am free and responsible for myself. This is an alternative position to bioessentialism, transhumanism and bioannihilationism.

65

I appreciate Brian Massumi’s affirmation of activism being life and life being activism, and feel that this orients health-care and self-care as undeniably aspects of any holistic activist praxis. I do prefer Albert Libertad’s affirmation that life is revolt and am often inspired when remembering stories I have read of Libertad’s rebellion amidst intense health struggles.

66

My mother died of a brain haemorrhage in her 34^th year, having had a stroke a short period before hand and inadequate health-care to preserve her life (following an admin error). My nana experienced a stroke later in her later years, but lived after this with dementia. Following the radiation therapy I underwent to kill the brain tumour, I am at a statistical increased risk of strokes. I take care of my health as best I can, through all manner of different activities, and am in exceptionally good health considering all that I have experienced. When I was a small child I used to regularly experience nose bleeds, frequently waking up with a bloody pillow in the night, and it is from this that I believe that I have inherited somewhat weakened blood vessels from my mother’s family. The possibility of me experiencing a stroke feels real, just as the possibility of me experiencing another tumour. These possibilities are revolting to me and I rebel against them through being engaged in my well-being and being mindful about my health. Shestov was right in stating that all things are possible and Fondane was right in affirming that the sick cry out for possibility. It seems ridiculous to suggest though that all possibility/possibilities are good or bad, right or wrong, desirable or undesirable, valuable or without value, and absurd to treat possibility as knowable, reducible or escapable. Regardless of how well I care for my health and seek to preserve my health, so that I may not die from a stroke or cancer, the possibility of death remains; and so does the possibility of life. Death, where life has become impossible, renders possibility possible, and I hope that when I die all of my body intensifies possibility in becoming new-life. The possibility of intensified ecological ill-health does not intensify the possibility of ecological-healing and recovery; and where there is death there is the possibility of new-life, as absurd as that may seem.

67

Today Katie and I went for a walk in ancient woods that are very close to our house. It is a beautiful place that I hold deeply in my heart, and it is host to the disease Ash Dieback; which is a fungus that originated in Asia — presumably arriving here due to industry (as I was once told). It is Autumn and through the woods we saw at least 5 other variants of fungus, taking deep pleasure in the growth emerging from the decay. Save for the Dieback, this ancient wood is comparatively in good health and is certainly home to many varieties of individuals. Yes, there is disease here; and there is life.

The Wandering Diasporic

1

Zizek: with such Marxian/Hegelian indifference towards the living, Zizek treats refugees and migrants as sacrifices to Cause, in a stunningly rationalised and dialectical manner.

2

Pheasants: the eggs and chicks of pheasants are brought to these isles, reared and released, for shooting. Looking over that sentence, a feeling of deep and dark anger is noticeable. I see these birds frequently, with fondness and sadness; and occasional annoyance (if they are in front of me as I am driving). Ecological-displacement and culling — what vile sport!

3

Ecological-exiles: the anti-romantic and anti-nativist “exilic-ecology” articulated by Michael Marder is something that I deeply appreciate. There is no returning to some original state, before diaspora and civilisation, and the more I see this ecological catastrophe worsens the more I believe that co-existence with (ecologically-absurd) strangers is needed for survival — the final thought in my book Revolting. The garlic growing in my garden and the cat who hides amidst the growth are ecological exiles to these isles, brought by civilisation; and I love them intensely.

4

The subject of colonialism has in my experience typically been treated in a highly anthropocentric way. Treating the core aspects of colonialism as the totalitarian construction of expansive settlements, with the practice of capture and push for systematisation; I find myself unable to find any distinguishable differences between colonialism, statism, civilisation and have generally treated these as different names for the same totalitarian-agriculturalist political machinery. I have often used the term Leviathan as a means of referring to this totality. Of course there are differing intensities of colonisation and subsequently more or less desirable examples — the low intensity colonisation that Celtic cultures of these isles had begun with the construction of polities, capturing of living beings and systematisation of life into productivity, is far more desirable than the colonialism of Rome, which is arguably the start of modernity, or the British Empire or contemporary neocolonialism. It could be argued that it would be useful to create a system to differentiate between intensities, much like those used by medical professionals to differentiate between stages in the growth and spread of cancer; and that strikes me as an academic idea that holds little value to me — justifying the presence of a cancer or a colony as being in a more desirable condition doesn’t negate the desire to live without either and for healing and health.

With these observations — in particular the anthropocentrism of decolonial-discourse — I find myself skeptical of the notion that much of the politics that postures the reestablishment of a previous and perhaps less intense mode of colonialism as decolonisation. For sure, I am largely sympathetic towards the politics of irredentism, in the sense that I am opposed to the intensification of empire and prefer less intense colonialism. I can appreciate, as an aspect of deconstructing the political totality of Britain, the desires of Irish, Welsh, Scottish and Cornish peoples to differentiate, whilst also believing that nationalism is not healing from colonialism. I am reminded of how I can affirm radiation therapy as a means of killing cancers and how I am alive in part due to the use of those machines, while also not seeing the practice as an answer for healing from cancer and believing that the radiation therapy I received gave birth to the tumour more recently removed.

Suddenly a transvaluation of decolonial-thought is desirable, but also feels dangerous. With such a transvaluation, it seems impossible to treat the activities of organisations such as Hamas or the IRA and many others as decolonial, but rather recolonial or perhaps alter-colonialism. The nativism that often comes alongside such recolonial-politics, which is often largely ecologically meaningless in its separatism, is entirely revolting to me — the nativism of Zionism and nativism of those who push for the culling of “non-native” ecological-exiles come to mind. The desirability of a diasporic-decolonialism is something that I desire intensely, as decolonisation without recolonisation, where the life is affirmed for its unsettledness and we are nomads.

It’s apparent though that something else is needed, which feels intensely uncomfortable to suggest and true. This is that in seeking to transvalue decolonialist praxes and subsequently coming to a rejection of nativism, I need to meet the matter of indigeneity with the same intensity of deconstruction. There’s an immediate and obvious starting point to this, when seeking to not be speciesist and anthropocentric; which is to begin by affirming that there are no “first people”, if we are not going back to pre-Cambrian historisations and, even then, that just leaves us in darkness and the absurdity of attempting to discern shapes where none can be seen. This feels intensely uncomfortable to affirm. For much of my thoughts on indigeneity and decolonisation, I have thought in terms of “first peoples” and origination, as is very much encouraged. But if origination is meaningless and without basis, then what does indigeneity mean? Well, for me, that is somewhat easier and actually comforting for me to affirm. Much as I can easily differentiate a cancerous cell from a healthy cell within my body and affirm that differentiation for how it’s existence preserves its body and the body of the habitat it survives within; indigeneity and colonialism are easily differentiable for me given how differently they pertain to the health and wellbeing of individuals and habitat. Colonialism is clearly not healthy in these ways and, as much as this is non-conforming with the popular Hobbesianism of this culture, it is clear that the lives and cultures of indigenous folk are far healthier than that of domesticated-colonialist peoples. The aforementioned discomfort comes with the possibility that this invokes. While it strikes me as impossible for me to become an anthropologically-first-person of these isles, or at least I don’t believe in that possibility, I fully believe in the possibility and potential of becoming healthier and healing, which presents fertile ground for becoming-indigenous.

A dialogic either/or presents itself, which is not automatically a dialectic (but could be systematised into one, by individuals seeking to systematise thought), and is where I find this transvaluation to have arrived at. This either/or for decolonial-praxes pertains to various multiplicities of possibility and with that an irreducible terrain of uncertainty. Choices are unchangeable and non-absolute, as after a choice is made it is possible to make a radically different one — I am able to choose embrace the machinery of radiation therapy and make the radically different choice to embrace decolonial praxis, but I cannot change that I have undergone radiation therapy, which is a colonialist practice. The either/or is that of recolonial-conquestism, or decolonial-healing and becoming-indigenous-as-living-healthily. Purity feels impossible, and choices cannot be transcended or negated. I desire indigeneity here, for this habitat, and I see it and its potential in the woods and wildlife I live close to — I am seeking to become healthier and indigenous to this space, as a diasporic-individual living amidst displacement and dehabitating colonialism.

5

The Torah is a book largely comprised of stories about banishment, exile and empire, which was probably compiled in the Persian empire, bringing together many written accounts of the Hebrew experience, with rewritings that I imagine served the empire well — I do not believe in Mosaic-authorship and am instinctually untrusting of the texts the are upheld in temples and churches, for their political influences. The stories within The Torah that I find the most interesting and valuable are the primeval Genesis stories, which come before Abraham and are remarkably different from the patriarchal, salvationist and intensely law-focused larger part of the text. With this intense differentiation, I am very much of the belief that these stories are the last remaining of the first peoples displaced by Mesopotamianism/Leviathan/civilisation/colonialism, which survived for thousands of years through oral retellings (undoubtedly changed through retellings); included for any and all manner of possible reasons, and a seemingly absurd inclusion within the compilation. This absurdity is in that, while in its written forms that have been presented in the primeval stories of Genesis in a manner to seek to support colonialism/civilisation/Leviathan; these stories appear to me to be perhaps the earliest and oldest surviving anti-civilisational, anarchist and decolonial philosophy.

6

Daniel Quinn is a writer who I intensely appreciate and am inspired by, and find overly romantic, simplistic and reductive in his thinking, frequently foolish and, at his very worst, grotesquely optimistic. What is perhaps most striking about his character Ishmael is not that Ishmael is a gorilla that can talk and teach, but Ishmael’s experience of displacement(s) and desire to be where he has an experience of indigeneity. But what I appreciate most about Quinn’s thought is he affirms that it is through a reorientation of thought and relationship, which he calls a “new renaissance” and I would affirm as a transvaluation of values, rather than through political machinery and violence, where healing and a “new tribalism” (becoming-indigenous) might be possible.

Like Ishmael, I feel displaced and have a desire for indigeneity. Like Quinn, I believe healing, if it is to happen, will manifest from philosophical and relational changes — changed minds.

7

I have read that the movement of peoples historians call Celts from the Mediterranean and to these isles in the North Sea, named Britain by Rome, was one probably of people attempting to get away from empire and statism; and that they were generally opposed to the construction of polities, frequently destroying them not long after their construction. Did they become indigenous to the isles? I do not know, but I believe that Celts largely became something of an indigenous human presence upon these isles. This might be an unjustifiable notion. While there is more to see of Celts than of those pre-Celtic human cultures upon these isle, there is undeniable darkness.

8

Camatte considers wandering(/history) in very Marxian terms, stating that wandering must stop so that repressive consciousness can be destroyed and Communism achieved. The “wandering of humanity” Camatte described as the belief that productive-growth is essential for liberation, from which the alienating identity crisis of “Humanity” manifests.

The word wandering is one that I frequently associate with Jewish and diasporic experience, and I have largely come to consider the actual meaning of being “God’s chosen people” as meaning “those God chose to wander in the diaspora” — those who scattered from Babel (perhaps?). It makes sense to me to think of “the wandering of humanity” as “the history of diaspora” — where there is History, there is displacement. Is there an end to the wandering of the diasporic and is the notion of an end to diaspora possible without faith in salvation through the-promised-land (which Camatte postures as Communism)?

I wonder if diaspora needs a promised land to find salvation through, or if a shift from wandering to nomadism might be more desirable, and what that might mean. Camatte writes of Communism as invariant, meaning unchanging. I have no belief in the unchanging that does not mean death — a reminder here that Communist Causes have frequently involved systematic slaughtering. Camatte strikes me as correct about the “run-away” and “autonomisation” of “despotic-capital”; where empowerment and enrichment are accelerating decline — this decline is ecologically, existentially and ontologically apparent. Where I am of a thoroughly different mind is that Camatte’s response is to seek to negate this through something supposedly separate and outside the system, as Communism; whereas my belief is that accelerating enrichment intensifies the potential of the only real invariance, which is death, of which there is no certainty who or what might survive from this, but I believe that the greatest potential for the survival of living beings amidst this decline is through tribalisms that are nomadic and holistically non-separatist. With this, the diaspora of civilisation does not end through seeking to negate the system whose accelerating self-enrichment is self-negating (or suicidal), through some Otherworld of Communism; but through the positive-practice of tribalist-relationship in this world.

9

Fondane’s poem Ulysses, which is a poem on diaspora, includes in the final section the question “The world may be there, but am I there in the world?”. But the world is never there and we are never there. There world is here and here is where we reside.

10

Bewilderness is a concept that Moore affirms as an experience which is both unsettling and liberating — a purgative and therapeutic experience that is paradoxical and enables ecdysis. The paradoxical quality of bewilderness is one that Moore describes in propertarian terms, as dispossession becoming possession; which strikingly falls back on the psycho-geographical qualities of the experience — I would change this as displacement/disorientation becoming placement/orientation. Another way to put this might be that from the bewilderness of going deep into the diaspora, there is potential for healing that enables becoming-indigenous. Embracing bewilderness is a decolonial-praxis.

11

Nomadism intensifies the vulnerability of becoming-diasporic and in-diaspora there is greater potential for becoming-nomadic.

12

Desertion is not diaspora or nomadism — at least in my eyes.

13

Art has suggested to me that I am dismissive towards the differences between desertionism, secessionism and escapism. My feeling is that I am unappreciative in this context, rather than dismissive. I can affirm that there are differences and that, right now, I do not appreciate them — perhaps there will be a day when I have greater appreciation for them.

14

The short story The Guest, by Camus, is a fantastic piece regarding non-alignment in the context of political conflicts and the struggles non-alignment evokes — written largely as an articulation of his perspective on the matter of French colonialism in Algeria. The major themes of The Guest are the impossibility of not making choices, the absurdity of making choices and that, though it is preferable to act with integrity, acting with integrity will likely render an individual unpopular.

15

Anti-migrantism is thriving today, as a tool of politicians and social-media personalities.

16

Today I had intended to do personal shinrin yoku at the larger area of woodland a short drive from my home, and then I chose to be responsive to the fatigue and instead made use of some tarot and oracle cards a friend gave me and sit in my very weedy and wildlife full garden to do some pseudo-stationary meditation instead. The oracle card that I pulled out had the words “starting over”, with the images of a snake and a fern on it. With the intense Autumnal feel of the day, and with Cailleach stories in my mind, I am feeling a desire for the “starting over” of new beginnings.

The image of the snake holds a particular significance for me. John Moore, probably the writer of anarcho-primitivist thought and praxis I appreciate the most, wrote of ecdysis (skin shedding) as a significant aspect of healing. The experiences of late have brought me to a place of skin shedding, where the hardened and dead matter are falling off of me, leaving softer parts bare. The experience of ecdysis is entangled with another experience, which Moore describes as that of the bewilderness, where dispossession becomes possession — though in my experience this is less propertarian and more that of a displacement that becomes placement, as a kind of psychogeographical diaspora that has the potential to become a praxis of psychic-nomadic-tribalism (if it doesn’t become assimilated into the horrendous repressive machines of nationalisms). The struggles of this past year have brought me to a kind of internal-migration, and I am sincerely grateful for those who have walked with me and who are walking with me through this.

The image of the fern also holds particular significance for me. When I was a small child and obsessed with palaeontology, regularly watching videos of the BBC series Walking With Dinosaurs, I enjoyed the idea of ferns as a plant that diplodocus’ would enjoy eating and have come to notice ferns regularly during my walking and shinrin yoku praxes with this in mind. Ferns are apparently older than the Dinosaurs, I believe being found in Carboniferous era fossils. Trusting in these stories from fossils, translated by palaeontologists, ferns have survived mass extinctions and ecological horrors the likes of which I hope to never witness. With this, I find a kind of eco-absurdist-heroism in these plants, who keep on willing-life in the face of persistent extinctions.

Psychic-diaspora and heroism and skin-shedding.

The choice to be in the garden, rather than go to the woods and walk, felt a bit heavy, as the intensity of wild-animals and flora in the woods is greater and so is the impact on my body; and I am feeling fatigued with the journey to this point, with carrying hardened, dead and dying skin, and I am also softer and in need of the easiness of my garden and comfort of home (which is all present amidst this psychic-diaspora and wonderful presence). I’ve recently been having some small bits of conversations with friends who embrace the anarcho-primitivist tradition about the subject of separatism and this morning I’ve been thinking about this with regards to the notion of inside-outside, which I largely see as a false-dichotomy and feel is an example of the Maya/illusion paradox of a reality that exists and is not real — and I believe that this illusion pertains to the fundamental lie of civilisation, that domestication and architecture has separated civilisation from the wildness of life (and the life of wildness). There is no going into the woods or coming out of the woods, and the woods a short distance from my home are different from my garden and home, and they are not separate; and those woods are more intensely wild than my garden and home, and my home and garden are wild spaces where life lives with intensity. There’s no separation and there is difference and distance, there’s leaving behind (as migration begets) and home, and what home might become.

With these internal-migrations, ecological-transvaluations — perhaps even psychic-decolonisations of thought and relationship — I am very attracted to the idea of starting new and of new growth/becoming, which amidst the Autumnal space of my garden brings longings for Spring and Summer — Camus’ affirmation of Autumn as a second spring comes to mind. With my Shestovian and Fondanean feelings, I’m somewhat mystified, entranced, horrified and fascinated by possibility, which becoming, growth and decline, migrations, newness and transvaluations, evoke. The possibilities of worsening health and ecological struggles are horrifying. The possibilities of migrations towards the intensification of an experience of tribe and nomadism and home are attractive.

The fatigue from struggle and (internal-)journeying and from carrying hardened and dead skin, is real. I am doing my best to heal and that’s not easy. In a conversation with a friend who is a therapist recently we talked about the loss of hope as a means of healing, which I feel fits the experience of ecdysis well. When I think about diaspora and migrations, psychological and geographical and psychographical, there strikes me as a loss of hope that liberates the possibility of movement — the bewilderness of displacement as a purging and cathartic experience that allows for the healing of placement. This healing is not toward colonisation, settlement, nationalism or the end of movement, but a nomadism that is immersed in the presence that is home, the loved-ones (tribe) who are home. In my aforementioned conversations with friends who embrace anarcho-primitivism there has been some conversation regarding the subject of desertion, which it could be said that I’m appealing to with these thoughts. However, desertion and diasporic-migration feel intensely different to me. With desertionism I see hope in the invited promised land of the desert, which is something I have no faith in. Migrations, in the sense that I am have been describing here, are born from the renunciation of hope and hopelessness, in embrace of courage, will and desire for healing. I’ve deserted no one and don’t embrace renunciation. The world is different and I am different too, and amidst this displacement I am loving those I love intensely, including myself, and taking comfort in the love I feel in their presence.

17

I’ve always felt more connected to being a Jew, as that has been more dominant in my family experience and for my life; and both of my parent’s mothers have Celtic (Scottish and Irish) ancestry — the idea that this gives me claim to Celtic-identity through genetics feels absurd and nonsensical. I’ve felt intensely connected to Celtic music, following mum’s encouragement of me experiencing it; and this feels like a more authentic basis for connection to Celtic experience.

That Ancient Celts and Jews both experienced brutalisation and diaspora under Rome, and revolted and fought against Rome too, is something that I find connecting. The globalisation of Romanisation and spectaclisation of this empire, enflames my desire for stories about the rebellions that Celts and Jews engaged in, or might have engaged in. Sadly, there are few and they are largely stories of defeat before empire — presented in ways that are seemingly designed to reenforce the narrative of political-optimism, where empire is undefeatable.

Where these meet in my life most prominently is in the meeting of what I consider a meeting of unorthodox Jewish-mysticism and dark-druidry — a mysticism of affirming YHWH as breath and life and druidry of folk-religious unhuman dialogues where I-Thou is intensely experience (devoid of theurgic reconstruction and ritual performance). This is often found when creating music or when walking.

18

Benjamin Fondane scholar Andrew Rubens describes Fondane’s position on exodus as “absence and possibility” — is this not the becoming of diaspora (absence) into nomadism (possibility)?

19

“Existence projects itself into the possible: choice is its destiny.” Bespaloff

Where do I go from here? The only certainty is that of choice and unending choice. How great and how terrible!

20

“Alas, one cannot burn down Rome every day.” Fondane, Boredom

Yesterday Trump won his re-election — Rome celebrates its new Caesar. If he were Nero, would the empire burn? Probably not. He is a Nero, but is he an accelerant to the burning of Rome? What new possibilities might be born from his presidency?

Trump, like the political establishment occupying this archipelago, seems determined to sacrifice migrants before the altar of his Cause — like Nero burning Christians. During Nero’s reign Rome defeated the Boudiccan revolt and were victorious in the first Roman-Jewish war. Will Trump engulf Rome in flames? Who knows?!

21

The Vilna Ghetto Manifesto, written by Abba Kovner, ends with the words “(r)esist! To the last breath”, which is a sentiment I appreciate — Kovner was inspired to write them by the resettlement and annihilation of Lithuanian Jews at the hands of the Nazis. Resettlement politics and industrial slaughtering revolt me and I appreciate resistance as a response to them both.

22

Holocaust poetry, written by individuals who were attempting to survive the death camps, impacts me intensely, like a cold wind. The potential for similar poems and similar conditions also feels cold. Histories and futures, cold like death — the warmth of the living, the present, presence, I find myself desiring intensely. What poetry is being written in this moment though, by resettled individuals and folk attempting to survive amidst this industrial death camp; and what warms these poets?

23

Chapter 8 of Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil is primarily focused on the subject of nationalism, which he basically regards as stupid, and his opposition to anti-semitism. I largely agree with Nietzsche, that nationalism is stupid, that anti-semitism is undesirable; with there being lots of wisdom in Jewish experience, as well as that of other diasporic peoples and migrants.

24

“Patriotism is a maggot in their heads.” Thoreau, Walden

Patriotism eats away at thought until there is little left and patriotism is fat today.

25

Anti-migrantism is founded upon bad faith and a lack of integrity — this is true of both anthropological-anti-migrantism and ecological-anti-migrantism.

26

I read John Trudell wanting to find inspiration in his poetry and thought, and I do not, which is disappointing — neither of us have failed; it was not Trudell’s responsibility to inspire me and it is not my responsibility to find inspiration in him. Trudell writes of property and law and balance and us/them, and appeals to Cause, which I find no value in, attraction towards or inspiration through. Perhaps if I knew more of Trudell’s life I might better appreciate what rendered these meaningful to him, while still not taking them for myself; but my interests and energies do not stretch so far as to feel inclined towards engaging in this right now — there is always the possibility that on another day I might, or might not.

27

The anti-futurist manifesto published by Indigenous Action, titled Rethinking the Apocalypse, is a text I intensely appreciate. The writer(/s) affirms colonialism as a plague and decolonial-nihilism as a medicine embraced by healers — I feel an intense affinity with this kind of praxis.

28

Derrick Jensen has spoken about the need to decolonise hearts and minds. He has written about decolonisation as a breaking down of identity and of how actions speak louder than words. He has also failed to appreciate how queering, in particular the queering of ecology — the deconstruction of binaries and affirmation of diversity and differentiation — is a needed part of that breaking down of identity and the decolonisation of hearts and minds. I agree with Andreas Weber, that ecology is continually in the process of queering identity; and with Timothy Morton, in that intimacy and desire is where queer praxes and ecological praxes meet each other when embraced fully.

Jensen rejects queering, queer experience and queer praxes, through posturing that they are inherently in-support of pedophilia, referencing academic queer-theorists who have voiced support for pedophilia; as if all of queer praxes and experience, and queering were innately bound to those individual’s failure to recognise abuse — Jensen has not rejected ecological and environmentalist thought and praxes for the racism of Madison Grant or John Muir. Jensen recognises pedophilia as an abuse towards children and fails to appreciate this abuse as ecological abuse — do we need to reject ecological thought and praxes for failing to defend and protect children from pedophiles? The idea seems absurd, but if I embrace Jensen’s logic it seems to hold.

I am a survivor of CSE (child sexual exploitation) and I am thoroughly of the mind that decolonisation that is full involves the affirmation of the queerness of ecology; and that ecological care, which includes the care of those who are openly and actively queer, must involve rejection of and healing from the ecological abuse that is the paedophilic treatment of children as resources to be exploited — which is far from what Jensen is doing, in using child-abuse as a resource to exploit and to attract an audience of anti-queer conservatives. That his book Anarchism and the Politics of Violation, where he sought to abuse CSE experience to boost his appeal for conservatives, has seemingly been unnoticed and unimpactful, is a great joy to me

29

So called anti-colonialist eco-activists who appeal for the reductive simplification of conversation and “language everyone understands” reproduce the logic of mass-extinction, colonialism and totalitarianism, render me skeptical — how can you be engaged in anti-colonialism and ecological activism and be anti-diversity?

30

The appreciation that I feel for Klee Benally’s essay Unknowable, on indigenous activism and anarchism, is intense. Thinking on it today my thoughts are oriented to how the only real known is death and that death is impossibility and that subsequently knowledge is impossible — how much death has there been in the pursuit of knowledge? Life, which is possibility, is unknowable, in as much as possibility always has a dark quality to it.

Nomadism intensifies the possibility of being unknowable.

31

In a visceral attack against anarcho-communism and collectivist-utilitarianism, titled Burn The Bread Book, Ziq affirms forests and indigenous tribes as more desirable than industrialism (regardless of the arrangement of the industrialism).

32

The anonymous author of Desert calls for desertion, like Moses proclaiming the promised land; a prophet, prophesying the future divined for us.

33

I am appreciative of Cante Waste’s egoist writings, that affirm how indigeneity is a core aspect of their experience of self and that individuation is an aspect of their decolonial praxis.

34

Few anarchists have impacted my life and thought quite as significantly as Aragorn! and I found frequently my relationship with him to be difficult and at points nauseating. Regardless of the difficulties and nausea, I feel grateful for the impact he has had on my life and for the relationship we had. I look over writings I have of his, particularly his more decolonial/indigenous focused pieces (rather than his nihilism writings) like The Fight For Turtle Island, Locating an Indigenous Anarchism and A Non-European Anarchism, and feel his ghost haunting me. I look through the my book Revolting and the writings I have done thus far here and notice how these feel somewhat haunted by him. The difference between our decolonial-praxes is noticeably that Aragorn! sought to embrace and encourage an indigenous-nihilism and I am attempting to embrace and encourage a diasporic-absurdism

35

Sascha Engels writes of how there are no boundaries and, in the sense of life being boundless apeiron (Anaximander’s term), I agree. There are limits though, within boundless Being. Decolonisation pertains to the deconstruction of boundaries, but does not evoke limitlessness.

36

Rhizomes and mycelium: concepts for decolonial anti-social-ontologies.

37

I am a familial-exile: throughout my childhood I moved between different homes within my family. As an adult I have self-exiled from both sides of my family, mostly due to witnessing their propertarianism and the abusive behaviours they showed each other with intense revolt. Subsequently, I have become an internal-refugee, finding family and tribe in Katie and her relatives, and friends. Amidst this health struggle, I have found myself again grieving the loss of my mother and grandmother, who held huge presence in my experience of family and tribe; and notice my desire to experience more closely intimate relationships, which real tribe and family pertains to. This is one of the challenges that diaspora — psychic or geographic — evokes: the challenge of finding folk to be-with — presence is where joy in life manifests from.

38

Daniel Kahn — “the holy land and exile are the same”. Zionism is utter rot!

39

“‘Un‐knowing’ refers to that attempt to remain as open as possible to whatever

presents itself to our relational experience.” Ernesto Spinelli, Tales of Unknowing

Diaspora and nomadism involve throwing oneself into the the unknowable possibilities of relational experiencing.

40

When living with my mother’s parents, in a state of familial displacement and living under their abusive rule, returning to living with my father became something of a promised land of hope and salvation. When living with my father again, despite his absenteeism and persistent neglect, I maintained belief in the promises he had made during this period. This belief lessened and lessened over many years, until the Autumn of 2024, shortly before my 33^rd birthday, when any faith I had in him and the promised land of a world where he would be a present relationship was destroyed. The healing potential of this bewilderness of psychic-diaspora, displacement as placement, and internal-emigration, is exciting. It was put to me that this loss of hope gives space for healing and I immediately thought of how migration can evoke the potential for healing from ecological-catastrophes for ecological-diasporic folk — an earthquake, forest fire or volcanic eruption destroys your home and means of living, and in the loss of hope from this displacement healing might be found in the movement reorienting placement of discovering a new experience of home. This excites me — I feel excited.

41

I appreciate Roger White’s essay on post-colonial anarchism, for his rejection of colonial-universalism, and find his embrace and fetishisation of nationalism and nations to be horrendous. Whether colonialism is an extension of nationalism or nationalism is an extension of colonialism, I am unsure and right now do not pretend to care — the link that connects them inclines me to believing that it is one where either would perish without the other. I welcome the end of colonialism, as I welcome the end of nationalism. What might grow from their corpses? Possibilities upon possibilities, unimaginable, unknowable and potentially glorious.

42

Simin Fadaee’s efforts to rationalise Marxism as decolonial-politics, through fetishising the likes of Hồ Chí Minh, Mao Zedong and Che Guevara as figures to revere as anti-imperialist saviours (rather than Marxist-colonialists), at best seems like a desperate attempt to retain faith and at worst active denial. The very concept of global-Marxism strikes me as colonial-universalism/totalitarianism.

43

Pemulwuy remains my greatest anti-colonial hero. The differences between our worlds and rebellions are undeniable, and the stories of his revolt inspire me.

Indigenous and diasporic experiences of colonialism are different and it feels unappreciative to not affirm these differences under some dishonest universalism. The challenge that I see pertains to that of co-existing, not in some Otherworld or after-life, but in a post-colonial here. Hedgehogs and oak trees are indigenous to the isles, and live here co-existing with wild garlic and fallow deer, who are “non-native” species. My feeling is very much that, despite arriving on these isles due to colonialism/civilisation, wild garlic plants and fallow deer, like many others, have become indigenous to these isles. How I and other individuals who live here due to diaspora might become indigenous to the isles is difficult to say and imagine. Part of the process would seem to be an appreciation and support for indigenous stories, struggles and rebellions, not to appropriate or assimilate, but to care for and treat as non-separate from our stories, struggles and rebellions, whilst different. Another part of the process appears to be an embrace of folk-anarchy and tribe, as intensely as possible. There is no doubt more, much more; most of which feels unknown to me.

The world contains diaspora and the preservation of exiles (cultural, geographic, psychic, internal and ecological) and indigenous living beings, human and non-human, is potentially dependent upon the ability of both to co-exist and become symbiotic in relationship and supportive of the other’s rebellions before colonialism/civilisation/Leviathan. Universalism and nativism seem equally toxic for this process. The possibility of healing from colonialism excites me — I am excited!

44

An activist friend, who believes in protests and facilitates meditation retreats, once told me that they see there being two fundamental approaches to activism — advancement and retreat. The notion of advancement fits praxes like colonialism and revolution, while the notion of retreat fits praxes like desertion and conservatism. I wonder if there is not at least a third approach (if not more), where here — even here-as-diaspora or here-as-nomadism — is embraced, where praxes are oriented towards the preservation of those who reside here(?).

45

While there is no ontological or ecological separation of habitats or living beings, home and limits and the liminal spaces between homes/habitats are phenomenologically apparent through instinct and intuition. Ramon Elani encourages praxes that are centred around the home, as the household — in a manner remarkably similar to Jordan Peterson’s politics. In so doing, Elani embraces the closure, the inside, which feels meaningless to me (ontologically and phenomenologically), and has renounced rebellion for the conservatism of being a “romantic-reactionary”. For myself, I am far more inclined towards the nomadism of home that is open, in the sense of “open” Agamben described where there is no closure or capture (and so is unopenable), where my household and the woods local to me and other presences are located; and is limited in the sense that I am limited, with liminal points demarcating other homes that co-exist with my home and bleed into each other, permeating and creating bewildernesses. In-diaspora I am finding home and creating home.

46

I love the Alien film franchise — warnings against extra-terrestrial colonialism!

47

Arthur Rimbaud ends his poem Wandering with the line “(o)f my worn out shoes, one foot beneath my heart” — when walking, it is preferable to do so with love. This reminds me of Thoreau’s essay Walking, his love of the free/wild and his encouragement of preservation. I feel it is best to wander and walk with love, and in so doing attempt to preserve as much of life as possible.

48

“Nowhere is now-here.” Katie

The possibility of nowhere undergoing morphogenesis to become now-here is something that I find in the loving relationships and habitats that I am immersed in and surround me. From the nowhere of displacement and diasporas, it is possible to be now-here. My personal existential-therapeutic and shinrin yoku explorations are ones that help in this process. The bewilderness of being-in-the-world displaced and detribalised (as Quinn calls it) metamorphosing nowhereness to the experience of now-here, with placement and tribe, is possible. Love and healing are possible.

49

I am not sympathetic to the notion that any civilisation, such as the Mayan or the Incan or other civilisations that were not extensions of Mesopotamia, were indigenous, in the sense of not being colonialist-machines themselves. Even if it were possible that no human displacement and/or annihilation occurred during their constructions; it would be grotesquely anthropocentric to pretend that their constructions did not pertain to displacement and annihilation in the construction of the colonies that cities are. That decolonial discourse is frequently anthropocentric in these ways, when suggesting that these colonial-machines were indigenous, is an aspect of the conversation that intensely disappoints me. The Mayan practices of deforestation, agriculture and other totalitarian-political-practices — that surely were a major aspect of the loss of biodiversity and other ecological conditions that saw that civilisation collapse — do not pertain to anything of tribal-relations to others and habitat. The collapse of Maya and diaspora that would have emerged from it, is something both inspires and horrifies when imagining.

50

Thinking about decolonisation and diaspora is unsettling, and this feels “right”. These thoughts have the quality of folk-horror — what ghosts there are, what monsters lurk in the woods, what lies beyond the settlement? Deconstructing settlerism is unsettling and exciting.

Reflections on Preservationist Ethics/Aesthetics

1

After publishing the pamphlet containing both parts of My Anti-Cull Philosophy, my friend Llew (the main individual involved in the distro Forged Books) challenged me to write an essay on John Muir and Preservationism. While this entire book is arguably born from this challenge, this section is the most direct attempt to meet the challenge. I write this now with a happy imagining of Llew reading this once it is finished and smiling for what has grown from the seed he planted in my mind — Llew is a physic-gardener and I am the ground he planted within.

2

This morning a letter arrived at our home, advising Katie and I that one of the donkeys at a local sanctuary charity we have sponsored has died. We both feel saddened by the news and glad that they lived as comfortably as possible, through the care that the sanctuary provided. It was not salvation and these projects do not end the cruelties and abuses that civilisation inflicts upon donkeys and other living beings; and it is preferable for there to be spaces dedicated to care amidst the brutality of this culture.

3

Kafka’s short story Advocates is one that is extremely relevant to environmentalist praxes, for its affirmations of the existential vacuums of courts and bureaucracy and law — stairs that will heighten the further you climb and are not places to find advocates.

4

Thoreau: in his essay Walking, which I consider his most important piece of writing and the piece of writing written by him that most intensely impacts me, Thoreau shares many observations and thoughts that are seemingly at the core of the aesthetical and ethical will-to-preserve. These thoughts include that wildness-is-preserving-world; that wildness-is-freedom; that preserving-life-is-habitat-creation-and-care; that life-is-wildness and intensifying-wildness-is-intensifying-life; and that “we cannot afford to not live in the present”, which is surely an affirmation of the value in embracing presence. I read this essay more often than any of Thoreau’s others and would encourage anyone to read it, even if they had arrived at similar thoughts/feelings/observations independent of Thoreau’s guidance.

5

Muir: Muir’s preservationist ethic and aesthetic came from intensely personal experiences of mountaineering, adventuring and (wild-)life, and were influenced by his Christianity and readings of Thoreau. For Muir the attempt to preserve the presence of livings beings and habitats was the attempt to preserve “God’s temple”, following from Thoreau’s transcendentalist-Christianity. In the arena of US politics, Muir’s preservationism lost out to Pinchot’s conservationism, with conservationism becoming the go-to ecological model for states and industry — conservationism looking to conserve “natural resources” for political-machines and minimise waste (as all must be assimilated within the machine). The differences between conservationism and preservationism strike me as the differences between industrialism and resisting industrialism, culling and resisting culling, and the conservative push for repression as different to the rebel pursuing liberation.

Where my preservationist ethic and aesthetic differs to Muir’s is largely metaphysical, with his being Christian and mine being egoist. Where Muir saw God’s temple, I see myself. Muir sought to preserve forests as God’s temple, and I seek to preserve badgers as I see myself in badgers and find badgers as a part of who I am. Muir’s ethic and aesthetic is based in transcendentalism, while mine is subscendentalist. In that functionally we both desire the protection and defence of living beings and habitat from industry, agriculture and politics; it could easily be said that there is no significant difference in our preservationisms — though Muir put far more faith in governments than I do, whereas I believe far more in rebels, activists and anarchists.

6

Conservationism is a conservatism — they attempt to repress possibility as a death denial. Preservationism attempts to liberate and intensify possibility, which includes death as the possibility-of-becoming-impossible.

7

Spinoza affirmed that self-preservation is at the core of ethics — from an eco-egoist experience of self, ecological preservation is self preservation and self preservation is ecological preservation, and this preservation is at the core of authentic ethics.

8

The will-to-life is an absurd and irrational attempt to preserve one’s life, when the most certain possibility, impossibility, remains forever in the world looming over unseen like a buzzard hunting a hare. Schopenhauer recognised that will-to-life is not limited to the life of the self as an individuated-body, saw this as the basis for suffering and, with his negative-hedonist morality (that I personally find pathetic), advocated for repression and renunciation. In my personal experience, my self and self-preservation is a paradox of being limited to the individuated body that I am, and ecologically-boundless, as the boundaries of this body and the world beyond it are nothing — so here I am both in agreement and disagreement with Schopenhauer. With regards to the repression and renunciation of will-to-life, justified by the reasoning of negative-hedonist morality, I am of an entirely different view — the agony of hydrocephalus migraines and the suffering that the ocular tumour included enflames desires to survive, overcome and preserve myself, which I value (I am far more a student of Nietzsche than Schopenhauer).

9

The liberation of living beings from capture and protection from annihilation, the intensification of freedom, is the preservation of possibility.

10

Aldo Leopold: Leopold’s writings on conservation aesthetics and wilderness read to me as appeals for industrial-systematisation, and his “land ethic” seems to be nothing more than utilitarianism rationalised for conservationist-politics. While he shares in his Sand County Almanac of his revolt for the impact of industrial ecocide, he appears to have been nothing more than a servant of the political machine.

Perhaps I am being harsh and unappreciative — I struggle to find value in Leopold’s ecological-praxis.

11

Edward Abbey: my desire to appreciate Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire, which I did find vastly better than his Monkey-Wrench Gang, struggled against my distaste for his man-vs-nature type thought, with the absence of love and appreciation for living-beings, his cowboyism and machoism, and what seemingly surmounted to little more than conservation-politics; where wilderness-preservation is assimilated into industrialism as a refuge for domesticated humans to engage in tourism in. His encouragement of rebellion as an activist had rendered him attractive to me and I entirely wanted to find value in these writings, and I didn’t find much to appreciate. Yes, he writes of his revolt for the “vandalism” of the construction of roads (and other ecocidal industries); but then postures the value of wilderness as being contingent upon it being necessary, as a resource, for “the human spirit” —

“Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit, and as vital to our lives as water and good bread. A civilization which destroys what little remains of the wild, the spare, the original, is cutting itself off from its origins and betraying the principle of civilization itself.” Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire

The strongest feeling is disappointment — I’d wanted to appreciate Abbey more; but is this his failure, or mine?

12

I have no belief in Arne Naess’ praxis and politics, with his embrace of the conservatism and repressive-politics of Gandhism. Just as Gandhism succeeded only in assimilating India into the political machinery of colonialism and industrial-ecocide, by attempting to negate more active and engaged rebellion through appeals to moralistic-transcendence; Naessian deep-ecology has seemingly only succeeded in repressing the potential for more impactful rebellion. Naess, like Gandhi, sacrifices wild-possibility to conserve the morality of civilisation. With one breath he appeals for the preservation of life for value outside of productive-assimilation, and then with the next advances political-moralities that function as repressive forces supporting productivity.

13

In Gary Snyder I find a preservationist aesthetic and ethic intensely similar to Muir’s; with the most significant differences being the differences between Christianity and Buddhism. As with Muir, where Snyder’s preservationism and mine differ most is the difference between theistic-transcendence and egoistic-subscendence. However, I appreciate Snyder less than Muir, as I find his pacifism revolting.

14

The conservation-politics Dave Foreman advances renders plain how intensely conservationism is conservatism, with his pushes for repression and control, his encouragement for the collectivist-bigotry of misanthropy, and his nativist romantic-historisations attempting to render impossible possibility — at least for me he renders this plain.

15

Social-ecology is a conservatism, seeking to conserve the machinery of society and technological-progress (the totality); seeking to repress and annihilate the possibility of their death and the birth of possible life from their decay. Bookchin and his followers advance a conservationism pertaining to a politics of dialectical-naturalism, where what is conserved is that assimilated within the totality, to be utilised by the totality, to be industrialised by the totality, to exist for the totality. With this dialectical push, social-ecologists, in particular Bookchin, value “development” above living presence and the preservation of living presence. I have no appreciation for Bookchin’s thought and social-ecology.

16

In the ideology of total-liberation there appears to be an underlying aesthetic oriented towards a holistic preservation of possibility, which seemingly gets rationalised into the reasoning of assimilation into the dialectics of political-Cause. I very much prefer the total-liberationist praxis articulated in the book Total Liberation written by an Anonymous author and published by Signal Fire, than the book of the same title written by David Naguib Pellow, which is largely academic writing. My struggle with total-liberationist thought is with it frequently pertaining to the monologisation of struggle, to one totalising (and therefore totalitarian) universalist Cause, where differentiations that are not assimilated would presumably be negated. Through the collectivisation of Causation, holistic-praxis becomes less possible with differentiation, diversity and individuation being sacrificed before the Historisation of the totality. This is unfortunate, as I appreciate that subscending the political-rationalisations and collectivist-reasoning there is seemingly an aesthetical and ethical will-to-preserve-possibility in those affirming “total liberation”, that a genuinely holistic-praxis would grow well from.

The (totalitarian) veganism advocate Flower Bomb, in an interview with IDIOTEQ in the September of 2024, utilised the concept of total-liberation to push for their monologic, reductive, puritanical and repressive, collectivist-praxis — in a manner that ultimately reflected more of their ignorance on the subject than anything else. Given that, following my experiences of their pushes for monologisation, I have written probably more than enough on Flower Bomb and questioned mentioning them here. However, as they serve as an example of how the political-systematisation (not the aesthetic) of total-liberation at the very least gestures towards (and in their case embodies) a push for the erasure of the possibility and difference, it seems worthwhile to mention them here.

For those who embrace the call of “total-liberation”, with a more sincere desire for holistic-praxes that preserve possibility/life/freedom than Flower Bomb, I am in good-faith that the aesthetic and ethic for preservation would render collectivist pushes for totalisation revolting and generally intolerable. Good-faith and the will-to-preserve-possibility strike me as connected in a way where there is very little distance between them — that distance becomes note-worthy when the insincerity of others intensifies the possibility of dishonesty and bad-faith becomes instinctively apparent. An instinct of distrust feels healthy towards those who push for monologisation and Causal-universalism, as much as trust and appreciation feel like desirable and healthy feelings for those who encourage holistic diversification/complexification/differentiation/individuation in praxes.

While I am untrusting of total-liberationism, as reductive Causal-universalism, I am certainly sympathetic to the call of a non-reductive “total-liberation”.

17

Preservationism cannot become monologic, as there’s always the voice of death as an-Other, granting preservation its absurdity. In truth monologues and totalitarianisms cannot truly actually be, as there’s always the voice of death as an-Other.

18

Bespaloff found the preservation of presence, as defeating History, in dance. Did her choice to engage in suicide come from doing too much History and not enough dancing? I feel a need to do less History and more dancing, not that I’m feeling suicidal, but in that I can tell that dancing is better for my preservation.

19

It is instinctively and intuitively obvious how much a bad mood can be an important aspect of self preservation, just as it is for how a bad mood can be disastrous for self preservation; particularly when a bad mood is treated as reason to treat poorly those who we love. When Thacker writes of his bad attitude/moods, I feel his will-to-preserve, as much as I do when he writes of the relationships he values.

20

Laying awake and listening to storm winds and rain, imagining the damage to well conserved properties and all manner of possibilities arising from this wild presence — remembering that in wildness resides the preservation of possibilities, glorious and devastating!

21

It would be easy to mistake differentiating between preservationist praxes and conservationist/conservative praxes as to be suggesting a dualism or a dialectic; especially when commenting on the sacrifice of preservation for conservation, as is the political norm. However, I consider this to be an ill fitting description. Rather than being a dualism or dialectic, I consider them to be antipodes, akin to the differences between the Oaks who reside on this archipelago, the Marula trees of Southern and Western Africa, and the Kauri trees who reside in New Zealand — while there are obvious similarities between preservationism and conservationism, there’s significant psychic and relational distances between them. Antipodal relationships might be able to co-exist and this is more likely when they become symbiotic relationships. There are antipodal ecological relationships occurring over great distances though, where the survival of a living presence pertains to the extinction of others.

22

Palaeontology is a science that displays the absurdity of preserving life — fuck it, I’m still choosing this shit!

23

Longtermism is one of the most absurd rationalisation of conservatism that I’m yet to come across, that wilfully would sacrifice living presence for the conservation of civilisation. The critique of longtermism that it’s ends are unpredictable doesn’t hold true for me; as regardless of any efforts to conserve civilisation, or preserve possibility, have a singular certain and predictable end, in the-becoming-impossible-of-death. The only response to the hyper-rationalised nonsense of longtermism that I see as being needed is in that it is just inauthentic bullshit.

24

I do not believe that militancy and conservationism are a means of ecological-healing, and I appreciate the efforts of militant conservationists in Africa, who preserve the presence of rhinos, elephants and other wildlife in Africa — this appreciation intensified greatly when I visited South Africa in August 2023, albeit briefly.

25

The conservation of the image and form intensifies the possibility of the decay that is integrity, authenticity and possibility. The preservation of integrity, authenticity and possibility involves the decay and metamorphosis of form and image, as their conservation is impossible.

26

In preserving my life, my image and form have been destroyed and metamorphosed. The possibilities of new metamorphoses and images excite, as the grief processes. I am not a successful effort in conservation!

27

I am most attracted to primitivism and traditionalism when they pertain to preserving the presence of lives that do not conform to civilisation and preserving the possibility of living without civilisation; and most repulsed and revolted by primitivism and traditionalism when they pertain to the repression and annihilation of living in ways that do not conform with their historisations and anthropologies. All I’ve really said here is that I prefer dialogues to dialectics.

28

I have two zines on (anarcho-)herbalism, one titled Fireweed and the other An Herbal Medicine-Making Primer, and a very basic personal amateur herbalist praxis. I appreciate the preservation of immediatist-herbal-remedy praxes, as alternatives to pharmaceuticals and industrial-health products; and I feel revolted by the dishonesty of some herbalism-advocates who push lies that have the potential to do harm to those who have faith in the rhetoric. A certain “fruigo-herbivore” advocate, living I believe in Canada and claiming to have “the cure for cancer”, comes to mind.

29

Biocosmism, also known as Russian-Cosmism, as was pushed by Nikolai Fyodorov — the false promise of immortality and resurrection of the dead (amidst other nonsensical science-fiction fantasies) — is essentially reproduced in transhumanist-immoralism. If I pretend for a moment that this were possible, to render impossibility impossible, I can only imagine this being done through the most repressive of conservatisms. What horrors were enacted under the false promise of immortality in heaven — is it possible that similar horrors would be enacted under the false promise of immortality through technology?

30

I appreciate the care Nan Shepherd articulates for the preservation of those civilised visitors of the Cairngorms, as she also does for the preservation of the wildlife and wildness of those mountains. I also appreciate her affirmation that every individual is responsible for their preservation, without any appeals for negating or transcending that individual responsibility.

31

Conservative-philosopher Roger Scruton stated that conservatism is a modernism. I wonder if he didn’t get this backwards and that modernity is conservative.

32

There is a great appreciation for the death and destruction that renders creation possible, in the poetry of Robinson Jeffers, and a great revolt for the conservation of civilisation. His poetry inspired the call for “(u)ncivilised creativity” in Uncivilisation: The Dark Mountain Manifesto, written by Paul Kingsnorth and Douglas Hine. I find the best quality of the manifesto by Kingsnorth and Hine is the affirmation of uncivilised art and writing, and the affirmation of the impossibility of technological progress providing salvation from ecological struggle — I find it’s worst quality is the absence of affirming uncivilised presence, as Jeffers does so well.

Uncivilised writing and art and poetry, like Jeffers, seems to be of immense value for encouraging preservationist praxes.

33

I just walked from my house to one end of the road that goes through the village to the other end of the village and then back to my house, with a cup of tea in hand and intend to do this walk again later today, before I go to my counselling supervision session. Yesterday I attempted the route three times in a row at midday, taking the second time at a light jog, and struggled with activities afterwards and had to stop for longer than I would have wanted to — fatigue is shit! My GP has encouraged me to focus on cardio, rather than body weight and free weights (which are my go-to exercise choices), and suggested that I eventually get an exercise bike to use at home. This last suggestion is completely unpalatable for me. During my walk this morning I took more notice of my surroundings than I did yesterday. The village feels thick with autumn. The songs of various song birds and corvids dance on the air, rendering the sound of machinery at the farm far less noticeable. One of the dogs who lives at one of the houses comes to visit me with a bit more enthusiasm than previous meetings — recently I removed some brambles that had gotten caught up in their fur and can only assume that they remember this. When I got home I prepared some sourdough toast with butter and eat it while beginning to write this.

Given the distances I have had the energy to walk in previous years, to feel as impacted as I do by this short walk feels saddening. Even during summer this year, I could walk further and longer than I can now in early December. As I was walking this morning I thought of Thoreau and his descriptions of his walks — I am not Thoreau and live a very different life to him. A friend — who is far more inclined towards “spirituality” and what I would describe as universalism (and largely consider to be reductionism) — recently said to me that they believe that there is just one life, which makes little sense to me. The other day I watched a video of my friend Tom, who is a parkour athlete, jumping across buildings and doing all kinds of impressive acrobatics. Tom is very different from me and I from him, and our lives are very different. Our lives are ecologically not separate within the ecological whole of this world, and our embodied individuation strikes me as obvious. For Tom the walk I just took would be no significant effort at all; and I say this with no resentment towards Tom for the strength he has, much as I know Tom appreciates my strengths.

The preservation and regeneration of my health may well be found in wild walks — this certainly appeals to my attraction to shinrin yoku praxis and desire to intensify mine. During my GP appointment we discussed more long-term health matters, during which I shared that I feel confident that if it’s not a tumour that eventually takes me out then it will be a stroke — given my previous medical treatments and that my mother and grandmother both had strokes. My doctor assured me that I’m basically doing everything that I can do to take care of myself so that this would be a later life experience, with the suggestion of focusing on cardio rather than strength and endurance; and said that he is in complete agreement that this is the most likely case. The absurdity of considering this short walk as an attempt to lessen my risk of a stroke in my 60s or 70s is apparent, and then there is truth in that I am willing my self preservation in this way.

I’ve now finished the tea and feel in need of another. The birds are singing in my garden and I am remembering Kurt Cobain’s thought regarding birds screaming the awful truth and the horrors we’d hear if we understood them. A squirrel is walking on top of our outbuilding and I remember Tom again, with a fond feeling of love for him.

34

Jared Diamond’s writings are so dull and academic, and valuable thought.

35

The Wildpunk Manifesto — defending forest and self-defence as preservationism. I appreciate this small zine.

36

Feral Faun’s “mini-theory” — preserving play as the destruction of cities, which are ruins.

37

N.O. Bonzo’s illustrated story on forest defence is truly wonderful!

38

Euthanasia: the conservation of a body where all possibility has been exhausted is not life-affirming preservation of possibility, but death/impossibility denial. We all become-impossible and it seems entirely loving, caring and decent to ease the becoming-impossible of those we love, however that might be needing to be done — even if only to preserve their affirmation of life and not die with bitterness towards life. When possibility has been exhausted for an individual is something that they might say for themselves at any point and choose to seek to end their life, but if they desire assistance and support in this then the authenticity and sincerity of the notion is of paramount concern. Bad faith towards possibility renders suicide appealing to many who have much possibility to embrace; and there are individuals who have exhausted their possibility and are ready to die, but who are conserved, all too often against their will, simply to conform with the ideology of death-denial. Is euthanasia good or bad, right or wrong, moral or immoral? I say none of these. Instead I say that it is a choice for individuals to make and on occasion the kindest, most loving and most desirable choice. This affirmation comes with no fondness for euthanasia and a feeling of horror for the possibility of illness so terrible that I would seek it for myself and would ask for my loved one’s support. I hate this idea, and it is true.

39

Reading about individuals rebelling against nuclear industrial activities, mining operations and deforestation, on the European continent, brings me joy.

40

René Riesel’s self-described Luddite rebellions against industrialism, biotechnologies and GMOs are heroic for me, though his writing style is too dry and impersonal for my tastes.

41

Panta Rhei’s collection of aphorisms Beyond Words, published in the first issue of the journal No Path, articulates a perspective that is very similar to mine, though I feel far more affirming of living presence than I find them to be in this writing. The difference between our perspectives could simply be stated as the difference between nihilism and absurdism, though this feels overly reductive and ideological.

42

What do fights against prisons seek to defend other than defending possibility from the machinery of repression?

43

Storm Darragh: preserving life is more desirable than conserving a plan!

44

I was gifted copies of volumes 1–3 of the animal-liberationist magazine Wildfire by an Earth First! activist at the last anarchist book fair I attended. There’s a fourth volume that I’ve not seen — perhaps I’ll get a copy at a book fair, when I next get to one. These are excellent collections of writings on praxes, with art that I thoroughly enjoy!

45

I am waiting on MRI scan results, to get a better idea of if what could be seen on the last scan results was scar tissue from the removal of the tumour, or another tumour growing. These scan results are important for my self-preservation and they are not going to stop a tumour from growing or spreading; this technology will not save me from death. The other day I said that you could describe anything as “putting off the inevitable”, in a conversation with Katie’s sister. Yes, it is absurd to try and survive tumours, which is putting off the inevitable — I’m still going to do it.

46

“The world collapses for lack of interest, although it continues to subsist …” Fondane, Boredom

Perhaps the preservation of life begins with being interested in life?

47

“I distrust all systematisers, and avoid them. The will to systematise shows a lack of honesty.” Nietzsche Twilight of the Idols

I feel untrusting of green politics and the environmentalist ideologies that seek to construct systems. They all feel dishonest.

48

Muir considered forests to be God’s first temples and appealed for their preservation through the establishment of wild-parks and reservations. I am more inclined towards considering the habitats that surround me as an Extension of myself, that their preservation is my preservation, and that, just as my authentic self resides outside of political-establishment, authentic-preservationist praxes are not systematic.

49

In the rewilding of everyday life there is the healing and preservation of the world.

50

Internally I giggle at the idea of describing my preservationist praxis as “radical and unorthodox Thoreauism”. This is stupid; there has only ever been one Thoreauist and he died on his cross.

51

Andreas Weber’s solutionism, which draws from Adorno’s and Horkheimer’s thought and encourages a new political agenda that is based in a “policy of life”, is not something that I can honestly say I have faith in. The poetics he encourages, which destruct/de-construct Enlightenment ideology with Enlivement/Alivement perspectives and are focused on biological-entanglement, I find far more resonance with. Rather than a political agenda based in a “policy of life”, I would rather encourage anti-political praxes that grow from a love of life.

52

Aragorn!, John Zerzan, Peter Lamborn Wilson/Hakim Bey, Feral Faun/ Wolfi Landstreicher and John Moore — perhaps the post-Situationists who have most intensely impacted my thought. I find preservationist aesthetics in all of their writings. Aragorn! sought to preserve the presence of indigenous and anarchist cultures and praxes, through nihilism and dialogue. John Moore sought to preserve anarchy and poetry through medicine praxes and nomadism. These two individuals are those mentioned here who feel closest to my preservationism — the others are far more dialectical. Wolfi Landsteicher/Feral Faun seeks to preserve wilful disobedience and attempts this through insurrectionary-dialectics. Peter Lamborn Wilson/Hakim Bey sought to preserve spirituality within anarchist praxes, through dialectical-syntheses. Lastly, John Zerzan’s negative-dialectic of primitive-analysis seeks to preserve what remains of Palaeolithic-culture. As dialecticians, the latter three are seemingly more concerned with historisation, whereas the dialogic quality of Aragorn! and John Moore’s praxes seems to gesture more towards caring for living presence than History — the dialecticians dilute their preservationisms with historisations more than the others, whose dialogic praxes are more oriented towards intensifying possibility than intensifying impossibilities.

53

Preservationism is anti-political, as politics is mass-extinction — localised for most of History and rendered global with totalising-colonialist-expansion.

54

I enjoy the TV series The Walking Dead, as I find it to be continually exploring the absurdist and preservationist question of whether or not to preserve life; and affirms that there is no one singular answer, that polities do not provide salvation or transcendence and that the possibility of survival happens through tribal relations of loving care. Sure, it is a stupid spectacle; but it is also an engaging thought experiment. I’m currently rewatching the series with it meeting a different need, as a horror story. The horror of the world of The Walking Dead is useful for me, in confronting the horrors that I face in my self-preservation. I have several collections of local folk-horror stories (from Devon and Cornwall), and believe that folk-horror stories exist, are created and are told, to help folk survive the horrors of everyday life — they motivate courage, heroism, care and responsibility. Nietzsche is well known for having written that art exists so that we might not die of truth, which is of course absurd as the truth is we all die regardless — maybe all I’m doing here is paraphrasing Nietzsche by saying that we have horror stories to help preserve our lives amidst the horrors we might face.

Thought Experiements Revisited

*

Trolley cart problem: this thought experiment is typically limited to a debate between categorical and utilitarian moralities, which continually strikes me as a stupid and boring conversation. From the perspectives of individuals inclined towards anti-civ, techno-pessimism and/or Luddite politics, the experiment begins with an ethically compromised environment. The railway tracks, the trolley cart and bridge are the construction of an unethical environment. How can a wholly ethical choice be made in such an environment? I do not believe it is possible. The moral enframings are ecologically-reductive and simplifications that do not reflect the complexities of lived experience, where choices cannot be so simply rationalised. What wisdom, insight or reflection that can be taken from the trolley cart problem seems to be just that — that moralities are a poor replacement for authentic ethical consideration and ecologically meaningless. My personal solution to the trolley cart problem is to destroy and return to the earth the industrial machinery.

*

Theseus’ ship: this exploration of parts and wholes, and identity has a technological push that also rarely gets affirmed. What of the parts and the whole and the identity of the forests and woods, where the lumber to build and fix Theseus’ ship came from? What of the individuals who comprise the crew coming and going? No, what philosophy students in academic institutions around the world are encouraged to think about is the technology of the ship.

*

Buridan’s donkey/Aristotle’s hungry man: rationalisations end when an individual chooses to quench their thirst or hunger first. I sincerely doubt that any donkey has ever been stupid enough to die of thirst or hunger because they failed to decide which they wanted to satisfy first. Aristotle, on the other hand, I could entirely imagine dying having failed to choose whether to eat or drink first — since I first encountered Aristotle’s philosophy (initially his cosmological argument, then his politics and then his biology) I have found him stupid enough to die this way. I trust the wisdom of donkeys more than the rationalisations of Aristotle. My mind has now turned to Eeyore and his pessimism; which when contrasted with Alexander the Great’s teacher’s optimism, looks to me to be another example of a donkey’s wisdom being greater.

*

The pig who wants to be eaten: I have enjoyed this thought experiment since I first read it. I have chosen to eat a vegetarian diet since my late teens, not for the sake of animals but because that is the diet that I want to eat. This attempt to imagine a situation where any individual who chooses a diet that involves no meat consumption and justifies that choice through rationalisations regarding the consent of animals, might conclude that they must eat the pig, falls apart when the choice to not eat meat is affirmed with the integrity of egoistic desire. My response to the pig who wants to be eaten is to ask someone else to eat them, as I will not as I do not want to and do not feel obliged to do so because of their want to be eaten.

*

Chesterton’s fence: it is generally considered that the basic assumption of Chesterton’s fence is that it is inadvisable to remove an obstacle providing separation from something that should be avoided, thus justifying conservative politics — Jordan Peterson is a fan of this principle, as evidenced by his anti-Pride rant. However, I would say that there is a presupposition that comes before this and that underlies the thought experiment. This presupposition is the technological-optimist notion, at the core of civilisational-logic, that constructions like fences, walls, enclosures, etc., keep out, repress and provide separation from the wildness that is the world. Experience renders me in disbelief and without faith in this idea. The civilisational attempt to separate from the world, which is wild, is rendered futile by the presence of plagues, wild animals and storms that destroy fences. I notice that a fence is what Agamben would call an “anthropological machine” and am reminded of his affirmation of “the (unopenable) open” — and I notice how Jordan Peterson encourages nothing of openness.

Individualist-Holism: an Antidote for Reductionism

1

The statement “we’re all human” is both anthropocentric nonsense and colonialist universalism to me — Human-Being is an encoding of species-being that has no ecological value.

2

Tenebristic-holism: the whole is dark and uncertain, but there. Amidst the darkness individuals stand out, beautiful and alive.

3

Individuation is affirmed as true through pain and holism is affirmed as true through love. Neither negates the other and both are really unspeakable, but through poetry folks try.

4

This fatigue is intensely individuating and unspeakable. What words I find are reductive and poor representations — this is equally true for the truth of fatigue and the truth of individuality. I grow increasingly tired of saying that I’m tired when I’m asked how I am, so I say that the fatigue is real; which it is and my flesh screams this truth with an intense desire for easing — the words I use to express this are a reality that is true and are not the realness of this. Kind hearted friends and loved ones do their best to understand, be empathetic and support me through this — I’m glad that they are not experiencing this, that the mind is not collective, and that is a wonderful truth. They have their own pains and struggles, and I try my best to be loving and caring. We become a holism of differentiated and individuated pains and struggles and challenges, co-existing and together in loving each other with our differences.

5

The idea of acromegaly endarkens my experience of potential. It would likely increase my chances of a stroke. My endocrinologist is not worried, despite my abnormally high insulin like growth factor hormone levels, as my growth hormone levels are low and I’ve no symptoms for acromegaly; other than fatigue, which is probably not reducible to any one “thing”.

6

Gabor Maté describes normality as a myth, which I am largely of the same perspective — that there is no normal and that what is pushed as “normal” is incredibly toxic and unhealthy. He also pushes the notion of “pathways to wholeness”, which I find crass and suggestive of the notion that there are individuals who are not wholes themselves and aspects of the holism of life. In my meanest and more critical of moments I look at Maté as attempting to posture himself as a guruistic pathway-provider; and in my kinder and more appreciative moments I see him as an individual doing his best to support healing with all the means available to him.

7

The concept of subscendence is one that I’ve drawn from heavily, through the writings of Timothy Morton. The basic ideas of this concept of subscendence are that parts subscend wholes and are greater than wholes, that wholes are different from their parts, and that subscendence is ecologically-dark. In Morton’s view, subscendence does not suggest individualism and considers individualism to be “well expressed” through neoliberalism, following the same concept of individualism as neoliberals — I thoroughly disagree. In my experience, wholes are individuals and the parts of wholes are individuals, and that neoliberalism and the Thatcherite politics that Morton ties individualism to, have nothing to do with authentic individuality. Neoliberalism is no more individualist than any of the collectivist agricultural-industrial productive machinery given any other name. While I deeply appreciate much of Morton’s thought; like many within ecological conversations, his writings on individuation, individuality and individualism, like those of inauthentic “individualism”, strike me as, at best, dishonest and, at worst, supportive of ecological abuses where individuals are worthy sacrifices to collectivist productivity.

8

Reducing individuals to species-being is ecologically disastrous. Reducing species to the last individuals is ecologically disastrous. Reductionism is ecologically disastrous. The tendency towards encouraging anti-individualist reductionism within ecological conversations is existentially disastrous.

9

At the core of authentic radical individualism there resides the whole and sincere holism is rooted in the affirmation of individuality.

10

The separation of individuation from holism is the inauthenticity of Leviathan.

11

Conservationism is a collectivism and a reductionism — the possibility of holistic healing is reducing with conservationist-industrialism.

12

The preservation of wholes is just as absurd as the preservation of any individual. Equally, holistic preservation is impossible, as impossibly exists — (paraphrasing Sartre) impossibly lives within the centre of the whole, like a worm; worms eat decaying plant and animal matter, which break down in their digestive systems and release fertile waste into the soil.

13

Deleuze and Guattari’s philosophies of differentiation and complexification, with their affirmation of monism=pluralism, I intensely appreciate and come to an extremely similar perspective of holism=individualism. What disappoints me about their Anti-Oedipus most is the fetishisation of machines and industry — I see them both as cancerous corruptions of life and creativity.

14

Ann Van Sevenant identifies two distinct qualities of Fondane’s thought: co-existentialism and disjointedness — Fondane is an ecological philosopher!

15

“A philosophy that is not valid for everyone means only, perhaps: not valid for every man as long as he is immersed in the ordinary conditions of life, where there is a ready-made answer for every question. But a plague, an earthquake, can suddenly rise up with its problems in the least prepared man, in the most banal life. Each and every one can become an ‘exception’.“ Fondane, Existential Monday

Exceptions are individuation and wholes are exceptional. Amidst this mass extinction event, there are no ready-made answers and survival depends on our ability to become more and more exceptional.

16

Eco-egoism: I experience the world as extension of myself. Preserving myself is only possible through caring for the world I encounter, loving those around me. Those who love me and care for me do so as loving themselves; their worlds would be diminished without my presence.

17

Pan-solipsism: my understanding of the world is really understanding myself.

18

Reductionism is mass extinction.

19

Winter solstice 2024: went for longest walk since the fatigue started really impacting me, with Katie. Early on we were gifted the sight of two buzzards emerging from the woods at the bottom of the hill where we live. The buzzard population upon these isles has more than quadrupled since 1970, which is part of a general “boom” in raptor populations here, which are the highest they’re recorded as being for centuries. The beauty of these individual birds is not reduced by the population numbers — they are a wonder to behold. We continue to hear them as we continue on our walk.

20

Derrida’s holism is as applicable to ecology as it is to language — the whole cannot be fully grasped.

21

Dialogue as anti-totalitarianism: Bakhtin’s polyphony is a holism that affirms the presence of individuation; wholes are comprised of differentiating voices that are irreducible. His dialogic-philosophy is anti-totalitarian with its resistance against monologisation, homoglossia and unitary-languages; which are means I see often used to disguise totalitarianism as holism, particularly through universalist appeals to reductive-collectivism. When I walk through woods or forests, or find myself surrounded by wildflowers, or gaze out across the sea from the cliffs at the Exmoor coast, I find nothing of universalism or monologues, but polyphonies of irreducible and unknowable differentiating voices and presences, whose individuation is lived poetry to me.

22

The difference between totalitarianism and holism seems to largely be the difference between negation/assimilation (dialectical) politics and (antipodean) affirmations of distance and differentiation. The colonisation of thought seeks to erase difference and distance — I wonder if colonialism will be-negated or if it will collapse, rot and decay. My experience in conversation is that dialectics generally collapse into antipodean dialogues with grumblings and ideological resentments, if they are not squashed by a performative mediator (with grumblings and ideological resentments continuing internally).

23

I appreciate deconstruction as the de-structuring of machines. Destroyed machines may decay and rot, in their ways, and become earth; if the dissembled apparatus is not used to be other machines.

Dialogic-deconstruction or deconstructive-dialogues seem(s) to happen between individuals, when there is a subject or topic of interest that they wish to converse about without the push to assert a particular ideology. Perhaps individuals are dialogic and the whole is destructive?

24

The return to the body: individuation and holism, the embracing of sensuality and queering of ecology — Nietzsche and Shepherd (both of whom were active walkers).

25

I-Thou relationships, real or authentic relationships (as this is often called), are to me the unexplainable individualism=holism; regardless of Buber rejecting the idea of individualism.

26

Kafka: “(t)he variety of views that one may have, say, of an apple: the view of the small boy who has to crane his neck for a glimpse of the apple on the table, and the view of the master of the house who picks up the apple and hands it to his guest.”

The polyphony of perspectives regarding an apple, not even including the view of the apple, is barely speakable. Now try to do this for the holism of this earth with all the individuated and ever fluctuating perspectives, and the result is madness. It is better not to speak for the whole, but to speak for your individuation and the whole as an extension and aspect of your individuation, if one wishes to not fall in to maddening inauthenticity. I want ecological wellness and holistic healing, and my wanting this is earth wanting this.

27

“Only living creatures assert themselves. They want to “be” and revolt against every attack on their individuality or their “ego”.” Shestov, In Job’s Balance

Collectivism is the assertion of death, as totalitarianism is the assumed knowledge of who should and should not die.

28

Eugene Thacker is a hilarious humanist.

29

“The last word of philosophy is loneliness.” Thacker, Infinite Resignation

I disagree — the last word of my philosophy is love, with death being the full stop.

30

“There are times when I feel that the only real aptitude of our species is that we can ruin anything.” Thacker, Infinite Resignation

Thacker’s humanism is shallow.

31

“(T)he pinnacle of humanity lies in its ability to be disgusted with itself. What really separates us from other forms of life is our ability to detest our kind, to recognize the stupidity of being human. I spite, therefore I am.” Thacker, Infinite Resignation

This is the truest articulation of collectivism — the push for separation grows from spite.

32

“Let us cast off all forms of racism, sexism, nationalism and the like, in favour of a new kind of discrimination — that of speciesism.” Thacker, Infinite Resignation

I am tired of collectivist-bigotry.

33

Metaphysical misanthropy: utterly stupefied anthropocentrism.

34

Is there anything more anthropocentric than the policing of someone’s diet because they are a featherless biped?

35

Thacker’s 3 worlds — “world-for-us”, “world-in-itself” and “world-without-us”. He claims “the world-without-us lies somewhere in between …” the others “… in a nebulous zone that is at once impersonal and horrific”. In his worlds, the worlds are separate from “us” — his theory of worlds is nonsense separatism and collective-reductionism.

36

“The question is, what happens when we as human beings confront a world that is radically unhuman, impersonal, and even indifferent to the human?” Thacker, In The Dust Of This Planet

This is a stunningly boring question to me, founded upon the presupposition of human-exceptionalism. There are other questions that interest me far more. Will the absurdity of caring for any individual living being inspire the ugliest of acts as mass extinction and other ecological catastrophes worsen? What am I going to do in this world and what do I want for myself in this world? These questions interest me far more.

37

“What theology implicitly admits, horror explicitly states: a profound fissure at the heart of the concept of “life.” Thacker, In The Dust Of This Planet

The truth of horror is not of fissures but of holism; we are not separate from monsters.

38

“It would be more accurate – and more horrific, in a sense – to say that the world is indifferent to us as human beings. Indeed, the core problematic in the climate change discourse is the extent to which human beings are at issue at all. On the one hand we as human beings are the problem; on the other hand at the planetary level of the Earth’s deep time, nothing could be more insignificant than the human.” Thacker, In The Dust Of This Planet

Thacker’s misanthropic human-exceptionalism is largely a joke to me — the stories told by fossils are of the absurdity of all living beings, with the world being no more indifferent to humans and humans being no more insignificant than any other living presence. As for the notion of “human beings are the problem”, this rationalisation is seemingly only possible with a foundational Mesopotanianist (totalitarian-agriculturalist, colonialist and techno-industrialist) universalism — the North Sentinelese Islanders, Sama Bajou and Sami are seemingly dehumanised by Thacker. This notion of “human beings are the problem” is not one that I believe in, partly as the very notion of “problem” strikes me as too optimistic (and enlightened); as if there is a problem then there must be a solution and solutionism is too Hitlerian for me — I believe in disease and easing, healing, harm, abuse, care, etc., but to suggest that “humans” are inherently any of these feels just as dishonest as Thacker’s claim of their being the problem.

39

Wilde is well known for having written, in his play The Importance of Being Earnest, that “the truth is rarely pure and never simple”; but I would change this to “truths are never pure or simple” — wholes and individuals are never pure or simple.

40

Wholes are dark and the reductionism of Enlightenment thought and thinking is anti-holism as it attempts to reduce the darkness. Holism means to learn to live in darkness and to co-exist in the dark.

41

My widest sense of self extends to the sky I experience daily, moving from blue and sunny to black and starry and frequently dressed in clouds. This is the furthest my senses reach and the fullest holism I find I can authentically Be — maybe I am Earth-centric instead of universalist. There are individuals I have encountered who claim to feel part of a universal-whole and who have asked me why I limit myself in this way; but I generally find their explanations to be rationalisations based in technologically mediated information, rather than any embodied sensation, and find the notion of limitlessness to be inauthentic and nonsense for myself — I cannot speak for them. I am an individuated aspect of Earth and Earth is an extension of my-self.

42

Boxing Day 2024 Tom Hirons published a poem online he wrote that morning titled I Pray For The Dark, which includes the these words “I want to see clearly all that the bright world hides” — an appeal for tenebristic-holism (surely?).

43

“No two beings, and no two situations, are really commensurable with each other. To become aware of this fact is to undergo a sort of crisis. But it is with this crisis in our moral awareness as a starting-point, that there becomes possible that cry from us towards the creative principle, and that demand by it on us, which each must answer in his own way.” Gabriel Marcel, Man Against Mass Society

This also evokes a crisis for ecological thought and praxis — rather than embrace creativity, most ecologists and environmentalists I encounter will rationalise the most absurd normative bullshit.

44

Quick thought (that happened in the shower): there is no such thing as misanthropic pessimism, despite what Thacker, Ligotti or similar others would say. Misanthropic pessimism posits that there is a problem, which is Humanity, so there is a solution, an answer, light at the end of the tunnel, in the negation of Humanity. Leviathan does the same thing in seeking to posit wildness as a problem solved through technology; in an attempt to avoid dealing with life and death and love and pain, which are not problems and there are no solutions for or salvation from. Vegan misanthropes are just as optimistic as the misanthropes who call themselves pessimists, in that they state the problem and solution in the same breath. The absurdity of actual pessimism is that there is no problem and there is no solution. There is life and nothing more than that. The truly horrifying quality of life is that we are not damned and so cannot be saved. The K-T impact was not a problem to be solved and perhaps neither is the possibility of cancer growing behind my eye — perhaps both are just experiences to survive or die from. Does this give reason for indifference? That would be too optimistic for me; “indifference, finally an answer” cries the misanthrope, or Leviathan, heck most revolutionaries too — indifference is the way of optimism, as regardless of what I, you, we, they, etc., do, everything will turn out right regardless, so there’s ample reason to justify not giving a shit.

45

“In parting. — Not how one soul comes close to another but how it moves away shows me their kinship and how much they belong together.” Nietzsche (I forgot to note which book this is from, but I believe On the Genealogy of Morality)

There is no being a part of a whole without the parting of the body and my body longs for gathering together, with those who I love.

46

“There is nothing outside the whole!” Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

Separatism is death.

47

“Stay loyal to the earth, my brothers, with the power of your virtue.” Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Stay loyal to yourself, my tribe, with the power of your ecological care.

48

Wulfinna’s poetry collection Accordance, et al is an impressive affirmation of life affirming individualism.

49

“But the California forests are made up of a greater number of different species than any other in the world. And in them we find, not only a marked differentiation into species groups, but also a marked individuality in almost every tree, giving rise to storm effects indescribably glorious.” Muir

I appreciate Muir’s individualism and find similar individualities and differentiations in the forests and woods, and other wild habitats I find here in Devon; though less intensely rich in species abundance with agricultural-monoculturalism.

50

Deconstructing domesticating-collectivism to arrive at a wild whole as a feral individual.

51

“I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time.” Thoreau, Walden

Existential isolation and ecological inseparatism are a paradox that are true and unspeakably real.

52

Perhaps my favourite work of writing on the authentic embrace of one’s individuality and the dangers that poses amidst the collective of society, is Camus’ The Stranger. I find Meursault an unattractive figure in many ways, but I appreciate the honesty and revolt before pushes to conform, that his character presents.

What is often described as “rugged individualism” — which I have never seen as authentic individualism, given that it seemingly entirely pertains to assimilation into the collectivist-machinery of productivity, industry, the-market, economics and politics — often attempts posturing such risk. The hilarity of Randian-Objectivism being postured as individualist and involving anything of heroic-embrace-of-dangerous-living continually astounds me — the entire ideology is founded upon productive-achievement-as-noblest-activity. I find it utterly revolting that almost any affirmation of individualist-praxes is sought to be squashed within ecological conversation, under the rationalisation that individualism means Randianism, liberalism, capitalism, etc.; though in all honesty, given how frequently anti-individualist environmentalists, in my experience, push for simply rearranging the organisation of industrial production and sustaining the economy for as long they can conserve it through technological-development, I frequently find myself in disbelief that there is anything of ecological-care to be found in those ideologies. Greens and eco-socialists and Randianism share common ground in their rationalisations regarding productive-achievements as the most heroic activity — a notion that I utterly reject. The assimilation of individualisation and ecological-care into the totalitarianism of Leviathan/the-machine pertains to the push for inauthenticity and I have no desire to encourage inauthenticity.

The most heroic activity that I can see is the embrace of authentic individuality, embodied and expressed through ecological care.

53

A self-described “anarcho-communist” tells me that an anarcho-communist future society would be the only one where “anarcho-individualism” could actually happen, because individuals would be free to live as they want to. I think to respond to them by saying that this future then is “anarcho-individualist”, with some individuals choosing to live communally, but I don’t. Both feel like nonsense fantasy, imagining Otherworlds rather than engaging in this world; I share this observation instead and they accuse me of being a “reactionary” for not striving for a “better future” — I grow ever tireder of talking to “revolutionaries”, and long for sincere conversation with folk. I have no ill feeling towards this “anarcho-communist”; quite the opposite — I want to talk to them, rather than this ideology they’re embracing.

54

Kafka: “The indestructable is one thing; at one and the same time it is each individual, and it is something common to all; hence the uniquely indissoluble connection among mankind.”

I don’t mind Kafka’s anthropocentrism here — he is generally affirming of zoopoetics.

55

Hitbonenut, meaning “self-isolation”, is an unstructured and spontaneous meditation practice within Jewish-mysticism, pertaining to a mind that is full with creation attaining immediatist contact with YHWH. In hitbonenut, the whole of creation is attained through individuation, which is sometimes called “the silent scream”.

56

A counter thought to Timothy Morton’s Communist claims: Marxism has always privileged the non-humans of production, revolution, organisation and History, above all else. This is largely what differentiates Camatte’s thought from that of Marx — Camatte is a humanist, while Marx is a machine-non-humanist.

57

“These trees and these flowers are truly my sole, unique, true brothers. This forest is my mother. And moved, I kissed my bed of Moss, as one kisses the fertile womb of a mother; I kissed those flowers as one kisses the face of a brother; and I kissed the hanging leafy branches of those trees as one kisses the small, lily-white hands of the most sweet and tender lover.” Novatore

I look for mothers and grandmothers in trees and brothers and sisters in flowers, but I have not yet begun to look for fathers in botanical presence. What plant would a father be though?

58

Spinelli’s three principles for “the relational world” are (1) relatedness and individuality, (2) existential uncertainty and (3) existential anxiety. Affirming relatedness and individuality, existential uncertainty and existential anxiety, strike me as being integral aspects of sincere holism.

59

“He was so full of disgust, disgust at the world and at himself, that he could not weep.” Patrick Süskind, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

All too often individuation and revolt becomes corrupted in resentful disgust and turn into collective-indifference; the basis of many rationalisations justifying murders. I weep.

60

In François Laruelle’s “non-philosophy” I find a lot of hyper-rationalisations regarding “the One” and the occasional appeal to universals, and I find myself feeling untrusting. This may well say more about me than Laruelle — I am sure it does.

61

Individualism is self-indulgent, holism is self-indulgent and collectivism is self-renunciation and resignation. Like Libertad, I am revolted by the pushes for renunciation and resignation. I intensely believe that surviving mass-extinction and ecological healing require the self-indulgence of holistic-individualism/individualist-holism.

62

Camus affirmed that integrity has no need for rules and I would follow from this to say that holism has no need for moralities — integrity is a flower rooted in holism.

63

Peeling the shell of an egg, laid by a chicken that lives with a neighbour of mine, that I’ve boiled somewhat between soft and hard, with segments of shell breaking apart and individuating with my fingers; I notice that holism is not static. As I eat the egg on some toasted bread, with some black pepper cracked on top; I notice that individuation is not static. This negates neither individuation nor holism, but re-minds me that individuation is an aspect of holism and holism is an aspect of individuality.

64

“This world is a great, comprehensive whole. It is one, and it is the uncountable diversity of individuals.” Andreas Weber

Yes!

65

Berdyaev opposed individualism in favour of personality, as a transcendent presence akin to the soul. My philosophy of the flesh and I see personality as an aspect of subscending-individuation, rather than transcendence.

66

The monism of anarchy is a pluralism of anarchies. The monism of wildness is a pluralism of wildnesses. The monism of life is a pluralism of lives. The monism of life is the monism of death. The plurality of lives is a plurality of deaths.

67

Perfume: Story of a Murderer is one of my favourite novels, which articulates so well that beauty is ruined, and death and indifferentism encouraged, through scientific reductionism.

68

If we are all Earthians then all food consumption is cannibalism and if we are all Earth then all food consumption is auto-cannibalism.

69

Radical and authentic, rather than performative and moderate, self-kindness seems a necessary aspect of holistic ecological healing, which can be a real challenge, as civilisation is ever intensifying self-harm.

70

I have a PDF of Daniel Kolak’s book I Am You, where he articulates his philosophy of Open-Individualism. Skimming through, I have an aesthetic repulsion towards the analytical approach he employs, with a feeling of absurdity towards attempting to speak the unspeakable — an absurdity I too am engaged in.

What Rot

1

Conservatism requires the push for rules, as conservatism requires the abandonment of integrity, which needs no rules.

2

My mother’s family were social-conservatives and my father’s family were Thatcherite economic conservatives. I continually experienced both as lacking in integrity and as toxic, throughout my experiences of them both. This is undoubtedly a core aspect of my instinctive distrust of conservatism.

3

The lack of integrity in conservatism is most obvious in religious institutions that are intensely repressive. Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc., all seem to fit this stereotype of the more conservative the institution or practitioner, the less integrity they have — this is my experience at least.

4

The philosophies of Hobbes and Hegel and Locke, who were all conservatives, have served as great tools for totalitarianism. Locke’s propertarianism, Hegel’s historicism and Hobbes’ social-contract, find common ground in repression and resentment.

5

The ill-will and meanness that is seemingly fundamental to conservatism at its core seems to be no-saying to life and possibly.

6

The 12 principles for a 21^st century conservatism, written by Jordan Peterson, are indicative of the shallowest of thought and are more akin to foundational axioms that serve to rationalise repression than anything else that I can see.

7

Chomsky’s conservatism is perhaps most revolting to me in his pushing the (dishonest) rhetoric that the rewilding of domesticated spaces equates to genocide and that the conservation of the machinery of Mesopotamia/Leviathan is not the conservation of genocide. As Kazimir Kharza put it; “Chomsky is an agent of the industrial system, and nothing else.”

8

Zizekian conservatism equates to structural-reorganisation-without-change and I honestly wonder how this differentiates from any other variant of Marxism.

9

Peterson wrote in his book Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief that “The purpose of life, as far as I can tell… is to find a mode of being that’s so meaningful that the fact that life is suffering is no longer relevant” …

Peterson’s philosophy is oriented towards becoming indifferent to suffering, alienating oneself from the cry of the flesh calling out for a healthier and less harmful experience of life.

10

Peterson’s sermon: in one of his filmed sermons, Peterson claims that the pathway to a meaningful life is to “maintain your convenant with God”, by which I assume that he means to conserve the colonialist ideology of manifest destiny. He bases this in the story of Abraham, who sacrificed his son Issac for God, or rather abandoned his being a father to appease God, and was able to keep his son — what an awful lie that is, that a father can abandon his child, sacrifice them before God, and still be their father.

11

Of course Peterson is obsessed with Dostoevsky; Dostoevsky was an ultra-conservative tsarist-nationalist.

12

I am far more sympathetic towards Elmo than Peterson — sometimes it is difficult to tell which is a puppet.

13

Camus affirmed that integrity has no need for rules and Peterson writes two rule books, with a total of 24 rules for his followers; I presume because he believes that they lack integrity.

14

Nietzsche described those who tried to improve mankind as “pia fraus”, meaning a pious fraud; and is there not a better description than this for Peterson?

15

Nietzsche’s hint to conservatives: “… we can hinder this development, and by doing so dam up and accumulate degeneration itself and render it more convulsive, more volcanic: we cannot do more.”

16

The Picture Of Dorian Grey is a great work on the how conserving an image is the decay of beauty and love.

17

Russell Kirk’s 10 Conservative Principles are nothing more than bad faith rationalisations of the repression of possibility.

18

I have always been untrusting of Confuscus’ thought — I don’t trust philosophies venerated by imperialism and empire.

19

“I’m not emotional”: Andrew Tate’s masculinist-conservatism is so obviously rooted in his repression and he is such a hyperbolic performance of the spreading conservatism rooted in male repression — spreading like a cancer.

20

Martin Shaw’s embrace of Christianity and Jordan Peterson is so painfully obviously done to conform with the fashion, moving away from folk-culture and embracing popular-culture.

21

“It is that which, in the winter of the world, will prepare the fruit.” Camus, The Almond Trees

The production of a conserve represses the possibility of new life emerging from the fruit. Conserves are often delicious — I am especially fond of strawberry jams and caramelised onion chutneys — and they are artificial, in no way pertaining to ecological health.

22

In The Fall Camus introduces the idea of a “judge-penitent”, who is someone who confesses their “sins” so that they might judge others. Peterson, Tate and my father are examples of judge-penitents.

23

The push for stoicism amidst conservative rhetoric makes sense — both temples are built upon a foundation of repression.

24

What often gets called WOKE works upon the same logic of repression, resentment and normativity as conservatism. They are not opposites or even really in conflict, but the shadow of the other. Neither pertain to healing and both pertain to the construction of fences.

25

Nick Land and The Dark Enlightenment — salvationism through authoritarianism.

26

My will-to-preserve is intense, such that I am entirely capable of making the mistake of seeking to preserve what has already died and in so doing end up attempting to conserve a corpse in some mummification fashion, denying decay, rot and new growth. Each occurrence of this mistake is an opportunity to improve upon my preservation-praxis and my grieving-praxis. I notice with this thought how much conservatism is merely the repression of grief.

27

They say you shouldn’t meet your idols and I learned this through my father.

28

I learned through watching my father try to rescue people that rescuism gets in the way of caring for folk. He, frequently comparing himself to Jesus, would say that he was trying to save people, trying to provide salvation — mostly through 12 step groups — and in so doing willed the death of his relationships with his children, as he became absent in their lives. The truth is, he rescued no one, as no one can be saved, as we all die. The truth is also that he renounced his responsibility to preserve relationship with his children and uphold promises repeatedly made and repeatedly broke. I witnessed what it is to lack integrity through watching him and observing his absence. It took the second tumour to fully appreciate this and stop rationalising faith.

29

“Human nature, which is fundamentally careless and by nature like the whirling dust, endures no restraint. If it restricts itself, it will soon begin to shake the restraints madly and tear up walls, chains, and even itself in every direction.” Kafka, The Great Wall Of China

The absurdity of conservatism is that the resentment, repression and war it encourages and perpetuates is as much inflicted upon itself than it is the world. I have never seen an authentic conservative and by this I mean that I do not believe that anyone pertaining to be a conservative really is one, and that those pretending to be conservative are pretending to be someone who they are not. No living being is truly at home behind fences and walls; flesh revolts against closure’s restraints, desiring unopenable open life.

30

I don’t want to die without any scars. Tyler Durden/Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

In my successes in preserving my life, I have failed to conserve my image and am scarred upon my skin, inside my flesh, mentally and emotionally; and this is what survival looks like. I have stopped counting my scars. A little while ago Katie noticed one on my shoulder, a thin line that is only noticeable when the light hits it at certain angles, which neither of us have noticed before — I have no idea how it got there.

31

He realized that all his life he had been a nobody to everyone. What he now felt was the fear of his own oblivion. It was as though he did not exist. Patrick Süskind, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

Is it not true that the push to conserve is motivated by not accepting the possibility of oblivion and the impossibility of avoiding death — whether that be conservation through politics or through manufacturing perfumes?

32

“Our weakness is our strength.” Simon Critchley, Bald

Sincere pessimism of strength and will to overcome requires abandoning any conserving of the image of strength without weakness.

33

Today I am experiencing intense feelings of tenderness. With the somewhat back door Hobbesianism and machoism frequently fetishised in primitivist conversations, there’s frequently an apparent inability to be with tenderness — life can only be affirmed for the harshest aspects and softness cannot be part of it. Is the softness of a petal or a leaf, an insect’s wing or a rabbit’s fur, of water or bird song, not wild and the presence of the primal anarchy of authentic life, before technology and domestication? Primitivists also frequently fetishise anthropology; but is not the animal studied by anthropologists not an animal who has soft skin and bodies that survive with far more gentleness than many others, which is perhaps where much of their evolutionary strengths have manifested from? I am more sympathetic to the idea that these animals will survive this ecological catastrophe through affirming their tenderness, embracing this aspect of their Being and walking on with gentleness, as well as embracing the harshest, toughest and roughest aspects of who they are. Strength does not mean tenderlessness — a butterfly’s wings are strong and tender and a tree has great strength in its trunk while also having leaves that are soft.

34

I have never encountered misogyny that was not based in ressentiment (to borrow a term from Nietzsche), meaning the projection that another as responsible for our conception of ourselves as inadequate — and conservatism is a bedfellow of misogyny. From the fictional character of Paul Spector, to murderous incels, to other, arguably less violent, anti-feminist masculinists and the likes of Tate and Peterson; misogynist collectivist bigotry seems to be just ressentiment.

35

The Sadist push to punish is rationalised through ressentiment; I am in agreement with Nietzsche that punishment is of no real value and is basically cowardly. The cowardice of religious-conservatives who punish folk, women, queers, non-believers, etc., for their “sins” is revolting.

36

All too often I see discordians and similarly minded folk mistaking conservative insensitivity, bullying and offensiveness as perceptual attack, guerrilla ontology or aesthetic-terrorism. This comes with similar nonsense to the ideological posturing of Trumpism as anything of anti-establishment, or significant change to the status quo. Is there any more to either than inauthentic-performance? If there is, I have not seen it.

37

“The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.” Oscar Wilde, The Picture Of Dorian Gray

Yes!

38

The conservatism of 19^th-century-orthodox advocates of anti-revisionist-anarchism continues to disappoint me intensely.

39

The incredibly conservative offshoot of al-Qaeda, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, have just claimed Damascus according to news reports that I’m reading through my phone. Anxiety hits and I’m unable to do anything to impact this situation and it’s not my responsibility to affect.

40

I am not sure if it is racism or misanthropy which the claim that “indigeneity and tribalism are inherently conservative” suggests to me, but I am sure it is one of the two, or both. The claim is of course nonsense. The rationalisation that goes with this, in my experience, tends to be that self-preservation and the defence of those you love is the same as constructing fences — constructing fences is self-denial and the repression of those you love.

41

In the manifesto he published on his Gray Mirror blog; conservative writer of “The Dark Enlightenment” Curtis Yarvin postures himself as being inclined towards techno-pessimism, with obvious insincerity; as he is clearly optimistic about the technologies and machinery of civilisation and monarchy, and optimistic about their potential for constructing his desired future — his anti-accelerationism also suggests more of an optimism towards technology, though a miserable-optimism of weakness. Conservatism is optimistic in that it places faith in fences, walls, states, churches, repression and self-denial, and rationalises this faith through all manner of appeals-to-weakness, world-renouncing miserablisms and salvationism. What rot! What utter fucking rot!

The Tribal Surviving The Last Man-Kind

1

Peterson encourages his followers to pick up the heaviest thing that they can and carry it, to find the largest load they can bear and bear it, with the promise that doing so will bring their lives meaning. The other day Katie put on a wildlife documentary about penguins, which showed penguins in Cape Town using the stairs that had been built upon the beach, as the stairs are an easier route than climbing the rocks to get where they wanted to go. While Peterson rationalises faith in seeking and constructing arduous toil, surmounting to industrialist-martydom, the wisdom of the flightless birds is that the easier path is the desirable one; I imagine as life is hard enough, attempting to survive amidst Leviathan. I personally trust the wisdom of penguins over the rationalisations of that pia fraus — I am not a believer in the great chain of being.

2

I have never really connected with Man-kind. My father was absent, one grandfather and my brother were bullies and my other grandfather and uncles were indifferent to me. My mother loved me intensely, but died when I was seven — one of my grandmothers loved me intensely too, until her death a few years ago. My aunts and cousins took interest in me through dressing me up in “female” clothes and applying makeup on me, for me to perform at being a girl, and took interest in my coming out as bisexual in my early teens — I know that there was a shared belief in the family that I would be gay and/or a priest. I am sure that these experiences are what enflames my gender-nonconformity and nihilism — I feel little connection to Man-kind, have no desire to adorn clothing and makeup to perform, and just want to love intensely and be loved by those I love.

3

My experience of non-conformity and individuation, as becoming-Kafkian-insect, tends to be at its strongest when finding myself in situations that are intensely Man-encoded. To see me around “lads” talking in “laddish”, I would imagine any on-looker wanting to end my struggle by squashing me with a rock, as much as I’d like to crawl under one to survive the experience.

4

In a few short minutes looking out of my window I see starlings, sparrows, blue tits, a black bird, robin and a pigeon, and have no idea of their sex and somehow that does not matter — speciation feels less silly than any concern about whether they release sperm or eggs through their cloaca’s, and still …

5

“Wanting to be someone else is a waste of the person you are.” Kurt Cobain

The waste of peoples attempting to “man up”, “be a man” and engage in the performance of masculinity, is an ecological and existential disaster.

6

Zafer Aracagök affirms that “humans” will stop making nature documentaries when they understand that animals are constituted as singularities; which could equally be extended to affirm plants and ecosystems as singularities, unique presences individuated, differentiated and complexifying life beyond any documentary representation — what will happen though, when academics understand that “humans” are constituted as singularities?

7

Lacan famously said that there is no such thing as Woman, but I suspect that there is no such thing as Man — if this is the case, there is probably just Wo and silence.

8

Nietzsche wrote of the Last Man as the most passive of nihilists who renounces life and Earth. Today those animals, those creatures, who are often called mankind all too often fit this conception of species. It takes little self-reflection and empathy to appreciate how we have come to be this way — self-reflection and empathy may well be vital aspects of overcoming this way of being.

9

Nietzsche’s idea of the Übermensch, who has belief in the Earth, says yes to this life and embraces the truth of the body, the wisdom of flesh, overcoming the being of the Last Man; is often interpreted as to mean something of superiority and supremacism. My experience of life, of Earth and the wisdom of flesh is that there is no hierarchy, no one superior or inferior, as the great chain of being is nothing but phantasms, nonsense and rationalised orderings; and don’t share that interpretation of Übermensch.

10

Who might survive this mass extinction event, if this is the death of the species Human, would surely be tribal?

11

Camatte suggested that those who survive “the wandering of humanity”, which could easily be called the humanity of the Last Man-kind, would be those who transform homo-sapiens into homo-Gemeinwesen, or homo-community. This feels wrong to me though, as Gemeinwesen suggests that relationship is bound to the commune, the settlement, the polity, the colony, as another capturing technology. I am more sympathetic to the Tribal, as individuals and relationships that are directly embodied and neither human-universalist/universally-humanist nor anthropocentric.

12

I have no stomach for The Last Messiah of Zapffe’s misanthropic-messianism, which is a major influence of Reshe’s negative-psychoanalysis. The notion of humanity as an evolutionary mistake suggests too much for me that there is a right, correct, way of being, which “humans” are not. Perhaps the absurdity of “humans” is that they are not a mistake of evolution, not suited for this world, as the logic of Leviathan and Zapffe rationalises and domesticated humanity pretends to be — the absurdity here being that being-evolution’s-mistake would be to presume a reason that Caused humanity to be; i.e. “why are there human’s you ask, well evolution made a mistake”. I am far more sympathetic to Daniel Quinn’s affirmation that there is nothing wrong with humanity, with the affirmation that humanity is no more “right” than any other living presence. I am also more inclined towards, like Quinn, anti-salvationism and find Zapffe’s notion of salvation from human-consciousness through the repression of consciousness to be a revolting rationalisation, based in ressentiment.

13

Ligotti’s misanthropic-extinctionism is absurd human-exceptionalism and negative-hedonism, devoid of any integrity.

14

The focus of Peter Lamborn Wilson’s penultimate book is “false messiahs”, going deep into his personal messianism and arguable messiah-complex. I find the term “false messiah” too much, as I have no faith in “true messiahs”.

15

In his book Illusions, Richard Bach affirms that any individual can be a messiah, which I could accept to the notion of being a messiah-for-themselves, to say that an individual can only save themselves; but then this is absurd, as no individual can save themselves from the possibility of impossibility, from their death.

16

Peter Michael Bauer shared on his blog an account of how he crucified himself at high school, as an act of rebellion. Jesus did not save anyone from the abuses of Rome — the Christianisation-of-Rome has arguably worsened the empire. I am confident though that Bauer worsened nothing at his former high school.

17

The posthumously published and unfinished book The First Man, by Camus has been one of the most impactful reads for me, during this period of ill health. Its main themes are life affirmation amidst poverty, diaspora and fatherlessness — or, perhaps more honestly, these are the themes I notice most. If the Last Man is life-renouncing passivity amidst intense techno-industrial-agriculture enrichment, totalitarian-colonialist-settlerism and the fetishisation of father-as-saviour; perhaps it could be that the healing of the Last Man is the destruction of time and History and order, as a becoming a firstling of some kind — from last to first, ending as beginning.

18

The tribal is immediate.

19

The tribal is non-anthropocentric.

20

(Of course I am not talking about ethnic-“tribalism” or any other kind of collectivist politics when writing about the tribal.)

21

Folk-anarchy is the tribal.

22

Daniel Quinn’s idea of “the new tribal revolution” is too politically-optimistic for me, as it has too much faith in collectivist-systematisation. The tribal, in my experiences, is most noticeable in experiences of involution, eversion and inversion, as in “collapse” — suddenly a system breaks down and folk interact as tribe, supporting each other to survive the world as they find it where they are.

23

Kafka wrote a short story titled My Destination, about someone on a journey to “Away-From-Here”, in which it is clear that they will not reach their destination — to me this is a story about the attempt to escape the tribal, as civilisation is always trying to get away from here.

24

Is humanism or misanthropy possible without colonialist-universalism?

25

Bio-existentialism is an anti-humanism.

26

Male-supremacism is political performance and the men who revel in it are generally poor actors.

27

Patriarchy is an agricultural machine.

28

The idea that the tribal is inherently matriarchal, as an advocate of apparently matriarchal-eco-feminism recently tried to convince me of, is just upside down patriarchy and great chain of being nonsense.

29

I’m more concerned with the health of ecological relationships pertaining to the tribal than I am with historicising anthropological-systems pertaining to the primitive.

30

Imagining a non-human messiah for these isles: maybe a rebel badger or a resurrected bear? What absurd nonsense! I guess all things are possible, but I don’t have faith in this.

31

The performative machoism that many advocates of primitivism engage in is incredibly saddening.

32

The impossibility of the Last Man-kind, the patriarchal machine, Leviathan, surviving this mass extinction event is the possibility of the tribal surviving this mass extinction event, which is Leviathan, the patriarchal machine, the Last Man-kind.

33

I am a believer in the paradox of enrichment and with this believe that the enrichment of the human population within this planetary habitat will eventually surmount to an impoverishment of humanity. I write this with no desire for eugenics, genocides or other political atrocities that are often suggested in bad faith as inherent suggestions of overpopulation. My instinct is that the possibility of lessening of any traumatic eventuality from this situation is to be found in tribal care, rather than political systematisation.

34

In primitivism all to often I find little more than ressentiment — much like Kaczynskiism.

35

To speak of the tribal is to affirm the possibility of life.

36

The tribal exists now in the diaspora; displaced, not dead.

37

There are people who vindicate the world, who help others live just by their presence. Albert Camus, The First Man

There are many wonderful folk and beautiful individuals in the world, who do their best to support those they love to live amidst the horrors of Leviathan, and that is all a tribal-rebellion really surmounts to.

38

I have been returning to the primeval stories in the Torah, the first stories of Genesis, before Abraham and the sacrifice of children by patriarchs, and I notice how much I am attracted to Noah.

39

Nietzsche wrote of free-spirit philosophers being of the future, but the future is death and mass extinction. He was revolted by life-renouncing nihilism, which he saw most in Christianity, but not Christ.

Perhaps today a free-spirited philosopher is a philosopher-as-rebel-against-mass-extinction-machinery — I am more revolted by techno-salvationism than Christian-salvationism.

40

The tribal survives and preserves itself in the will-to-power and will-to-life that is the wild.

41

Compassion for animals is intimately associated with goodness of character, and it may be confidently asserted that he who is cruel to animals cannot be a good man. Arthur Schopenhauer, The Basis of Morality

I appreciate Schopenhauer’s fondness for animals and appreciation of plants, despite his apparent consideration of plants as lesser than animals; though his misanthropy is revolting to me — this is less intense than the “vegan-misanthropy” of some individuals within anti-civ conversations. I’m not romantic about Schopenhauer and am in no doubt that he was certainly an indecent individual and lacking integrity. I am less disappointed by his lack of integrity and decency than that which is found in the individuals peddling “anti-civ misanthropy”.

42

Loyalty to the Earth and the body is tribal.

43

The tribal and wildness are far more stubborn, resilient and have weathered and survived more, than Leviathan and domestication, which is far younger, like how a tumour is younger than the body it resides within. Much as I have belief and faith in my ability to overcome and survive ill health, I have belief and faith in the tribal and wildness.

44

Walking through local woods and the will to life and will to power that are the revolt of the flesh, and absurd, is remarkable, beautiful and inspiring!

45

The tribal is anti-social-ontology and has no need for genders roles and other performances of domestication, such as slave, master, worker, owner, etc.

46

Wild flesh revolting against Leviathan is tribal.

47

“Woe to him who would try to realise the ideal of justice on earth.” Shestov, All Things Are Possible

In The Wander and His Shadow Nietzsche decries revenge, which he considers to be based in ressentiment — I am basically in agreement with this. In Twilight of the Idols, Nietzsche states that “(f)reedom is the will to be responsible for ourselves” — I am utterly in agreement with this and prefer to think in terms of freedom and responsibility, than revenge and justice.

48

“It is strange to look on this dreadful picture of the mangled corpse of the Saviour, and to put this question to oneself: ‘Supposing that the disciples, the future apostles, the women who had followed Him and stood by the cross, all of whom believed in and worshipped Him--supposing that they saw this tortured body, this face so mangled and bleeding and bruised (and they must have so seen it)--how could they have gazed upon the dreadful sight and yet have believed that He would rise again?’” Shestov, Dostoevsky on Death

To look upon a mangled, bleeding, bruised and tortured man, and think “here is my salvation” is a strange thought.

49

Jordan Peterson’s rhetoric on atonement and sacrifice and atonement-through-sacrifice is nothing more than rationalising life-renunciation through appeals to Christian faith.

50

What more is there to the doctrine of original sin than Leviathanic rhetoric attempting to alienate folk from the primal, primordial and root of life that is the tribal?

51

Christianity has industrialised the fishing of men for Rome to feast upon.

52

The Christian concept of stewardship and its consequences have been a disaster for the wellness of Earth and all those living here; and Kaczynski is an excellent example of this.

53

Christian anarchists: I appreciate Berdyaev more than Tolstoy, find Ellul less inspiring than I had hoped for, want to read more Simone Weil, have never really engaged in the the thought of Bart de Ligt, and am intensely influenced by Thoreau.

54

Berdyaev choses Christ, as he revolts against Caesar and Rome.

55

C. S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity is an attempt at apology, seeking forgiveness — I prefer folk who take responsibility for what harms they have done, rather than seek forgiveness.

56

I appreciate Berdyaev’s opposition to Naziism and the Russian-antisemitism he encountered in his life, though am more inspired by Viktor Frankl’s rebellion from inside concentration camps.

57

The conversion of ecological philosophers and writers, like Timothy Morton, Paul Kingsnorth and Martin Shaw, to Christianity feels to me to be a betrayal of Earth, to appeal to the Last Man, crucifying themselves before Rome.

58

“… and all my life I’ve been growing fonder and fonder of wild places and wild creatures.” Muir

“Every man is a builder of a temple, called his body, to the god he worships, after a style purely his own, nor can he get off hammering marble instead.” Thoreau, Walden

The paganism of Muir and Thoreau’s Christianities renders them continually attractive.

59

Fondane affirms the “l’homme tragique” (the tragic man) who wars upon “the battlefield of absurd phantoms”. The tragic man is the Last Man, who fights not for their possibility and that of those others they love, but wages wars rationalised under the justification of nation, progress, caliphate, glory, greatness and a future that is somehow not death. Stirner revolted against wars waged upon the battlefield of the absurd phantom of Humanism/Humanity, refusing to renounce himself before that Cause with a heroism befitting Fondane’s affirmation of an individual who has lost all faith and refuses to sacrifice themselves before an idea — thus was born Stirner’s unHumanism. Today l’homme tragique is perhaps most obvious in the soldiers of the manosphere, fighting for the rationalised Cause of Masculinity — my gender nihilism is a revolt of refusal before that nonsense war.

60

“… in truth, there was no order but only madness and chaos when the son was older than the father.” Camus The First Man

I have lived this madness and chaos in my relationship with my (former) father.

61

Stirner’s union of egoists is really the anti-social-ontology of the tribal — to me.

62

Jacques Cormery, the central character of Camus’ The First Man: “(f)rom the darkness within him sprang that famished ardour, that mad passion for living which had always been part of him …”

Amidst the darkness of life the tribal emerges from this unspeakable holism, with the warmth of bodies and flesh, the delights of song, story and dancing, fuelling the flames of passionate living.

63

The tribal has no need for rules.

64

Andrew Tate has a political party now called The BRUV party — I have been wanting some decent comedy!

65

To me Luigi Mangione is a banal-messiah — his manifesto is very similar to Roger Hallam’s disappointed-social-contractism (another banal-messiah).

66

Jack Donovan’s “anarcho-fascism” is a hilarious rationalisation of gang-culture, which he postures as tribalism, and a fetishisation of Masculinity and the patriarchal (Last-)Man-kind. It is utterly absurd nonsense, almost as funny as Andrew Tate starting a political party.

67

My anti-politics: preserving eco-absurdist revolt, folk-anarchy and the tribal.

68

Simone de Beauvoir is well known for having written in her book The Second Sex that “(o)ne is not born, but rather becomes, a woman”; and so it is with man, Man-kind and Humanity. Before one is woman, man, Man-Kind or Humanity, I believe, one is tribal, where authenticity lives.

69

The largest part of the anarcho-primitivist conversation that I have encountered has been reductively focused on a mode of conservativism pertaining to normative-anthropology and the retention of those norms, in a frankly repressive manner. The anarcho-primitivism that I am most sympathetic to (aside from Art’s) is that of John Moore, which was largely an affirmation of medicine-person-praxes. My belief is that the healing of the Last Man-kind, the wandering humanity, is bio-existential as holistically-embodied and creative, rather than reductive, repressive and socially-normative.

70

I appreciate Robinson Jeffers’ attention and care towards living presence in a way that is not anthropocentrically reductive, though the more I read his poetry the more I find the inauthentic performance of the unfeeling-man/Man, only turned back on Man-kind and Humanity itself, seemingly as a resentful act of revenge seeking some absurd notion of justice — though this is far more the case in his student Ramon Elani!

I-Thou

1

Shestov: in Penultimate Words, Shestov writes of “thou” as mysterious and dark, and irritating to those “who thinks and seeks” — he writes “(t)ry to bend, mentally, over another’s soul: you will see nothing but a vast, empty, black abyss, and you will only be seized with giddiness for your pains”. The more an individual relies on artificial light to Enlighten the dark, the less they can see in the dark; as it is with individuals who seek to rationalise the mysterious, that they lose their sight of the mystical; and so I find it to be that authentically experiencing thou within life is to be open to the mysterious and dark.

2

I am disbelieving of God(s) who are resentful and offer forgiveness through servitude.

3

During periods of intense struggle, pain, ill-health and tiredness, I find myself more sympathetic to the idea of God(s), as cruel and uncaring forces, indifferent to mortals — this enflames my aesthetic preferences for heroism and my personal Odysseus complex.

4

When logic insists Odysseus ought cease his struggle to find his loved ones, love and integrity enflame his will to continue defying the gods.

5

I experience Thou, life, YHWH, while I am open to loving.

6

Noticing YHWH as breathing while meditating and treating breath as wordless prayer, with meditation being an internal emigration, moving through the bewildernesses of my thoughts and mind — this is when I feel closest to religiously Jewish.

7

I feel doubtful of Peterson’s having truly wrestled with God and want to see the palms of his hands, though he’d likely produce a belt as proof (like a Vince McMahon performance). Perhaps this is it. Perhaps Jordan Peterson is as much a philosopher as Hollywood Hulk Hogan was ever an actual fighter, with victories pre-arranged, performative battles as spectacles and propaganda of Krapitalistic might, and it’s all just an existential vacuum. Hogan’s achievement that I most appreciate is his appearance in Muppets From Space; one of my childhood favourite films — perhaps Peterson can do similarly and appear in a Sesame Street film, alongside Elmo?

8

Fondane —

“A God (I mean a real one!) is the contrary of absolute rationality; he is far from being an appeaser; he gives no satisfaction to Spirit!” Existential Monday

“… A God for whom “everything is possible” is the end of philosophy such as it has come down to us from the Greeks.” Existential Monday

“It may be that the supreme heroism — I mean the most difficult thing for man — is not sacrificing one’s life but admitting spiritual defeat.” Man Before History

“Courage in the face of naked truth is more terrible than self-sacrifice…” Man Before History

“God, sin, contains nothing thinkable; intelligere has not finished telling us that nothing good for us can come from there. This is the proof of God by the absurd, and we are all involved in it.” Boredom

Fondane was a Religious-Nietzschean, who, like his teacher Shestov, desired the resurrection of God (taking inspiration from Christ) that has been killed by Reason, but affirming belief devoid of dogma, born from experience and created by the individual in a poetic fashion. Where I find Fondane and Shestov differ is in poetry, as Fondane attempted to speak the unspeakable through poetry. Shestov wrote that “(p)oets sing plentifully of sorrow” and I find him far less songful than Fondane — the former is like reading theology and the later like listening to tragic worship music.

9

In Jewish mysticism, particularly Kabbalah, Chokmah, which means primordial wisdom, is incomprehensible, becoming comprehensible through Binah (understanding) — primordial wisdom is incomprehensible.

10

David Abram’s eco-phenomenological writings are largely focused on the experience of the breathing world, YHWH — animal bodies, forests, mountains, etc., — with an affirmation of embodied-sensuality that I intensely appreciate.

11

Martin Buber —

“The Thou meets me through grace — it is not found by seeking.” I and Thou

“The relation to the Thou is direct.” I and Thou

“Through the Thou a man becomes I. I and Thou

“The Thou knows no system of co-ordination.” I and Thou

I appreciate Buber’s philosophy of dialogue, articulated in his work I and Thou, though I wonder how his later spiritual-anarchist thought went from affirming dialogic relational experience, which is surely ecological, to advocating the productivist-ideology of socialism, which is surely a mere propertarian-reorganisation of the machinery that is ecological abuse. Is socialism not an ideology of Man, rather than I, and a system of co-ordination, rather than Thou?

12

Ec(o)logues, containing many poems and his Neo-Pastoralist Manifesto, is probably my favourite book by spiritual-anarchist Peter Lamborn Wilson. The manifesto begins with endarkenment, in Wilson’s meaning where the war on “Nature” is ended “with victory for fairies & black snails” — endarkenment to me means to affirm the mysterious, unspeakable, incomprehensible, which meets me through grace.

13

Kierkegaard’s Christianity, as I have encountered it, is just rationalisations containing nothing of the experience of Thou, much like Pascal.

14

The Russian poet Georgy Chulkov wrote a manifesto for “mystical anarchism”, which has been translated into English, though I’ve not yet found a copy.

15

Camus rejected mysticism in favour of humanism.

16

Absurdity is mystical in that it is incomprehensible, unspeakable and awesome!

17

I and Thou = individual and whole.

18

I am this body and Thou is the ecology of body amidst other bodies.

I = body

Thou = ecology of bodies

19

I have read that Timothy Morton uses for pronouns “It” and “They”, as something of an alternative to “I” and “Thou”, seeking to queer-ecological identity; with “I“ apparently being too egoistic — this feels like back door Buddhism for me, if it is the case, with life-renunciation/self-renunciation/ego-death as the pathway to transcendence and salvation. My experience of queering-ecology begins with the body I am, which I am not renouncing.

20

Just as individuals can be human, non-human and unhuman, Thou can be human, non-human and unhuman. Just as individuals can be inhuman, indifferent and cruel, Thou can be inhuman, indifferent and cruel. Just as individuals can be loving, caring and kind, Thou can be loving, caring and kind.

21

I and Thou are not speciated — speciation is the collectivism of It.

22

There’s nowt so queer as folk and there’s nowt so normative as the popular — folk anarchy may be a remedy to the populism that is spreading like a virus.

23

I and Thou, individuals and wholes, are not binaries.

24

YHWH, in my experience, is queer.

25

The affirmation that queer-ecology makes of the nature-unnature binary not being real is true, and they are realities that exists, whilst not being real — like gender.

26

As it is often that the human-nonhuman binary pushed by anarcho-primitivists is too normative for my blood, the (generally sentiocentrist) animal-nonanimal binary pushed by veganarchists is too normative and pertains too much to great chain of being nonsense, for my blood.

27

The normative pushes that have come with the assimilation and spectacles of LGBTQIA+ Movement politics, have continually revolted me. The populism, so apparently rooted in ressentiment, became so repressive towards nonconforming folk, corrupting the possibility of liberation and healing. What monsters now feast upon this movement; monsters from the conservative-populist movement. Queer solidarity and care, in my eyes, must begin with heteronormative individuals, particularly those socialised as Man, if there is to be healing from heteronormative-repression.

28

There be nowt as queer as Thou and I!

29

Scan results show that there’s no change to pineal region of my brain and no sign of recurrent disease behind my eyes, with the post-surgical changes being probably scarring. I breathe deeply, noticing the sound, with the feeling of a wordless prayer of gladness.

30

The strangeness of the world, that is the absurd, is the queerness of ecology.

31

Instinct and love differentiating from faith and rationality.

32

If you want to get a sense of Kafka’s feelings towards God/gods, read his short stories Poseidon and Prometheus — they are two of my favourites by him.

Kafka also wrote “(i)s there anything as blithe as believing in one’s own household god?” — I do not know the answer, but enjoy the wondering.

I appreciate Kafka as, like myself, a Jew somewhat alienated from Judaism (and somewhat aesthetically-pagan).

33

There is no queer ecology, but queer ecologies.

There is no absurdism, but absurdities.

There is no individualism, but individualities.

34

Aleksej Solonovich, one of the Russian mystical-anarchists — though I understand very much differentiated from that of Georgy Chulkov, from reading Romina Kaltenbach’s piece on Solonovich (which is how I have come to learn of him) — sought to rebel against the mechanical thought of Marxism, drew from gnostic-anthropology and affirmed that “chaos would reign supreme” (as Kaltenbach describes — Kaltenbach also describes Solonovich’s anarchism to be “(i)n striking accordance with Tolstoy’s religious views”). The gnostic rejection of the Earth and flesh, that is creation/YHWH, has continually been distasteful to me, to the point that I feel suspicious of those pushing gnostic rhetoric, for their apparent lack of care towards the living. I want to appreciate Solonovich, but am unsure.

35

In a poem titled The Dog, where a man and a dog experience “a fearful storm” together, Turgenev describes a beautiful meeting of I and Thou.

36

From Turgenev’s Nature —

[Nature speaking] “… Reason is no law for me—and what is justice?—I have given thee life, I shall take it away and give to others, worms or men… I care not…. Do thou meanwhile look out for thyself, and hinder me not!’”

[The dreamer speaking] “I would have retorted… but the earth uttered a hollow groan and shuddered, and I awoke.”

37

The dogma of “almighty God” is barely distinguishable from Ragnar Redbeard’s(, Arthur Desmond’s,) “might is right” rhetoric; much like how Satanisms, including that of Anton LaVey who quoted Redbeard(/Desmond) at length in the original version of his bible, are largely barely distinguishable from Christianity — great chain of being nonsense and insincere providers of “right”, pushing hedonist-moralities devoid of integrity.

38

“Not for nothing is nature so majestically serene: she has hidden her secrets well enough. Which is not surprising, considering how unscrupulous she is. No despot, not the greatest villain on earth, has ever wielded power with the cruelty and heartlessness of nature. The least violation of her laws—and the severest punishment follows. Disease, deformity, madness, death what has not our common mother contrived to keep us in subjection? …. You won’t tear yourself out of the claws of madness or disease. Only one thing is left: in spite of traditions, theodicy, wiseacres, and most of all in spite of oneself, to go on praising mother nature and her great goodness. Let future generations reject us, let history stigmatise our names, as the names of traitors to the human cause—still we will compose hymns to deformity, destruction, madness, chaos, darkness. And after that—let the grass grow.” Shestov, All Things Are Possible

The awfulness, incomprehensible and unspeakable horrors of the world are just as mystical as the awesome, irreducible and ineffable beauties of life — Thou is not always joyous and can be horrifying!

39

In the push for dogmatic monologisation, many, if not most, advocates of Humanism and scientism have been barely distinguishable from theistic-religious fundamentalists.

40

I appreciate Krishnamurti’s anti-authoritarianism and his rejection of pathways.

41

When I read Elani’s Wyrd Against The Modern World I find a theology of resentment.

42

I’m increasingly of the mind that Nietzsche’s philosophy is not atheist but a paganism of the dying and rising forest god Dionysus.

43

The “pagan spirit” of Renzo Novatore’s writings, which I have taken to mean will-to-life, has continually attracted me. He described himself as an “atheist of solitude”, but as Aristotle said “(w)hoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god”; and I believe Novatore looked inside himself and found both.

44

While I appreciate more in his essay To Unnamed Gods, published in the third Plastic In Utero journal, than many of his other essays, Kevin Tucker’s thought is so entrenched within the reductive dialectical absolutism of Right/Wrong, that I struggle to connect with it as much as I want to. The other side of this affirmation of indigenous religions and experiences of sacredness, which he seemingly stresses a strong separatism towards, is an apparent written self-flagellation atoning for his past sins and those anarchists who cry “no gods no masters” (with the same absolutism as Tucker) — this fitting the theme of Tucker seeming to write motivated by resentment (as I read him). While I want to read this with better faith and undeniably influenced by my dislike of Tucker (given my experiences of his communicating with me); I find my most recent readings of the essay wondering if this is really written to affirm unnamed gods, or if this is Tucker feasting upon the corpse of Klee Benally, to attract more indigenous people to him — this may well be my bad faith, and I’m not denying this instinct.

45

In The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus rejects mysticism and denounces the theisms of Kierkegaard and Shestov as “philosophical suicide”, but ends the essay with affirming Sisyphus, a hero of both pagans and absurdists, who defied Zeus. While I have engaged far more with his Myth of Sisyphus, as it has influenced my thought far more, I am increasingly finding myself more attracted to his earlier writings in Nuptials, which are more poetic, more earth-affirming and, in these ways, more “pagan” (though not Paganism). He ends Nuptials with — “(h)ow can I consecrate the harmony between love and revolt? The earth! In this great temple deserted by the gods all my idols have feet of clay”.

46

Rumi’s sufi mysticism is centred on love, which he described as “the water of life”.

47

Both Thoreau and Muir experienced Thou in forests — after I write this I remember the story of Jesus fasting in the desert for 40 days and nights, and feel strange.

48

Nan Shepherd’s poem Real Presence is a wonderful piece of writing pertaining to Thou as flesh.

49

I am told that Diogenes of Sinope’s asceticism is, unlike that of the mystics of Asia and Eastern religions, not true asceticism, because he was Greek and European; and I wonder how this Orrientalism is not merely another variant of the racism of colonial-extractivism. I am assured that it is not racism or appropriation, but appreciation (which I doubt); but then the other side of the racism is missed, with European’s being seen as devoid of wisdom and so needing to import it from afar. I am then advised by the person I am speaking with that, through Buddhism and reading Osho’s writings, they have attained Enlightenment; and perhaps they have.

50

I am increasingly finding myself oriented towards an unorthodox primevalist-Jewish-mysticism (which is not Judaism), of experiencing YHWH as breath and returning to the primeval stories of the Torah, and a dark druidry, devoid of Historical reconstructionism, affirming Thou in living presence upon these isles in the North Sea, who I increasingly want to call Bretannike. This moves nomadically between the two most intense aspects of my experience of the tribal, diaspora and becoming-indigenous. Both are brought into my person shinrin yoku praxis and as I am writing I notice that my mysticism (I prefer this term to “religion” or “spirituality”) is somewhat of the levant, somewhat of the north sea and somewhat of Japan, and undoubtedly of other areas — do these geographical encodings really matter though? I’m not an internationalist and am revolted by the colonialist-universalism of multiculturalist-assimilationism, but a fervent anti-nationalist favouring polyculturalist-diversification; and I live in a world where shinrin yoku is part of my experience and of value to me, and I’m not going to renounce it with a nationalist-conservatism rejecting what is “foreign”.

51

I love Sheela Na Gig images and Cailleach stories.

52

“Everything takes on a tinge of fantastical absurdity. One believes and disbelieves everything.” Shestov, Creation From The Void

Yes!

53

Thacker and Mystics (quotes taken from In The Dust Of This Planet)-

“If the supernatural in a conventional sense is no longer possible, what remains after the “death of God” is an occulted, hidden world. Philosophically speaking, the enigma we face is how to confront this world, without immediately presuming that it is identical to the world-for-us (the world of science and religion), and without simply disparaging it as an irretrievable and inaccessible world-in-itself.”

“Extinction begins to take on a mystical and apocalyptic tone, with only vague and ancient prophesies as indicators of the possible meaning of extinction.”

“Hence our opening inquiry – a new darkness mysticism, a mysticism of the unhuman …”

“If mysticism historically speaking aims for a total union of the division between self and world, then mysticism today would have to devolve upon the radical disjunction and indifference of self and world.”

The Buddhistic non-attachment/detachment, indifferentism and performative assumed God’s eye view with which Thacker writes leaves a foul taste in my mouth, that is somewhat metallic. The thought comes to my mind that I hope Thacker has fun pretending that he is not of this world (with a sarcastic tone); the thought that follows this, which is far kinder, is that this is likely a coping strategy employed by Thacker to try and survive the world as he encounters it, much like the use of oozing, spewing and defecating done to deter predators and attackers by many non-humans — my being revolted perhaps indicating that it is a somewhat successful approach.

54

Michael Marder’s writings on breath and air in Jewish mysticism are a wonderful account of Thou as ecological, though I long for something of his I amidst the writing.

55

Alexander Grothendieck, a mathematician and reported mystic, who attempted to create a universe for all maths to be performed within, sought to remove himself as much as possible from life, favouring disembodied abstractions. I feel sad thinking about him and the false-promises of mathematics.

56

Lundy isle: an island off of the North Devon coast, which was apparently the Otherworld of the Dumnonii Celts who lived where I live now. I keep meaning to go there again, but have not done so yet. Perhaps when I die I shall find myself there again.

57

I have no faith in the Christian doctrine of eternal life and the promises of salvation.

58

Thoreau — “Above all, we cannot afford not to live in the present.” from Walking. “All sensuality is one …” from Walden

Yes and yes!

59

Despair is the penultimate word. Love is the ultimate word. With self-awareness there is despair and with love there is self-awareness, as awareness of the Other, as I-Thou.

60

I read Sascha Engels’ writings on those often called within language “trees” as a beautiful affirmation of the uniqueness of these presences and the Thou to be found in their presence.

61

Dom Bury seeks to provide churches, temples and rituals “for Earth”, and, having conversed with him today, I certainly won’t embrace him as my priest.

62

I appreciate much of Simon Critchley’s post-Situationist mystical-anarchism, but when I reach the end I notice how it is impossible for this body I am to become invisible — as such, I settle for the possibility of becoming, for a moment, non-localisable.

63

Integrity = honesty

64

I have frequently been told that I have my mother’s eyes, given that her eyes were hazel, as are mine. The statement has felt strange and absurd to me, given that her eyes were part of her and my eyes are part of me, as entirely different individuated bodies. Of course those communicating this to me were not attempting to communicate anything about the objects, the Its, of my mother and I — the affirmation is one regarding the seeing the Thou found in love for her beauty reborn in me through genetic-inheritance. My eyes are not an easy aspect of myself to reflect upon, given how much they have been affected by tumours and cancer treatment. There is something wonderful, wonder-full, unspeakable in its absurdity and ineffable though in looking into a mirror and seeing an aspect of my mother that she gifted looking back at me. I know she loved me with an intensity that imparted the primal truth of my value in the world. I need to recognise her in my eyes more than the impacts of my health struggles.

65

The Stirner paradox — all things are nothing to me and all nothings are things to me.

66

Edward Carpenter’s poem The Shore is a wonderful piece of writing on the mystical awe that can be experienced when gazing out unto the vastness of the sea.

67

Simon Critchley affirms animism through music and I remember Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Bespaloff — I then remember that there is no sound in the vacuum of “outer space” and think of Thacker’s cosmic-pessimism, and wonder how often he dances.

68

Andreas Weber articulates a philosophy of I am Thou, in his book The Biology of Wonder, that I intensely appreciate. From the book: “(t)he relationship between ourselves and other beings is a deep mutual interpenetration on a material and symbolic level. We are not only part of nature, but nature is also part of us. To understand ourselves, we have to recognize ourselves in other living creatures.”

69

Berdyaev writes in Slavery and Freedom of man’s victory over fear and death, but I am doubting and wish to see his palms.

70

In an article titled The Sentient World Is Always Present, Peter Reason writes “(e)ven today in the sunlight, I feel something of the same mystery. This reflection serves as a gateway, a portal into a different sense of consciousness. It is not the consciousness of I-it, even on I-Thou, but of ‘One’” — this feels reductive to me, and then I remember that Peter Reason was an academic.

71

I have not read much of Pablo Neruda’s poetry, but have a short collection containing two poems on pine trees that are wonderful.

72

Ginsberg’s Footnote to Howl remains a personal favourite — “The world is holy! The soul is holy! The skin is holy! The nose is holy! The tongue and cock and hand and asshole holy!”

73

To call myself an practitioner or experiencer of animism would feel inauthentic, as animism to me pertains to an experience of an intensity of healthy wild habitat that is not true to where I am, and an immersion within such habitat that generally pertains to a greater period of an individual’s life experience; instead I prefer panpsychism and hylozoism for myself, slightly favouring the later as panpsychism means pan/all has psyche/soul, whereas hylozoism means hyle/matter has zoe/life — it is a small difference, but meaningful enough for me.

L’Chaim

1

I appreciate Julie Reshe’s challenges towards toxic positivity, though find her critiques of other positivities to be absurd rationalisations; and imagine she would be revolted by my (revolting-)positivity — my pessimism inclines me towards believing that her negativity is ultimately futile. The futility of negativity is something I witness continually in the absurd and irrational striving for life that the living (including myself) continually refuse to cease. Life cries out “l’chaim”, the Hebrew word for “to life”, and I doubt “negative-psychoanalysis” will stop this.

2

Amidst the searing head splitting agony of hydrocephalus migraines, I came to affirm an unreasonable and unjustifiable truth, which has been at the root of my entire philosophy since — that I want to live and live well.

3

On December 11^th 2022, I skidded on ice when driving and ended up upside down on the A377, with most of the car above me. After this I took to saying “l’chaim” actively. When I think of that day what I remember most clearly is a robin who came and stood close to me, while my father in-law finished talking to the police.

4

Llew once said to me that he was continually finding the advocates of insurrectionary-anarchism as anti-life and I imagine that he is right.

5

The affirmation of life erupts from amour de soi with vulcanicity, creating as it destroys.

6

The most primal instinctual assent that calls out from the darkness of my Being, affirms life and subscends any rationality or justifying reason. What comes after is the instinctive awareness of the absurdity of this, as there is always the possibility of death, extinction, becoming-impossible.

7

Amor fati: I was born with a pineal tumour, condemned to a life where I would need to survive brain cancer; and I am glad for my birth.

8

Reshe advises that her book is not for those who still have hope, but it seems she finds hope in the faith she has in negativity — a faith and hope I have not found.

9

Bataille’s Eroticism was less impressive than I had hoped, but really that is my fuck up!

10

Oy gevalt: Kovnerism, nakam, lives well today, growing fat upon the spectacle of death and horror.

11

Ask me to be Hitler or Kovner and I will walk away and choose life.

Ask me to choose between the Israeli state or Hamas and The Muslim Brotherhood, and I will walk away and care for those who I love.

12

“Everything is wrong in this world, everything is wrong! Somehow money doesn’t make a man as happy as it ought to.” Vladimir Korolenko, The Day of Atonement

Perhaps the lesson that I learned best from my relations is that money and property does not encourage happiness, as it fostered and enflamed in them more of ill-will, indecency, misery, paranoia and psychosis. I’d rather be rich in health, wealthy in life and love, than become polluted and sickened by money and property — if that were to make me wrong, fuck being right!

13

L’Chaim as aesthetic, unreasonable and not justifiable — life for the sake of life.

14

Murder as propaganda of the deed has no appeal for me. Caring for living presence, as poetry of the deed, has infinitely more appeal.

15

I live well with post-traumatic stress, which is neither ordered or disordered, and am growing from what I have experienced, even if right now that is just through this writings — to the negative-psychoanalyst this might be “toxic-positivity”.

16

I attended a local Extinction Rebellion meeting on the 18/1/2025, mostly to see who would be there, but also to remind myself of what these were like, as I hadn’t attended any Organisational activism meetings for many years, and to learn what their main focuses of concern for the coming year would be. The meeting was a group of less than 15 individuals, most of whom could well have been twice my age, and had a noticeably religious feel to the set up — reminding me intensely of Buddhist meetings that I had attended in my teens. The anti-life sentiment and intense resentment was a continual quality I found within the thought of the climate-justice-activists attending, with a focus on the idea of “saving Humanity” (meaning sustaining Leviathan), mixed with a misanthropy towards “stupid Humans”.

17

I am fond of those, like holly bushes and hedgehogs, who are upfront about their defences and have defences that better enables them to live in the world and embrace life preserving their presence, rather than defences such as walls and fences, that enclose and pertain to a resentful anti-life ideology (frequently called conservatism). The ability to defend oneself is an important survival skill and I have my defences, which tend toward prickliness — and when prickly I can be a prick!

18

Anger, unlike resentment, is a yes-saying to life.

19

I long for more play and fun in the world.

20

I long to be a father and my most recent fertility tests show that I am still fertile. I want to be a father and love them, the child or children, so that they believe in love and life for them with their dying breath. I want to be a better father than the man who lied promising me that he was mine, the man who fathered my father and the man who fathered my mother, those men who fathered them and so on. I want to father like the elephants I witnessed fathering, when in South Africa with the man who had promised to be mine, where his father had lived throughout his early life and until the age of 18. I want to say yes to the possibility of creating life in this world that always contains death. I am an absurdist-natalist!

21

Love Is All by The Tallest Man On Earth plays and my heart sings that living is loving — I am reminded of Thoreau’s affirmation of making a living through loving, which is all I wish for myself.

22

Gathering: a toast, “l’chaim” — what a joy life is when gathered in love.

23

There’s nothing unhealthy or undesirable about conflict, and resentment is the toxified waste of repressed anger and unresolved conflict.

24

There is a sea slug, who is named elysia chlorotica, part of the elysiidae family, who is kind of like a plant, in that they photosynthesise, and they are fucking gorgeous and ecologically-queer as fuck!

25

I am yet to see anything from the emerging masculinist ideology — which is not really new but a conservative effort in conserving patriarchy — that doesn’t not pertain to a push for anti-life thought and activity, with a foundational push for self-hatred. The rhetoric is saturated with the fetishising of the death camp culture of Leviathan, that is His-Story, while encouraging the feelings of inadequacy and resentment in those socialised as Man. Is it any wonder that there’s a male suicide crisis?

My “gender-nihilism” and “eco-feminism” are my saying yes-to-life, l’chaim, before His-Story’s rampaging.

26

Rachel Bespaloff: “But the worse it gets, the more I realise that you can’t love life, the more I discover the urgent need to find new reasons to love it. And I am afraid that this time I won’t be able to, which would be worse than death…”

I cannot justify life within Reason and nor do I find love through Reason. I wonder if Bespaloff died by suicide, or if she was murdered by Reason — this thought is obviously absurd.

27

I love the revolt and amor fati that I find in Fondane’s writings, particularly his poetry.

28

If you want to read real anti-life philosophy, read those who preach of afterlives.

29

Socrates’ disdain for the world outside of the polity, which is arguably the foundation of western-academic philosophy, pertains to an anti-life sentiment that revolts me intensely. Plato, the rationaliser of statism, kings and aristocrat, and Aristotle, the Emperor’s servant, also pertain to life-renouncing philosophies. For the Ancient Greeks, I really have most an attraction to Diogenes of Sinope, who indulged in life and sunshine in revolt towards empires and markets — Anaximander and Heraclitus I am fond of as well.

30

Descartes’ rationalism, as an attempted flight from the body seeking to transcend Earth, is nothing to me but life-renunciation and nonsense.

31

To Hegel and Marx the living are but sacrifices before the progress of History — and is this not also true for most insurrectionaries too?

32

I am sympathetic to the nihilisms of Novatore, Aragorn! and Serafinski, as fertile voids for the growth of wild-lives that affirms the possibility of extinction/death — absurdism is a nihilism that accepts the impossibility of life without end and calls out “l’chaim”.

33

David Benatar is a proponent of the two philosophies/ideologies that I perhaps feel least tolerant of in conversation; anti-natalism and masculinism — though I generally feel meaner towards the former and sadder regarding the latter. Both pertain to what I see as utterly inauthentic victim-posturing.

34

The anti-life sentiment of transhumanism and longertermerism is the renunciation of flesh and Earth for science-fiction fantasy. Technological progress is nothing but worsening ecological-abuse, no-saying to life rationalised under the Cause of Historical-Advancement.

35

“A bit of philosophizing leads to a wonderment of life. A lot of philosophizing leads to a contempt of it.” Eugene Thacker, Infinite Resignation

I imagine that at some point in his life Thacker will have to take responsibility for his resentment. What he writes at this point will probably be poetry, rather than philosophy.

36

I appreciate the ambiguity Judaism holds towards the afterlife.

37

“Life, not in its weakness but in its strength, intensity and super-abundance, is closely connected with death.” Berdyaev, The Destiny of Man

Affirming “l’chaim”, sincerely, includes affirming the possibility of death.

38

“The Will-to-Life is driven by this process of “life negating life,” from the inorganic to the organic and beyond.” Eugene Thacker

Thacker’s philosophy is an inauthentic ode to death — the inauthenticity is that affirming death evokes the possibility of life. I think I have had my fill of Thacker’s thought.

39

Albert Libertad’s rebellion of unapologetic love for life and living is a continual inspiration.

40

Does Graham Harman’s Lovecraftianism not pollute object oriented ontology? He suggests that philosophy be reoriented from Minerva, who is symbolic of wisdom, justice and law, towards Cthulhu, who is a symbol of cosmic-indifference, an unloving and abusive romance between the terrestrial and the extraterrestrial, resentment towards life, and who, in not being able to die, is never really alive. The stupefaction that this pertains to is suggestive to me of all that is stupefying and stupid in ooo; a push for stupidity that is seemingly rendering communism and Christianity attractive to the dark-ecologist who is the best thinker from that ideology. I have an increasing reluctance to read Lovecraft or bother with Lovecraft-inspired stories, and am currently wanting to get my collection of Algernon Blackwood stories out. I am not romantic about Minerva, and do not follow Harman’s pathway.

41

In my garden the birds dance and sing, so that I am aware that they are alive.

42

Love for life is ineffably unsimple. Life and love are unspeakably complex. Language is a poor means of expression and poetry is language at its best.

43

His nudist return to the body, affirmations of positive-sensualism and absurd-aestheticism of “life for the sake of life”, continually render Emile Armand’s writings very attractive to me.

44

Nietzsche’s yes-sayings to life, his Dionysianism, his amor fati, have continually inspired me.

45

The absurd passion for life that Camus affirms in his philosophy and activism does not pertain to anything simple, optimistic or hopeful, and nor should it! We live amidst horrors and terrors, perhaps worse than those Camus lived through, and to live with a passionate embrace of life today is endarkening, complex and to do so authentically the living must summon the most heroic of courage.

46

“Life consists with wildness. The most alive is the wildest.” Thoreau, Walking

The intensity of life, as wildness, is intuitively apparent when we come across an individual with great and wild enthusiasm for their Being; as is the tameness of resentful individuals who seek to squash such enthusiasm under their domesticating repression — I am remembering the partner of a friend, who absolutely despises me for my enthusiasm.

47

Muir’s love for life is wonderful.

48

Morgan Taylor’s article, published on their A Future In Flames blog, Eden’s Demise is a resentful push for misanthropic-spirituality, with their faith rationalised under the nonsense separatist-logic that is all too common for my taste in anti-civilisational conversation. What is most striking about their writing here is that, despite posturing opposition to the assumed knowledge of good and evil of morality — what should live/exist/be and what should not live/exist/be — they entirely eat of that fruit, with Absolute righteous judgement. Is their Satanism any more than upside down great chain of being ideology, rather than the destruction of great chain of being ideology; is their misanthropy any more than upside down Human-exceptionalism, rather than something different to Human-exceptionalism; isn’t their resentful philosophy just the same anti-life philosophy of Christianity turned upside down, rather than the inversion and involution of no-saying to life? I read Morgan Taylor and see less of the demise of Eden and more of the demise of anti-civilisational thinking.

49

“There lay all my love of life: a silent passion for what would perhaps escape me, a bitterness beneath a flame.” Camus, Betwixt and Between

The flame of affirming life may well burn with a bitter feeling towards death; as the fetishisers of slaughter are motivated by a bitterness towards the living.

50

“Why, in its presence, should I deny the joy of living, if I can avoid enclosing everything in this joy? There is no shame in being happy.” Camus, Nuptials

Is it not very fashionable today to be unhappy and resentful of happiness? Is Julie Reshe’s depressive-realism not an entirely fashionable philosophy, in keeping with the trend of Misery that is in style?

While I find much to be revolted about and am positively-revolted — living with the revolting-positivity I wrote about in Revolting — I find no rationalisation for depression to be encouraged and feel no shame in my joy for life.

51

Kafka: “(h)ow is it possible to rejoice in the world except by fleeing to it?”

Where am I going? To life: where else would I go?

52

“I was alone. Alone with death!

And yet life was beautiful. Beautiful, beautiful!” Renzo Novatore

The beauty of life is surely most apparent with individuals coming together — I see this in festivals and forests and when close to those who I love.

53

I live with complex post-traumatic stress, which makes complete sense given that I experienced 6 of what psychologists call ACEs in my childhood and have had to overcome many extreme challenges in my adulthood. This impacts me most in my sleep and my waking from sleep, with intense dreams and experiences of being thrown into waking life. With recent experiences, this has intensified; not to so much that it is impacting me adversely to a great deal, as I am well skilled at responding to this — it is still something that I notice, particularly in my worst of moods.

54

“No love is possible in an unhappy world.” Raoul Vaneigem, The Revolution of Everyday Life

I love — there is joy in the world and the possibility for great love!

Catastrophe and Genesis

1

Turgenev’s poem Enough is an ode to the end of struggle, which ends with silence; and silence is death. It takes very little empathy to appreciate that after much prolonged struggle “enough” may be the call that an individual makes and I have no desire to stand in judgement before those for whom this is true, whilst wanting to affirm the possibility of taking courage to continue to embrace the struggles of life and revolt. I do tire of struggle, frequently with my health, as it has been, and have not had enough.

2

I read the first line of Abba Kovner’s poem One Living Word, which states “(n)o more wilful silences”, with a feeling of horror for the catastrophic silencing he attempted through Nakam!

3

Kafka: “Beyond a certain point there is no return. This point has to be reached.”

That intensity, the point of no return, is creation and destructive.

4

The stories told by rocks and fossils are of a continual catastrophe that today is life.

5

Those who could not flee from Hurricane Milton, for whom exodus was not an option, present an issue with ecological-diaspora, as it is not always possible to flee the catastrophe — some storms we must weather as best we can and there are no solutions.

6

Amor fati: how can one experience a love for one’s life when living amidst a mass extinction event? It may well be irrational to do so, but still it happens. Of course someone may rationalise detest for this life and justify this detestation in reference to the ecological catastrophe, the horrors and struggles it pertains to; though I believe that subscending this rationality is a love for the living who are life, that they are fearful to affirm — surely such a detestation would at the very least pertain to a desire for amor fati?

7

Conservativism/conservationism represses potential/possibility.

War/culls/industry annihilates potential/possibility.

Preservation intensifies potential/possibility.

Freedom is potential/possibility.

8

From death/impossibility new life/possibility emerges.

9

Hearing climate activists and social ecology advocates talk about avoiding or preventing catastrophe, regardless of if that is through reform, revolution, technological progress or conservation, I am aghast. Has catastrophe not happened? Is catastrophe not on-going? I cannot speak about avoiding or preventing catastrophe with any authenticity — how to lessen, survive and preserve life amidst catastrophe, I will readily discuss.

10

Lee Cicuta wrote in a, now deleted, piece of writing on her blog of her dying dog living on through her and so, in this way, being immortal — it is quite a beautiful piece of writing and I am glad that it has been archived on the anarchist library website. I cannot follow Cicuta in this reasoning, but appreciate the beauty of this thought.

Amidst this ecological catastrophe, it feels thoroughly insufficient to reason that living beings will be immortalised through their impact on us. I wonder if this is mean or unkind to say — there is certainly no ill-will felt by me nor any desire to engage in performative “brutal honestly”.

11

I am more and more thinking about Noah.

12

Jordan Peterson’s lectures on the story of Noah and the flood stress that the flood was the result of sin and that Noah survived the flood because of his goodness. I find this a poor interpretation of the story — it is nothing more than resentment, judgement and vengeance to me. To my mind the flood happened and Noah survived because he sought to preserve his life and as many of the lives of those he loved and lived with as he could possibly do. My Noah story is an affirmation of heroic love and courage.

13

Noah’s apocalyptic revelation: an individual who freely chooses to create from a desire to preserve those individuals who they love and are in ecological-communion/co-existing with are much more likely to survive catastrophic crises themselves.

14

The message of first half of Genesis is not of optimistic-salvation. Noah’s ending begins Babel story. YHWH/Life/Being collapsing the Leviathan of Babel affirms the entropic de-totalisation of civilisation’s attempt to transcend the world.

15

The primeval stories of genesis are the last remaining stories of the tribal folk who survived amidst the rise of Mesopotamia/Leviathan; they are the longest surviving anti-civilisational stories — this is my belief.

16

It my belief that the primeval stories as they were recorded in the Torah are but a pale reflection of those told by tribal folk, twisted to support Temple and State.

17

The story of Jesus is that if you sacrifice yourself you can provide salvation for Humanity and overcome death yourself. The story of Noah is that if you seek to preserve your life, the lives of those you love and who are close to you, in a non-anthropomorphic way, then you may preserve yours and their lives in that moment. I believe the latter and find the former to be utterly false. I’d much rather be like Noah than be like Jesus.

18

Noah was not a good or bad, moral or immoral person. Noah was an eco-egoist with real integrity.

19

Catastrophisation: the continuous result of a Mesopotamian 10,000 year long cultural experiment in totalitarian agriculture, whose conclusion is apparent and must be reGenesis — Genesis reversed, as Quinn put it.

20

Emil Cioran wrote of life as a tragedy, with utter ressentiment for his birth, but is not the catastrophe to live without love for creation, as is the Mesopotamian norm?

21

Daniel Quinn affirmed that diversification enables survival amidst catastrophe.

22

My mind is full of thoughts regarding Camatte’s accelerationism, the paradox of enrichment and the inversion and involution of Babel. I believe that this culture is in and will collapse, in a way that I cannot rationalise or justify, and is truly my belief. This is catastrophic and traumatic for many, and I don’t believe in easy answers or means of escape. I face this with a feeling of amor fati for this world that I am living in, with the truth of possibility close to my heart.

23

My mother protected me from the catastrophe that was my father, until the catastrophe of her death.

24

The culling of badgers upon these isles is a horrifying catastrophe.

25

Is recovery from this latest health struggle, writing this book, beginning a therapy praxis and these activities I’m engaged in a rebirth, reGeneses? They are aspects of my on-going self-creation, for sure.

26

Eridu, the first Mesopotamian city, Cain’s culture — agriculturalism and urbanisation. Eridu’s span the globe today, like tumours.

27

First primeval story: when I read The 7 Day Creation account I see an affirmation of what I, and I believe those animals most similar to me often called “Humanity”, need to live well and with health, not great-chain-of-being hierarchy — lightness and darkness, water and air, land, flora and trees, the sun, moon and stars, other creatures of the land, the creatures of the skies and waters, those others who are most similar to myself, and to take space for self-care. These presences, part of YHWH’s creation, are of more value to me than anything invented by Eridu.

28

Second primeval story: I am basically in agreement with Daniel Quinn’s interpretation of The Garden of Eden story, where the moral of the story is that the assumed knowledge of good and evil, what should be and what should not be, what should exist and what should not, who should live and who should die, which is the basic assumption of totalitarianism/civilisation/Leviathan/Mesopotamia, destroys the love for life that is to live in paradise.

29

Third primeval story: Cain’s murder of Abel — YHWH/life/creation/Being/the-world does not reward civilisation/Mesopotamia/agriculture/Cain as it does Abel/tribal-folk/indigeniety/hunter-gatherer-horticulturalist-pastorialists; and the former may seek to annihilate the later in vengeful hatred.

30

What is generally considered the oldest known written story from this culture, Mesopotamia/Cain/Agriculture, is the Epic of Gilgamesh. It is the story of a rapist king, called Gilgamesh, who murders a forest guardian named Humbaba and deforests the cedar forests of Lebanon and builds walls around the city of Uruk — my mind goes straight to thinking about Jordan Peterson and other conservatives — to repress his existential crisis and death/lifephobia. This character of Gilgamesh is one who I continually find revolting, though he is generally postured as a hero.

31

I flick through my copy of Perlman’s Against His-Story, Against Leviathan, with a deep appreciation for this book that has been so influential to my thoughts and affirms that revolt and rebellion have continually been embraced in resistance to this culture. There is something catastrophic though in it’s having endured and overwhelmed them all — I write this with no feeling of defeatism or desire for renunciation.

32

What do you mean by “when the revolution comes”? This culture is an on-going agriculturalist-revolution that is relentlessly annihilating living presence — the revolution is here and life needs anti-revolutionaries!

33

As the land around them desertified, Ancient Egyptians embraced a mummifying conservatism of seeking to avoid bodily return to Earth; and today the Sahara still expands.

34

Whenever I look over the book Desert, a favourite amongst nihilists and post-leftists, I think of Moses’ salvationism of the promised land. I cannot truthfully say that I have much appreciation for Moses or Desert; though I do feel sympathetic towards diasporic-folk who engage in exodus to survive — my feelings here are conflicted.

35

I think of the deserts of the Permian era mass extinction event, with a feeling of trust in the irrational will-to-life I find in living beings — yes it is absurd to find courage in this story that is found in stones and I do still.

36

There is a storm further north that has been called a “once in a lifetime” storm — it is incredible how many “once in a lifetime” events can happen in a lifetime.

37

Fourth primeval story: while Cain-culture grows, Noah walks with YHWH/life/creation, as he has integrity — to have integrity is to walk with life.

38

The murder of Humbaba is the first tragedy in literature.

39

Bioexistentialism: the present catastrophe is both existential and biological, affirming mortality in both senses.

40

Eco-absurdism: to survive a catastrophe is to invite the possibility for other catastrophes, as to create life is to invite the possibility of death, of becoming-impossible.

41

Catastrophe cannot be rationalised, reduced or negated, and there is no life, no Being, without catastrophe. Is this why, during a catastrophe, no one calls for a philosopher?

Genesis also cannot be rationalised, reduced or negated, and there is also no life, no Being, without catastrophe. Philosophy is not a requirement for life.

42

Perhaps, after the question of whether or not to preserve life, the most immediate philosophical question is with regards to how one wants to be amidst the catastrophes they will face. How do I want to live? How do I want to be? How can I survive here? And with these questions there is the matter of what it is I can and want to do. What am I going to do to sustain my life? What do I want to do here?

43

The WHO and IARC report that global cancer rates are rising and expected to rise. There are no satisfactory words.

44

I am immersing myself less in the spectacle of global news media and this does not change my awareness that around the world there are horrifyingly abusive and abhorrent acts being waged daily, which I am unable to respond to or stop. The hyper-Reality is not as real as this body that I am — and the spectacle of horrors is not the abuses that the living are living and dying through.

45

Lacan said that the Real is impossible, but amidst catastrophe the Real is undeniable possibility, to me.

46

For those with integrity and decency, a newborn brings possibility and Realness to awareness, with an intense feeling of responsibility. How terrible it is that this culture, lacking in all integrity and decency, encourages the repression of that possibility and Realness!

47

The ontology of genesis is will to life, which is the revolt of the flesh.

48

The ontology of a tumour is corrupted will to life; as the ontology of Leviathan is corrupted will to life, which is ecologically catastrophic.

49

Our lives and survival are not dependent upon the conservation of Leviathan, but upon the health of the world/Earth/creation/YHWH, which is an extension of ourselves.

50

Genesis is possibility.

51

Survival amidst catastrophe is the revolt of the flesh.

52

Creation is flesh in revolt. Creation is absurd.

53

In his lecture Biblical Series VIII: The Phenomenology of the Divine, Jordan Peterson describes the machinic-infrastructure of this culture as an ark, but to my eyes Peterson gets arks confused with Babel.

54

Fifth primeval story: the story of Noah and the ark is one that I appreciate intensely and feel needs to be radically re-interpreted, from technological-salvation to ecological-care. I do not in anyway believe that the stories of Noah shared by tribal folks pertained to the building of a colossal ship, large enough to host 2 of every species within. Rather, I believe that the story pertains to an individual or individuals, who preserved habitats and cared for living beings, in an entirely non-anthropocentric way, amidst an ecological catastrophe. The message that this articulates to me is that those individuals who care for those they love and choose to embrace their freedom/responsibility amidst ecological catastrophe, affirming the potential and possibility of life after catastrophe, are far more likely to survive catastrophe than those who don’t.

55

Noah’s choice: do you choose to preserve your life, the lives of those you love and who are close to you, amidst the catastrophe life is? To this question, Noah answered “yes”.

56

The Golem is a protector figure, in Jewish folklore, born from clay and mud — protectors are born from clay and mud.

57

“Mabul” is the Hebrew word for “flood” or “deluge”.

58

Sixth primeval story: when thinking about Noah weeping, I can imagine this as being a mixture of his grief for those lost amidst the flood, as well as his awareness of there being no salvation after the flood, with living beings still dying. Noah becomes naked and seeks comforts, which Ham mocks him for and is subsequently cursed by Noah, sending Ham away. The message that I take from this is that those who would be abusive towards us in our grief, suffering and struggles, could well be folk who we need to create distance from.

59

Ecdysis as reGenesis — I feel to shed dead skin!

60

Seventh primeval story: the story of The Tower of Babel kept very short in The Torah and The Old Testament, and I believe that this is very much due to those who recorded it in Babylon not wanting to write something which undermined faith in Leviathan too much. The usual interpretation of the story is that Babel collapsed and that is why there are many different languages around the world. For me the story of Babel’s collapse is suggestive of differing languages and cultural diversification/complexification being an aspect of the collapse of Leviathan; which is goes along way to articulating something of the push for dialectical-monologisation in totalitarianism.

61

Kafka on The Tower of Babel — ”(a)ll the legends and songs that came to birth in that city are filled with longing for a prophesied day when the city would be destroyed by five successive blows from a gigantic fist”, from The City Coat of Arms.

62

“Only after disaster can we be resurrected. It’s only after you’ve lost everything that you’re free to do anything. Nothing is static, everything is evolving, everything is falling apart.” Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

Palahniuk’s Fight Club is a book I continually returned to for many years, as was the film with Helena Bonham Carter, Edward Norton and Brad Pitt.

63

Berdyaev described in his book on “eschatological metaphysics”, The Beginning and the End, “love, freedom, creativeness” and “the value of personality” as the “eternal spiritual principles of life” — I don’t know about “eternal spiritual principles”, but I would say that his principles correspond with what I would say is at the core of what is beautiful about life.

64

“Credo quia absurdum.” Tertullian

Translation — I believe because it is absurd.

65

“During the storm we lay on our backs so as to present as little surface as possible to the wind, and to let the drift pass over us.” Muir

Amidst catastrophe, be close to the earth and you stand a better chance of surviving.

66

“However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names.” Thoreau, Walden

I see no point in shunning this ecological catastrophe that we are living through and believe that we must meet and live it.

67

“The world is beautiful, and outside it there is no salvation.” Camus, Nuptials

Camus is speaking here of creation and catastrophe.

68

Forgiveness is to my eyes performative nonsense, based in resentment. I find it far better for my health to think in terms of acceptance and revolt — I can accept the lifelong impacts of the tumours I have been host to and will revolt for my life, as I revolt against the mass extinction machine and accept that I am unable to save anyone; but the idea of forgiving tumours and abusive systems is nonsense to me.

69

Nietzsche rejected the (ill-)will to punish, vengeful-will, while Kovner revelled in vengeance. I find myself far closer to Nietzsche than Kovner.

70

Kovernism, which is rife today, is founded upon vengeance/punishment as a means of making right past wrongs and is utter nonsense to me. The call for justice cannot undo what has been done. Healing is far more preferable for me.

71

There is a Youtube video of Franco ‘Bifo’ Beradi talking about tsunamis, as a metaphor for how people relate to the world today, encouraging that those listening both wait and prepare for the tsunami, as if the catastrophe were not here now. In his book Futurability, Beradi postures future technologies as “possibility”, in ways that I have no faith in.

72

Integrity has no need for punishment/vengeance/justice.

73

I agree with Thoreau, that it is best to create a living through loving.

74

I almost am of the same mind as Viktor Frankl — where I differ from him is in that I am not sympathetic to optimism (tragic or otherwise), but absurdism (which is more like a rebellious pessimism). With this, I don’t see survival and overcoming as growing from a will-to-meaning, starting from a place of lack and seeking to transcend the existential void that meaning and absurdity embody. Instead, I see overcoming and survival as the flowering of will-to-life/will-to-preserve/will-to-heal that grows from the ground of love and is the embodiment of authentic power (which is in no sense political). The preference for meaning over power is an expression of spirit being prioritised over flesh, which strikes me as a collapse into an abyss that loses all awareness of presence. No action or activity brings meaning into the world, as meaning was always meaningless. Actions and activities that grow from love and express the power an individual possesses, intensify the possibility of healing, preservation and life. This does not mean that there is nothing to affirm in the actions or activities that folk find meaning it, but to affirm something far more fruitful and worthwhile — this is to affirm flesh and love, and to treat spirit and lack as ghosts who haunt the living. The meaninglessness of life is of no concern when the living are loving and full of love.

75

Communicate to young that they are more important than industry, ideology and Cause, with a love so intense that it passes on the affirmation through their lives, as a message worth passing on.

76

Daniel Quinn imagined a new renaissance as a means of encouraging tribalism and the end of civilisation, and placed a great deal of faith in enlightenment as a means of achieving this. My feeling is similar, but much darker than Quinn’s.

77

The concluding words of Camatte’s essay Instauration Of The Risk Of Extinction are: “(i)t is only if we live fully the risk of extinction, really feel it, that we become wholly aware of it without feeling guilt for the horrors we have committed during our wandering, and we can put an end to it, carry out an uprising of life, and initiate the salutary inversion for us and for nature, indeed, for all living beings — including viruses — and thereby continue our journey in the cosmos” — I appreciate this as an affirmation of yes-saying to life.

78

In his essay Anarchy and Ecstasy, John Moore affirms eversion mysteries of decay and germination — “eversion” meaning to turn-inside-out, which is very similar to what Camatte means by “inversion”. What I am attempting with the primeval stories of The Torah is probably something of eversion/inversion — they are, to me, stories of germination and decay, and mysterious.

79

Dialogic-polyphonies are inversions of dialectical-totalities, as healthy will-to-life is everted ill-will-to-life.

80

In a catastrophe that floods the many differing worlds that exist here in Earth, like global warming, where to will Invecchiare Selvatico escape, depart and evade?

81

“The thunder burst again—a short, abrupt peal, as if the egis had fallen from the weakened hand of the thunderer. Storm-voices trembled from the mountains, sounding dully in the gorges, and died away in the clefts. In their place resounded other, marvellous tones.” Vladimir Korolenko, The Shades, a Phantasy

The gentle weather following days and nights of storm is such a joy.

82

Erin Manning’s Unsettled is a piece of writing that resonates intensely with beliefs that I have held for years — she sent me the unpublished manuscript after I spoke to her about this project. Decolonisation is unsettling, as colonisation is monstrous and horrifying. I don’t believe that healing is comfortable and devoid of pains, losses and facing darknesses — my experiences have been intensely unsettling!

83

I find Noah far more heroic than Abraham, Moses and Jesus.

84

Kierkegaard used Abraham to reflect upon anxiety, with Abraham’s anxiety being with regards to his being commanded to sacrifice his son Issac. I find far more value in imagining Noah’s anxiety regarding his responsibility to preserve his life, the lives of those he loved and those close to him, amidst ecological catastrophe.

Noah’s Choice

“Let the disaster happen!” Benjamin Fondane

“Sound and fury!” Benjamin Fondane

1

“To say that nothing is certain is another way of saying, that anything is possible.” Pantarai, Nothing Is True, Anything Is Possible, in No Path issue 2

I am almost of the same mind as Pantarai, as for me nothing is certain and Nothingness/death/extinction is certain, and, while I don’t believe that anything is possible, I do believe that all things are possible — including the possibility of impossibility.

2

The other day a friend told me why they do not believe in free will, something Timothy Morton also denies the existence of. As I listen to them talk, I increasingly suspect that they are just denying their responsibility for their life.

3

Choice cannot be transcended through rationalisations.

4

The banality of mass-extinction is utterly revolting!

5

Amor fati: the choice to preserve life, rather than renounce it, is to embrace love as the final word, rather than ending with despair. Noah chose love, rather than despair.

6

Shaun Day Woods’ collection of proverbs, Dancing & Digging, is one of my favourite pieces of writing from anarchist discourses, put out in the last decade. I find the text to be a collection of thoughts that in general affirm life that includes struggle, and on those occasions where Woods displays more mean-feeling towards the world I notice how absolute yes-saying to life is impossible. I find greater resonance with this book than with his more rational writings, done under the pen-name Seaweed — regardless of the rationality of his argument, I do not share his faith in secessionism.

7

I am untrusting of knee-jerk rejections and moralistic appeals to negate the thought of Kaczynski and eco-extremists, like ITS, who (regardless of their denial of this) follow Kaczynski’s praxis; and write this without any positive feeling for bombs and/or slaughter as praxis. It seems to me necessary, to challenge properly and invite more desirable praxes, to empathise with Kaczynski and the advocates of eco-extremism. This requires being able to feel great pain, rage, and dark sadness.

8

The praxes of ALF and ELF are not the answer to surviving Leviathan, and are inspiring rebellions; just as firefighters are not the answer to worsening wild fires, escalating with increasing global temperatures, and are fucking heroic! When the matter of their activities being illegal comes up in conversation, my normal go-to reply is to point out that resisting Naziism was illegal in Hitler’s Germany.

9

The appreciation I feel for the hunt saboteurs and earth first!ers across these isles is intense! May they continue to defend the living here.

10

Swampy is heroic!

11

I have continually found that the Organisation Extinction Rebellion is less concerned with preserving life than with sustaining the death camp culture that is Leviathan. This has been a continual disappointment, as I had wanted to believe it an actually oppositional force to Mesopotamia.

12

The Dongus tribe is continually in my mind, as road and housing developments worsen here in North Devon.

13

My short stint in the UK chapter of Deep Green Resistance taught me a great deal about how I do not want my praxes to be, which is valuable to me.

14

The ecological Sophie’s choice we face of “who do we seek to preserve and who do we not” is maddening, as it is both irreducible to logic or reason and a matter of which there is no way of avoiding the reduction of living presence. The need to choose is not one that can be rationalised away, and can only be lived through.

15

The Fall of Icarus is a story I very much appreciate and feels extremely appropriate to this moment.

16

The idea that life is a simulation, as pushed by transhumanists like Elon Musk, is a great way to disassociate from the body and renounce care for the living.

17

Hannah Arendt wrote in her essay Personal Responsibility Under Dictatorship “that whatever else happens, as long as we live we shall live together with ourselves”; which seems equally apparent for reflecting upon personal responsibility amidst mass extinction machinery.

18

Jeremy Clarkson’s fetishisation of cruelly murdering badgers is revolting!

19

Evola’s book Revolt Against The Modern World is nothing more than an attempt to rationalise His-Story and I have seen nothing suggestive of anything that might be useful for surviving Leviathan from the quick skims I have made of the text; which I admit to have not having read with any enthusiasm, interest or effort. I could well be critiqued for not having seriously engaged with Evola’s thought, but I have not found any real need or want to do so.

20

In his article Another Apocalypse Is Possible, Srećko Horvat suggests that it might be worthwhile to consider the present moment as post-apocalyptic, which is a perspective I share in. However, he posits that the post-apocalyptic present is “fertile ground for social revolution”, which strikes me as a stunningly poor revelation to take from this moment; with Horvat affirming apocalypse as revelation. What I find revealed in this post-apocalyptic present is not a need for a rearrangement of the apocalypse so that it is turned upside down, but the inversion/eversion and involution of the apocalypse.

21

The subject of oceanic-feelings is often met with Freudian and/or spirituality thought, but rarely is it discussed with sincere thought about what it would be to find oneself in the middle of the ocean. In all honesty, whether it was at the surface of the middle of the Atlantic, or underneath the Indian Ocean, or somewhere amidst the Pacific Trash Vortex, I do not want to experience what it is to be in the Ocean — my body is not suited to that environment. I am fond of coastlines and standing before the sea, and appreciate it as a great uncertainty that is different from me, which I co-exist with differentiated from and find it beautifully strange.

22

In a world of worsening wildfires, not all habitats will survive.

23

The Hinkley Point C nuclear power station and the possibility of radioactive flooding and potentially worse disasters, horrify me.

24

One of my strongest feelings is that to have integrity amidst this ecological catastrophe is to affirm, as much as is possible to preserve life, co-existence with climate change refugees and other migratory exilic-species.

25

The flood of national-populism is not something that I believe can survive for long, but this is a less important matter than how we might weather this ecological and existential catastrophe and survive now/today.

26

Urbanisation, new and expanding roads, and other developments flood the North Devon landscape.

27

The survivalist and prepper plans for apocalypse, not noticing the post-apocalyptic world they reside within and the on-going apocalypse.

28

While it is intensely saddening, I appreciate the culling of Ash trees undertaken by conservationists who are seeking to protect other trees from Ash-dieback — choosing between preserving the disease or the trees is simple for me, aesthetically and instinctually obvious. This culling effort is not the same as the culling of badgers. There are no easy answers to surviving and co-existing here and now.

29

I’d like to write a story with a Great Crow God, who honours those who have died and helps the living grieve.

30

The individuals who protected Jews amidst the Shoah are heroes.

31

Ecological-rebellion may look less riotous and war-like than what is often fetishised.

32

There is no authentic ecological-care in systematisation and sustainability ideologies — be they social-ecology or green party, there is Leviathan and Leviathan’s consumption.

33

“However poor it may be, the present always contains true wealth, the wealth of possible creation.” Vaneigem

The wealth of possible destruction and devastation is also found in the present, regardless of the poverty of the present.

34

The credo of materialism is that all is dead matter to be sacrificed before the Cause of dialectical historisation. My physicalism cries out for the absurd possibility of preserving the flesh of living presence.

35

Uri Gordon’s writings on eco-anarchism and prefigurative politics are hideously academic; which is an accusation that has been made to me against my writings.

36

Jean Giono’s book The Man Who Planted Trees is a story that I find intense value in and appreciate greatly. When I read it, I think of Llew and the planting of seeds.

37

Youtube videos of firefighters rescuing dogs amidst California’s wildfires, summoning feelings of intense appreciation.

38

The president of Finland, Alexander Stubb, recently said that Europe’s “holiday from history is now over” and I am reminded of Aragorn!’s words stating that “(e)urope is the history of hundreds of cultures being crushed” and Fredy Perlman’s words stating “(t)his is the waste land: England, America, Russia, China, Israel, France….”

39

Cormac McCarthy’s book The Road is a story of continuing on, without reason to do so, with love; as we might.

40

“Thus the citizens of Athens spoke to one another as they left the place, and the blue twilight was falling. They had determined to kill the restless gadfly in the hope that the countenances of the gods would shine again. And yet—before their souls arose the mild figure of the singular philosopher.” Vladimir Korolenko, The Shades, a Phantasy

I have no faith in murder as a means of improving life.

41

Jordan Peterson recently spoke of, during an interview on FOX news, a crisis of meaning in the world. To my mind the crisis is of ecological ill-health and a resentment towards life, which Peterson profiteers off-of — a Moloch in my eyes, feasting upon children.

42

The ballet of Peter and The Wolf was a favourite of mine win my early childhood. On the face of it the narrative is of Man vs Nature, Peter vs Wolf; but I also wonder if this is a story of Peter’s love for ducks, cats and birds, and refusal to bow before the authority of his grandfather.

43

Katie hands me a magazine with an article about local dormice being under threat due to agricultural practices and of conservationists monitoring their populations. The article includes suggestions as to how readers can help create habitats in their garden that would be supportive of dormice and their foods, and I look out the window, glad to see that it already fits the description. I am glad that my garden might be an ark for dormice.

44

Perhaps I am an arkist — a proponent of the creation of spaces where living beings might survive this mass extinction event, together.

45

Elon Musk’s nonsense about America colonising Mars, in his speech at Donald Trump’s inauguration, is just as ridiculous to me as the Russian cosmicists, inspired by Fyodorov’s philosophy. Thinking about Fyodorov, I remember Jacque Fresco, The Venus Project and the techno-utopianism they push.

46

Vladimir Solovyov articulated his political and apocalyptic philosophy in his book War, Progress And The End Of History: Including a Short Story of the Anti-Christ. The work is largely anti-Tolstoyan and anti-Nietzschean in focus, seeing them as pathways towards the Anti-Christ, and is at points polluted by his racism towards Asian peoples. Having read quite little of Solovyov and about him, I already feel like I have read too much! I cannot justify writing about him here, only perhaps to save someone reading this from bothering. His neglect for his body speaks volumes to me. I don’t think I will bother reading any more by him.

47

This evening I read the Pan-Anarchist Manifesto and Anarcho-Futurist Manifesto, written by the brothers Abba and Vladimir Gordin — Russian Jewish anarchists, who supported the Bolsheviks, but were clearly very influenced by Bakunin — and found both absurd. The former manifesto is absurd to me as it treats pan-anarchy as a goal to achieve, rather than being how life actually is; and the latter is absurd to me as the only definite future is death. Later in life Abba Gordin wrote a book titled Communism Unmasked, where he attempts a destruction of Marxism — I imagine somewhat motivated by having experienced the horrors of living within the application of Marxist ideology.

48

This morning I have seen an article about how global warming is impacting the Atlantic Meridonal Overturning Circulation, which is a movement of water in the Atlantic that is partially how the isles and other areas of North Western Europe are as warm as is they habitually are. The collapse of this movement could possibly result in far far colder temperatures for this area, with far more frozen winters. This is not definite and I am mindful that this is an imaginary possibility right now, but it is a possibility.

49

“Practicing mutual aid is the surest means for giving each other and to all the greatest safety, the best guarantee of existence and progress, bodily, intellectual and moral.” Pëtr Kropotkin, Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution

I do not have much of a taste for Kropotkin’s thought, with his book The Conquest of Bread being a push for agriculturalism and his book Fields, Factories and Workshops pushing for industrialism. I have wanted to appreciate his thought in Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution, but I find it intensely speciesist and not reflective of the inter-dependency of differing species — he writes of how horses will run together to defend each other against wolves, but does not affirm how the hunting of horses by wolves is supportive of horses as it keeps the habitat from being over enriched by horses. There is also a sentiocentrism to his thought, where he seemingly does not appreciated how interdependency also includes flora, mineral and geological life, such as trees, the soil and rivers. These distastes have come with readings that came after my initial readings of Kropotkin, during my teenage years; when I was enthusiastically reading Armand and Wilde and Goldman and Jarach as well, and found Kropotkin unsatisfying in other ways.

50

While I have not extensively read Elisée Reclus, I appreciate his writings on his vegetarianism and his opposition to the death penalty, and have found myself more interested in him having read of his personal embrace of nudist/naturist praxis. I have felt a distrust and skepticism towards Reclus, given his Kropotkinism, but perhaps will read more of him.

51

Ria Del Montana’s idea of a “future vegan world”, articulated in her piece Veganism in Futurtopia, is just silly. Does she expect hedgehogs and tigers and sharks to all adopt vegan diets, or is this vision just anthropocentric-speciesism? Will she expect that Sama Bajou folks, or other indigenous cultures who hunt and fish, be required to conform to the utopian vegan ideology, pertaining to another mode of colonial-universalism?

52

I have not yet found anything in “solar punk” ideology and rhetoric that does not surmount to absurdly optimistic science-fiction nonsense, rationalised into a system that they expected all to conform to, like Christians and Communists.

53

It seems important to affirm than none of us are in control of what is happening.

54

In his book Žižek in the Clinic, Eliot Rosenstock advocates for Hegelian-rationalisations as the “new endgame for therapy” and I have no faith in this as an approach that pertains to mental and ecological healing.

55

Nausea’s album Extinction is a personal favourite for older punk and metal.

56

Timothy Morton, borrowing from Peter Lamborn Wilson/Hakim Bey, wrote of objects as temporary-autonomous-zones. In my poetry collection Affirming The Open, I, borrowing from Giorgio Agamben, affirmed the open and my belief that the temporary autonomous zone is a lie — likewise, I don’t believe in objects, favouring ontologies oriented towards organisms.

57

François Laruelle’s eschatological writings on the “end times of philosophy” is seemingly a rationalisation of utopianism through “non-philosophy”. His thought is absurd to me.

58

“Wake the healer, gird the hunter” Twm Gwynne, Silver Hand

Gwynne, who I collaborated with briefly through an online poetry project, remains a poet who I am intensely attracted to and want to read much more of.

59

“The fate of humanity is therefore scientifically sealed: all that remains is to optimize the preservation of its fragile terrestrial biotope.”

“The role of the theoretical imagination is still that of discerning, in a present crushed by the probability of the worst-case scenario, the diverse possibilities which nonetheless remain open.”

These quotes are taken from the book Catastrophism, Disaster Management and Sustainable Submission, written by Rene Riesel and Jaime Semprun.

When I read this book my feeling is that of a desire for a sincerely pessimist-ecological conversation that does not push for catastrophist-submission and affirms the choice to care as an ecological-will emerging from individuals yes-saying to life.

60

In his article Heroes of the Apocalypse, Žižek pushes for mobilisation, as if reorganising social structures is an answer to this ecological catastrophe.

61

In an article published by Jacobin, titled What Lies Ahead?, Žižek pushes for determinism and Historical-revisionism as a means of responding to the likelihood of worsening struggles, appealing to the concepts of necessity and Destiny throughout. I have no faith in his rationalisations, seeing his appeals to necessity as appeals to tyrannical thought, finding his Destiny appeals as conforming with Manifest Destiny ideology and believe that his Historical-revisionism is basically a distraction from the-present/presence.

62

To preserve life is the revolt of the flesh.

63

Preservationism is flesh in revolt.

64

“Tomorrow, he was longing for tomorrow, whereas everything in him ought to reject it.” Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus

There is no reason to long for tomorrow, when tomorrow may bare more struggles and pains and with the only guarantee of the future is death. Still the living absurdly choose to embrace the possibility of tomorrow and the possibilities tomorrow contains.

65

The choice to engage in ecological care begins with choosing to preserve ourselves.

66

There is no way of rationalising Noah not choosing suicide, even suicide through the flood, but my belief is that he was motivated by love.

67

Franco (Bifo) Beradi writes in his introduction to the 21^st century these words: “(t)hat said, we (deserters) know that the unpredictable is not yet erased” — my feeling is that he is corrected that the unpredictable has not been erased, but where we differ in perspective is that I do not share the technological and political optimist belief that unpredictability could ever actually be erased, which he affirms in his faith in through the word “yet”. My pessimism brings my courage, while Beradi’s optimism seems to terrify him.

68

Aiyana Goodfellow’s writings on decolonising pethood, to affirm radical-companionship, are wonderful to me. Radical-companionship speaks very much to the praxes I am seeking to affirm here. Where I notice us, apparently, differing is that their perspective is generally sentiocentric, with far less affirmation of the more-than-animal-world in Goodfellow’s thought. However, their affirmation of love and care, and the need to heal from grief, intensely resonate with what I am writing about here.

69

I appreciate the TV series The Walking Dead as a narrative which explores the matter of choosing to kill or preserve life — I have not read the graphic novels and am not attracted to that medium. That there is no one right answer, no “absolute kill” or “absolute do not kill”, but a continual striving for life that never transcends struggle, is something that harmonises greatly with my feelings.

70

One of my childhood favourite films was Waterworld, where Kevin Costner plays a mutant mariner in an Earth that has become one giant ocean upon the surface, and is the individual-hominid within this world who is best adapted for the habitat — his difference and individuation being repellent to those attempting to continue doing Leviathans is a noticeable aspect of the film. For me, the film most intensely affirms that survival amidst a new world rendered different by ecological catastrophe requires the queering of species through morphogenesis as evolutionary adaptation. He finds an island for his companions, returning to the water after, and is the hero of the film for his continually choosing to seek to preserve their lives, particularly that of the child Enola, motivated by a love than emerges through shared struggle.

71

Trumpian-imperialism 2/2/2025: I’m reading articles on Trump’s policies and watching videos of him speaking and wondering if this is just performance for the spectacle or a harbinger of politics to come. Either way, my instinct is that this is Leviathan in denial of its dying and my feeling is that what matters is minimising the harm and trauma it might inflict to living presence in the conservation of itself. To my eyes, it is better to die well than to attempt to never die at all and conserve oneself through the most horrific of abuses; and I have no faith that Leviathan will die well, with every belief that it is dying. When Leviathan rots and decays, nourishing the Earth, what might grow is uncertain and I am glad for the presence of possibility.

72

Of all the stupid leftist propaganda the one that pisses me off the most is the Organise! meme, where lots of small fishes surround a larger fish assuming the shape of an even larger fish. If a school of cowfish were to surround a lemon shark they would not overpower it or defeat it, but provide an easy meal for the shark. Likewise, Extinction Rebellion has revealed that seeking to surround large political bodies renders you an easy target for their consumption. I have no belief that cowfish would be so stupid as to try and surround lemon sharks and with this thought am reminded of the lunacy of thinking that having a prefrontal cortex and the ability to rationalise renders you a more intelligent being — I see intelligence not as essential but as active, and overly domesticated featherless bipeds with big prefrontal cortexes are frequently actively incredibly stupid!

73

Grieving annihilated habitat is painful and the cost of having loved the life there. I do not resent the pains of grieving and am angered and revolted by the ecological abuse that is Leviathan.

74

Tom Wetzel’s green-syndicalist programs are about reorganising and sustaining industrialism, not about ecological-care — I have no desire for the conservation of abuse, regardless of if that is reframed into a leftist-ideological narrative.

75

The idea that food comes from farms is no more true than the idea that food comes from the shops.

76

The preservation of our actual means of eating, drinking and surviving is the preservation of a healthy habitat, which is wealthy in biodiversity and free from the cancerous bodily corruption of Leviathan. Our lives are possible with life, not the death camp culture that is annihilating living-presence. We need to stop identifying with these systems and machines, decolonise our thought and embrace our authentic selves, as extensions of this Earth and Earth as extensions of ourselves.

77

Today I have seen that Ramon Elani at the end of 2024 announced that he has abandoned revolt and renounced the philosophy of his previous writings for an embrace of the pathways of Stoicism, Reason and the pursuit of happiness. While I do not have faith in the paths he is embracing, I wish him and his loved ones well with this change — I am glad he is moving away from the philosophy of glorifying death he was revelling in.

78

Lacan described the Real as impossible, but I would say that the Real is unspeakable possibility, which includes the possibility of impossibility — the Real is life. The Real is intuitively obvious in pain, love, death and birth.

79

To begin the day with ecological affirmation is to be aware of possibility, but to begin the day by orienting your mind towards industrial-workerism is to lose sight of possibility.

80

While it seems dishonest to suggest that Putin, Trump and Netanyahu are Nazis, as proponents of industrial-systematic-slaughtering I would say that they are Hitler’s — and certainly not the only ones, as Hitlerism seems alive and well today. Fondane affirmed Hitler as sincere-Reason. To affirm life is sincere-absurdity.

81

I am thoroughly of the belief that ecological praxes are best oriented towards not seeking to prevent a future catastrophe, but oriented towards seeking to heal from catastrophes that have already happened and happened far further back in our experience than we generally affirm, like a repressed memory that presents the need for healing from trauma.

82

Rebellions are best local and non-localisable.

83

The too-fucking-late-krapitalist flood of consumer goods production and sale is an existential-deluge, where the cultural norm is to drown amidst consumption and productivity.

84

I am aesthetically and ethically anti-propertarian, in a sense similar to that advocated by Thoreau, and I also appreciate civilised comforts and easier options, in a similar sense to that I see wild animals embracing when the opportunity arises — surviving amidst Leviathan is difficult and there’s no shame for me in the contradictions I embrace trying to survive here. This is an affirmation of ambiguity!

85

Ambiguous-anarchist-praxis as rebellion without the ecological-devastation that is clearing/clarity.

86

Absurdist revolt that lives without appeals to Reason, rationality, utility, justification or Cause, exists in the ambiguous position of being both aimless and purposeful.

87

Feral is both ambiguous and liminal.

88

In affirming death as the possibility of impossibility, I notice the influence of Heidegger’s thought on mine and remember moments when I have affirmed this in conversation with left-wing activists who have accused me of being sympathetic to Nazi thought for this reason, with feelings of despair and absurdity.

89

I read Pessoa’s Magnificat in my garden, where the cat who lives with me plays — I cannot see her right now, be she is there lurking somewhere in the rewilded beds.

90

Baudrillard devoted a whole book to arguing that the end is an illusion, titled The Illusion of the End; but instinctual desires to resist death affirm that the end is not an illusion.

91

Simon Springer — “For the promise of spatial emancipation to be fulfilled as the realization of an anarchist geography, we must become beautiful ourselves, we must become the horizon. Beauty sets fear in the heart of the beast, whereby if one courageous act can make the Colossus tremble, then together, united as a vista of hope, we might just bring the giant to its knees.”

I appreciate Springer’s appeal to beauty!

92

The K-T extinction event asteroid hit with a force greater than one billion Hiroshima bombs; which is a thought that brings me courage when thinking about the possibilities of nuclear war or meltdowns following civilisational collapse. Living beings survived and Earth healed, and will do too from Leviathan!

93

May we dance with Cailleachs at the end of civilisation.

94

The film Annihilation is probably my favourite more-recent sci-fi film — I have not read the book. I find it an excellent exploration of how unsettling the queering of ecology, rewilding-as-reweirding, is, and how destruction is creative and creation is destructive. I remember Aragorn! putting out on social media about how he enjoyed the special effects at the end of the film and am reminded of the unsettling quality of anti-colonial praxes, and Erin Manning’s Unsettled.

95

The preservation of experiencing ourselves with naked authenticity, affirmed in the praxes of individuals who embrace(d) nudism/naturism like Zisly, Armand, Beylie, Gravelle, Butaud and Carpenter, is of immense value to me.

96

I am more sympathetic to thought oriented towards tribes, clans, bands and families, than societies, markets, communes or nations.

97

Kafka’s fable regarding a mouse who gets eaten by a cat after the cat advises them to change direction to avoid traps is an excellent piece of wisdom on politics.

98

I am inspired by Sama Bajou, Sami and North Sentinelese folk — is this anarcho-primitivism?

99

The Wii Towai tribe use fear to protect, defend and preserve the rivers they live with.

100

The will-to-preserve and will-to-life that erupted from my body amidst brain tumour treatment destroyed my faith in the Buddhist concepts of nirvana, ahisma, nekkhamma and anatta. I chose life and experienced my faith destroyed.

101

Imagine an apocalypticism without the idea of the world-to-come and where there is not one singular event and life is continuous apocalypses happening here as this world, with the world-as-apocalypses. Here is the world as the ending of worlds and the creation of worlds, with the world both preserved and destroyed.

102

The lack of integrity and disloyalty to Earth in longtermism and transhumanism is revolting; no-saying to life, holds no value to me.

103

Rereading Art’s thoughts and notes on green and pink anarchy, published on their Medium account, I hope that they write more on this.

104

The world view generally pushed by Greens (deep and shallow) is domestication-normative-ecology, which is ecologically disastrous.

105

“Queer is the now of the unfulfilled promises of the future.” Zafer Aracagök

The strangeness of the present is the unfulfilled promises of future salvation and enlightenment, which are now dead.

106

If Max Wilbert, Lierre Kieth and Derrick Jensen believe that their nine-point manifesto, published in their book Bright Green Lies, or the documentary film that they made of the same title, includes thought or information that could be supportive of ecological rebellions and/or the healing of Earth from Leviathan, how is it fucking true that they have paywalled both? (The documentary can be watched on Youtube for free, but not through any of them and there is no direction to this on any of their websites.)

107

In an article published on the Deep Green Resistance News Service website, Max Wilbert writes that “the doomer mentality dooms us to failure”, which is just absurd, as we were always doomed, and denial of our eventual failure to preserve our lives through death/extinction, and simply an appeal to the denial of authenticity. It is surely better to affirm that all species will eventually be “failed species” and that all living beings are doomed to death/extinction, than to deny this?

108

An aboriginal-anarchist and scholar from the land called Australia (within colonialist ideology) who I deeply appreciate is Yin Paradies. Paradies has dedicated much effort to the preservation of indigenous health and to challenging racism from the grounds of it being detrimental to health and wellbeing. I am glad to find so much harmony in praxis with Paradies.

109

Alongside his denial regarding the likely consequences of global warming and mass extinction, Jordan Peterson preaches of salvation from what he calls “chaos” in a coming period of “human flourishing”, like Moses’ promised land rhetoric that followed from God’s promise of deliverance; which led the Israelites to war with the Canaanites — Peterson’s God has promised him deliverance, for him and his chosen people, from those he views as Egypt and Pharaoh today, viewing himself as the patriarch to show the way (with rules and commandments, that shalt not be broken); and I believe that this is merely the pathway to war and statism. Given Peterson’s obvious enthusiasm for war and statism, I imagine he would not find this disagreeable. Militarist conflicts are currently thought by scientists to be responsible for about 5.5% of carbon emissions and the direct destruction of habitats, pollution, damages to biodiversity and other ecological impacts of war, is utterly revolting to me. There is a part of me that wonders if Peterson is not merely an advocate for immanentizing the eschaton and seeking to bring about the promises of The Book of Revelations. As far as choosing between the preservation of life/possibility and death/impossibility, Peterson has obviously chosen death and rationalises the impossible through faith in the promises of salvation and afterlife that his God provides him.

110

I have throughout my writings sought to affirm a strange psychic-accelerationism, based in my belief in and experience of love. A sun/star, or Enlightenment/Reason/rationality, reaches a size so massive that it collapses in on itself with the force of gravity, or love, where the uncertain terrain of a black hole, or endarkenment, pulls towards it what is close with the force of gravity/attraction/love/instinct/desire. With this, I have found that accelerating immersion within Symbolic thought, without repressive systematisation, accelerates the force of love. Alongside this, I hold belief in a technological accelerationism, which I can articulate rationally through a combination of Camatte’s thought and the Icarus story, but is really based far more in instinct — the Icarus story affirms that the attempt to reach the sun, a metaphor for transcending Earth/life, through technological advances, will fail due to ecological conditions (the Sun melting the artificial wings made for Icarus or cataclysmic ecological instability), with Icarus/techno-salvationism collapsing back to Earth with the force of gravity, which is the force of love; and Camatte’s thought affirms that technological advancement is accelerating in a way that is simply uncontrollable. There is also here a political-accelerationism based in belief in gravity/love, which I have used the story of Babel’s fall to describe; wherein accelerating growth away from Earth pertains to instabilities through life/YHWH/ecological-conditions and the polity collapses with the force of gravity. My belief is that an accelerationism of love, pertaining to a gravitational return to Earth as the collapsing of Icarus-culture/Babel/Enlightenment, as a rebellious yes-saying to life, is what is needed for ecological healing and what is happening in those individuals and folks who are seeking to encourage and support ecological healing in themselves and their worlds that extend from theirselves.

111

When gravity tugs us to our rock bottom, there is the greatest possibility of rising up and growing anew; what matters is how well we fall and heal from the collapse.

112

As dying and rising gods go, I vastly appreciate Dionysus the forest god of festivity, fertility and madness, to Jesus the fisherman and martyr. Forests reduce the risks of flooding, while the fisherman climbs upon his boat and seeks to catch all he can take and sell at market.

113

Layla AbdelRahim’s anarcho-primitivist anthropological works on education, learning, parenting and childhood, are wonderful efforts to preserve the possibility of healthier ways to engage with these processes — I feel immense gratitude for her presence!

114

Drawing from Guattari’s 3-ecologies and ecosophy, Erin Manning writes of the refusal of clearing and clarity as anti-colonial praxis in her essay Out of the Clear — and I am glad for Manning’s thought! I am very much inspired by Guattari’s encouragement of complexification through differentiation and see this as affirming dialogic-polyphonies, rebelling against and deconstructing/destroying dialectical and dogmatic monologisation. There is definite dialogic-harmony between Manning’s thought and mine, and we are by no means saying the same thing, or singing from the same hymn book.

115

Jordan Peterson’s sole concern is industrial-optimisation, which is disastrous to ecological-health individually and holistically.

116

Emma Kathryn’s book Reclaiming Ourselves is a gift.

117

Every occasion I look over Rhyd Wildermuth’s prophetic-essay announcing that the future will be fascist I experience feelings of revolt and absurdity. The future will not be fascist, as the future is only death/extinction, but the present may revolt and is revolting. Of course, faith in Marxism encourages ritualistic Historicisations and Wildermuth is faithful and loyal to his idol/god.

118

Rereading Zerzan’s Future Primitive — a favourite of mine when I first became atuned to anti-civilisational thought — feels strange to me. I appreciate Zerzan’s thought here and elsewhere, and I don’t have faith in a future-primitive, while believing in and caring for the primal-present/wild-and-feral-presence.

119

“Nothing human makes it out of the near-future.” Nick Land

Land’s statement is absurd to me — nothing makes it out of the future, as there is no out-of-death/extinction; necromancy/resurrection is impossible and fantasy, in my eyes.

120

I remain deeply appreciative of the affirmation that Leviathan has continually inspired revolt throughout its existence, made by Perlman in his Against His-Story book. There has continually been rebellions seeking to preserve possibility throughout this ecological-catastrophe of Mesopotamianism and I am confident will as long at it exists.

121

Moore’s primitivism-as-medicine-praxes affirms the preservation of possibility as the choice to say yes to life.

122

Baudrillard called the Real a desert, but I experience it more as a flood — a flood which drowned Baudrillard with his dying from cancer.

123

One of the books within the existentialist canon that I have particularly appreciated is The Ethics of Ambiguity, by Simone de Beauvoir, in which she affirms that it is impossible to actually systematise ethics, given that ambiguity is continually present — it truly is a book that I feel deserves greater consideration. When listening to the roundtable Art hosted on their podcast Uncivilised, where representatives of the anti-civilisational camps of Hunterism and Veganism sought to push their ideology as the right system, I continually found myself thinking of this book on ambiguity. The certainty and clarity/clearing of pathways presumed by ideologues unopen to what does not conform to their system — the push for totalitarian-monologisation — is revolting to me, with its inauthenticity. (I am reminded of Aragorn!’s affirmations of anarchies without roadmaps.)

The ambiguity of the world renders me unable to deny vegans their choice in foods, nor hunters theirs, and any posturing of being able to bring them under a system I could design would be utter nonsense. I know that I am aesthetically and ethically revolted by sports-hunting and gun-hunting, and by the spectacularised push for vegan-ethical-consumerism; and those feelings are mine and the responsibility of no-one else to resolve. My vegetarian diet may well be equally revolting to hunter-primitivists who have faith in carnivore diets, as vegan-primitivists who have faith in their fruigo-herbivorism; should they not be open to multiple ethical interpretations, inexact-praxes, uncertainty or anti-systematisation. To paraphrase de Beauvoir, my belief is that anti-civilisational thought must not attempt to dispel the ambiguity of our Being but, on the contrary, accept the task of realising it.

The terrain of ambiguity, which is very much what Moore spoke to in his affirmation of bewilderness, pertains to co-existing with a great multiplicity of differing ways of meeting the challenges and struggles of living, revolting and surviving amidst Leviathan.

124

Euthanasia: I know my answer and I cannot answer or choose for anyone else.

125

Shestov and Fondane sought to affirm possibility beyond the point of death and in so doing negate the need to preserve life, as the dead could be resurrected, and found faith in this through the Christ story. I believe that death is the limit of possibility and that affirmation of possibility is found in the preservation of life, which is possibility; and that death manifests possibility, with decay and decomposition. Is this a paradox? Possibly!

126

“You are all just perverts who are secretly horny for the apocalypse.” Žižek

I am increasingly revolted by the push for pathology and its fashionability; and find Žižek increasingly annoying.

127

I have come to the perspective that the apocalypse has happened, the trauma is already here, there is no escaping it or stopping it and that it happened long before anyone alive was born. Stopping the apocalypse is impossible and accepting that involves embracing dark truths about ourselves that we may not want to, for fear of the uncertain and unknown of possibility. What seems possible now is healing, recovery, regeneration and new life, or the harm worsening continually until death and extinction. Whatever happens, death and extinction are always possible and always present; and we can choose to survive for now, live as well as we can together today, to love each other and live with the pains of loss and struggle, and do so without hope or belief in salvation or hopeless despair, but with the courage and heroism that living through tragedy involves. There is no future, but the revolt of the flesh, which is the absurd, is alive today and the only philosophical question that matters to me is that of choosing to preserve life or embrace death, which every individual living being makes for themselves in each moment. With despair as the penultimate word, I choose love as my final word before my death and amidst extinction; I choose to live with as much love as I can. Remembering Libertad’s affirmation that revolt is life, and Camus’ affirmation of rebellion requiring love; I am resolute in my choice to love and live, as rebellion and revolt.

128

The desire to write stories for children, older children and much older children (and ancient children) is becoming louder within my being.

129

My book Mesodma remains one of my favourite pieces I have written.

130

Reading studies on the amount of time taken for ecological recovery, following previous mass-extinction events, and the complexity that biodiversity recovery involves, there is both sadness and love in me.

131

“If the world is saved, it will not be saved by old minds with new programs but by new minds with no programs at all.” Daniel Quinn, The Story of B (Ishmael, #2)

I echo this with the words “saved” changed for the words “preserved”.

132

Daniel Quinn’s affirmation of ecological-praxes being not seeking less of what we really want and need, but seeking more of what we want and need, resonates with me intensely. I want and need to preserve as healthy a habitat, with as much biodiversity and tribal presence around me as I can, and to co-exist healthily with those I live with. This is an affirmation of eco-egoism.

133

WWF and UN reports on biodiversity loss are deeply saddening and I do not have faith in their solutions through systematisation.

134

Noah’s choice is the choice whether or not to preserve life, his life, the lives of his family and those living close to him, amidst ecological catastrophe. Noah chose to preserve life, regardless of the absurdity, given that they would all eventually die regardless. This choice pertains to the first, most immediate and most significant philosophical question, which Camus got backwards. Each individual must answer this for themselves and there is no escape from that.

135

Shestov’s penultimate word was despair, with belief in God being his final word, before the full stop of death; but for me God pertains to merely a different despair. The last word for me, the word that motivated Noah to choose to preserve his life and the lives of those he loved and was close to, is love. Between despair and death, I live immersed in love and loving as passionately, actively and absurdly as I am able to, as lived rebellion/revolt. With this, I have come to experience a strange amor fati that includes the depths of sadness and grieving that real love pertains to, which is not wallowing in the logic of despair, alongside the intense joys and gladness that bring the word l’chaim to my lips.

136

Fondanian rebellion: to embrace courage amidst spiritual defeat and use poetry to speak the unspeakable. Courage and poetry. Be poetic and be courageous — I am doing my best to be these!

137

“All I ask is that, in the midst of a murderous world, we agree to reflect on murder and to make a choice.” Camus, Neither Victims Nor Executioners, essay eight Towards Dialogue

Camus’ dialogic philosophy is articulated in the serialised collection of essays he wrote, Neither Victims Nor Executioners, that were published in Combat in 1946 and were centred on his desire to discourage politically rationalised murder; following the violences of World War 2. He states in the second essay, Saving Our Skins, “(p)eople like myself want not a world where murder no longer exists (we are not so crazy as that!) but one in which murder is not legitimate”; and I notice that this resonates with my ecological desires. This desire to discourage murder was repeated in his 1957 essay on capital punishment, Reflections on the Guillotine, where he called capital punishment “… the most premeditated of murders …” — though my mind turns to the badger cull continuing to 2029 and other longterm industrial projects as more premeditated murders. Later in Saving Our Skins, Camus states “I am convinced that we can no longer reasonably hope to save everything, but that we can at least propose to save our skins, so that a future, if not the future, remains a possibility” and I notice this both resonating and differentiating from my desires for the preservation of presence, for the possibility of living beings surviving this mass extinction event as well as possible!

Where I most differentiate from Camus is in his faith in Reason, which is to my eyes that which Camus is revolted by — as I have turned back to often throughout these writings, Fondane’s affirmation of Reason as Hitler is in my mind. Camus sought to encourage reasoned and rational dialogue on murder and killing, stating that “(i)t is not emotion which can cut through the web of logic which has gone to irrational lengths, but only reason which can meet logic on its own ground” in the final essay of Neither Victims Nor Executioners, Towards Dialogue. My feeling is that reason is insufficient for dialogue regarding the preservation of life amidst the machinery of mass extinction/annihilation/slaughtering and trust more in dialogue that is loving, affirming of instinct, intuition and aesthetics, and open to the absurdity of our efforts, the confusion, ambiguity, uncertainty and bewildernesses this places us in. As I have already said, this is to subscend Reason and be in contact with the Earth that Reason seeks elevation from.

From this ground and echoing Camus: all I ask is that amidst mass extinction we reflect upon death and possibility, and, in good faith, as much as possible make the choice to affirm life, in full awareness of the absurdity of such a choice.

138

“How can we be, or return to, an Earth-based way of life? How can we find each other?” Aragorn!, The Fight For Turtle Island

The dialogical quality of Aragorn!’s praxis is somewhat hard to affirm, given how frequently he could be a mean and uncaring conversationalist — especially when pushing the persona he revelled in of being an “asshole” — and still he was undeniably an individual who encouraged the affirmation of differentiating praxes of resistance towards Leviathan, so that they might co-exist without totalising dialectical synthesis (or annihilating each other). This desire for dialogue is no doubt best reflected, for me, in his book The Fight For Turtle Island; his book on indigenous and anarchist revolts against Manifest Destiny, where they meet and where they differentiate. In the fight for turtle island, Aragorn! said yes to turtle island’s preservation, by which I mean he said yes to affirming the life of living presence that survives and revolts amidst the colonialist Leviathanic machinery of Manifest Destiny.

The questions Aragorn! asks, quoted above, are ones that I have sought to answer, mostly for myself, here in this book. Are the answers I have suggested definite answers or ones that someone reading this should consider the pathway to salvation? No! They are honest answers and honesty requires affirmation of uncertainty, especially with regards to the only real certainty that is death/extinction. My answers are rooted in something that can be painful, not easy and invites the possibility of experiencing grief, whilst also being joyous, wonderful and empowering — that absurd experience generally called within this language “love”.

To the question of “why love”, I have little interest, as rationalising this experience that is just so absurd and real, strikes me as an existential and psychic vacuum. What I am interested in is how I may love those around me, be loved by those around me and, as Thoreau put it, get my “living through loving”.

139

Caroline Lucas and Rupert Read of The Green Party are appealing to the ideology of Trump in seeking to encourage “climate populism”, in their article titled It’s Time For Climate Populism — and I am remembering Audre Lorde’s The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle The Master’s House. This embrace of a greened-Trumpism is argued from the idea that Trump’s victory signifies “… a rejection of business as usual …” — and I notice myself feeling skeptical. Will they likewise follow Trump down the pathway of nationalism, simply for the increasing popularity of the ideology? This all feels absurd.

Over the last few days I have been thinking about Trump and wondering if he is a Pharaoh or a Moses figure. Pharaoh certainly signifies much of the megalomania, indifference and ecological-denial that Trump embodies; and I am unsure. Moses has increasingly become a figure who I see embodying the role of a politician, setting the laws, and pushing for a form of nationalism that today is expressed in Zionism — Trump is certainly an advocate for nationalism, pushing for the promised land of “great America”. Is Moses a populist? In that he pushed ideology against the Egyptian establishment and elites, promising a new system for “the people” that strove for separatism from “the other-people”, leading to just war and other examples of brutal violences; my feeling is largely that he is a populist — and maybe Netanyahu’s populism extends from here too, like his Zionist-nationalism.

I am not a follower of Moses, nor someone with faith in populism, and have no belief in the promised lands of Lucas’ and Read’s ideology; and I am not a follower of Pharaoh nor someone with faith in Egypt/Leviathan, and find nothing to believe in within the establishment. To bow before the old regime or follow the new laws in faith that they will lead to salvation, would be utterly foolish to me. Is this an invitation to resignation, renunciation and the death of revolt? No, this is not the invitation that I am making. To affirm political-despair and admit to having been spiritually-defeated is, to me, to voice the penultimate word. The last word, before the full-stop which is death/extinction that will meet us all, is, to me, love/care/preservation. What our last word might be is for each individual to choose for themselves and this cannot be answered for another. There are those for whom despair is their final word. There are those for whom faith in Moses and promised lands is their final word. I believe that Noah’s last word was that of love, expressed in his will-to-preserve and the grief he wept after the flood, and the choice that he made to care for himself, those he loved and those close to him. In spiritual defeat, I find my courage in the absurdity that is love.

140

“We were never meant to survive.” Audre Lorde, A Litany For Survival

It is raining and there are so many birds, blue tits, sparrows, black birds, pigeons, pied wagtails and starlings, in the garden bringing warm feelings of joy to me with their presence. The surgery to remove the ocular tumour was over a year ago and the scan results are all suggestive of the best possible outcomes for me, given what has happened; and the fatigue that has been present for many months is waning. There is still anxiety regarding what is possible for myself and these birds, the struggles we may live through and those we might not survive. I recently rewatched some of Jordan Peterson’s talks and interviews, where he speaks on death, pushing the rhetoric that we should not fear death and should place faith in afterlives; and I feel revolted by his repressive rationalisations. The fear of death is a primal truth that I see enflaming the will-to-life of living presence; and in his push for the repression of the fear of death, in rejection of this life for the afterlife, Peterson looks to me to be as much a servant of death. My copy of Yalom’s book Staring At The Sun is infront of me and I’m flicking through the dog eared pages on death-awareness-as-catalyst, presence, connection and empathy, and his affirmation of all facing the terror of death, together. I then turn to my copy of Totten’s book Wild Therapy and look over pages where he has written on complexity, inter-dependency and the uncontrollable. I am grateful for both of these books and therapist-writers, and the wisdom that they have shared in these pages — my mind turns to my emerging therapy praxis, which is undeniably an aspect of my preservationist rebellion.

On the table before me there are other books: Serafinski’s anarcho-nihilist Blessed Is The Flame, Wilson/Bey’s T.A.Z.: The Temporary Automous Zone, Ontological Anarchy, Poetic Terrorism, and Camus’ Neither Victim Nor Executioner. All of these have impacted my thought and I do not find myself inclined towards walking their pathways, though I might walk across them as a hare crosses a lane as they traverse the countryside, seeking to survive amidst the machinery of Leviathan. Merryn Glover’s article on the resilience of a tree growing out of rock is on my web-browser and I feel appreciation for the heroism and poetry I find in this image of will-to-life/power. In another tab there is an article on Trump withdrawing funding into research regarding climate change and other subjects considered “woke”, and feel both revolted by his pushes for denial and somewhat unbothered by this, given that the world is the world, regardless of what academics research. In another tab there is an interview transcript, where Žižek speaks of Reality being incomplete and I notice my desire for the inversion/eversion and involution of the Reality of Leviathan, with the sensation of revolt present in my flesh. Another tab has stories from Scotland of the forest guardian folklore figure of Ghillie Dhu, who apparently protects children, and who I find an attractive figure. The poem, written by Linda Hogan, titled When The Body is one I have read repeatedly through recent days and I have started rereading Quinn’s Ishmael.

There is much that is wonderful and joyous about the present, and there is sincere sadness close to my heart and the hearts of those close to me. One of us has had their last day, following a struggle with cancer that has come to an end, and there is grief in me and those who I love and are close to, which we are healing from. My mind turns to those friends I have been in contact with who are also fighting to overcome tumours and willing their lives, as fleshes in revolt before these diseases of civilisation. There is sadness and love for them all. Between writing drafts of this book, I have found the woods that were home to the ancient badger sett I defended for many years decimated, stood before the annihilation in horror and am still grieving this loss — part of my grieving has been writing a short story about monstrous hands emerging from the ground where the sett was, which I published on my blog. In her essay Scream Pain Love, Julie Reshe affirms love as screaming together — this is perhaps the piece of writing by Reshe I have read that I find the greatest resonance and appreciation for — and I would share in love having this quality, though feel to affirm the crying-together, laughing-together, dancing-together, playing-together, embracing-together, collapsing-together, and being more than I, or Reshe, can ever say in its linguistic-irreducibility. The thought that comes into my awareness is of love being living fleshes revolting together, seeking to preserve possibility before impossibility — I laugh at my absurd attempting to speak the unspeakable. As I am writing this morning Katie is sleeping in our bed and I encounter an intense love emanating from the wild untameable darkness of my being — when she wakes up I will make her tea and ask her how she slept. The cat who lives with us, who we call Shiva, is dozing on the other side of the room, having eaten most of her breakfast — she is an ecological exile here, a diasporic-presence, who’s ancestors were taken from Africa and eventually came to live in the forests of Norway, and through a series of events and choices that I have no way of knowing, she came to be born here in Devon and was adopted by Katie and I as a kitten; and I utterly love her.

Buber’s words in I and Thou on how creation happens to us and that we take part in creation are in my mind and resonate with my feelings. I recently returned to Hillel Zeitlin’s writings on shekhinah, YHWH as place/Earth, and exile, as well as Camus’ 1946 lecture The Human Crisis, to meet my thoughts on the wars, diasporas and nationalisms of today. Neither feel like answers or solutions and I appreciate and resonate with much of both, regardless of their contradictions. Shestov’s affirmation of philosophy’s task being to upset and help the living live amidst uncertainty and Fondane’s affirmation of philosophy’s task being to maintain unrest in the living hold such resonance with me. I am not at rest/dead/extinct and philosophy plays a part in this — I remember Havi Carel’s affirmation of philosophy’s role in her surviving her medical struggles.

The philosophical question that I consider the most immediate, the most primal, which is answered by all living beings continually in my experience, is whether or not to preserve life. This is a choice that is irreducible to one answer and one that is absurd, as life invariantly results in death and it is from death that new life emerges. That this choice is absurd does not negate or transcend the choice and I have no belief in salvation from choosing.

For myself, I am choosing to preserve my possibility; I am choosing life, before the possibility of oblivion. This is the revolt of the flesh that I am and I feel resolute. There is no knowing what may happen, other than the certainty of eventual death, extinction and impossibility; and the love I find inside myself and experience towards and from those around me enflames courage. What I have come to, through these experiences and my studying, is an affirmation of poetic-heroism as loving-rebellion being the revolt of the flesh, before the absurdity of death.

Resolutions

“And for all his life it would be kindness and love that made him cry, never pain or persecution, which on the contrary only reinforced his spirit and his resolution.”

Albert Camus, The First Man

I am resolute in my will-to-life

I am resolute in my will-to-preserve

I am resolute in my will-to-love

I am resolute in my will-to-power

I am resolute in my will-to-overcome

I am resolute in my will-to-heal

I am resolute in my will-to-dance

I am resolute in my will-to-sing

I am resolute in my will-to-revolt

I am resolute in my will-to-Be

I am resolute in my will-to-becoming

I am resolute in my will-to-courage

I am resolute in my will-to-poetry

I am resolute in my will-to-rewild

I am resolute in my will-to-survive

I am resolute in my loyalty-to-Earth

I am resolute in love.

“The Earth gave a slow sigh before sliding into darkness” Camus, Nuptials

Appendixes

Deterritorialising Ability

[This was originally written to presented as a talk at the 2023 Manchester Anarchist Book Fair, where I was scheduled to speak at. Two days prior to the book fair I received the diagnosis of an ocular legion behind my left eye, and I cancelled my talk. This was then published on my blog. ]

Fredy Perlman wrote in Against His-story, Against Leviathan these words “The darkling plain is here. This is the waste land: England, America, Russia, China, Israel, France….”. I share these words here to remember that here we are, amidst the waste lands of Leviathan, colonisation, the territorialisation of these isles in The North Sea. I share these words remembering that colonialism and resistance to colonialism are present in the world today, and that that tension is frequently a sensitive, emotive and upsetting subject to talk about. Finally, I share these words as, like Perlman’s aforementioned book, I am not coming to this as an authority or expert, but anarchistically, and with a desire for anti-authoritarian solidarity and aid, though I favour the word care.

Until the past autumn and for several years, I have had the joy of being employed to support and care for young people, who this culture calls SEND (special educational needs and disabilities), within the context of a specialist school. While I have worked with age groups ranging from nursery to sixth form, I have predominantly worked with children whose ages fall within key stage one and key stage two age groups, supporting them with everything that a day at school for them might require. Prior to this I had previous experience in being employed to support adults with what is called cerebral palsy, for a shorter period, and for several years was involved in the care of my Opa, which is a term meaning grandfather, when he became reliant on a wheelchair to move, in his last years.

While I do not believe I am in a position to speak for, or on behalf of these individuals, or individuals who have a similar experience of life, or make any claim to do so; I have an experience of being-with these individuals that has brought me to a certain perspective, which I intend to share here. This intention to share here comes from a similar desire to affirm and support and care for these individuals, and to speak with great positivity about who they are, or rather who I have experienced them to be, as I am not here to define them. With this positive affirmation, I intend to, perhaps in some small way, deconstruct and destroy the negative-ontology and metaphysics-of-lack, which dominate a great deal of the discourse, conversation and general perspective regarding what is often called “disability”. That this is limited to the scope of my experience, understanding, praxis and perspective, and is not “the-truth” as an authoritative declaration or status, I feel is obvious, but I am speaking to it now for the sake of sincerity, authenticity and integrity.

Now I am going to speak about Mia; with “Mia” being an anonymising name to fill in for the individual I am speaking about’s given name. Mia is a young child, younger than 8 years old, who I knew for three years and who is one of the most powerful individuals I have ever met. Mia is non-verbal — that is part of her description within the ontology of lack — but signs using makaton and can understand a great deal of verbal communication spoken to her. Mia — again, within the ontology of lack — does not retain information in the factoidal form that is generally typified within this culture as learning, but she has a keen ability to learn how other individuals will respond to her actions, which is highly exploratory and experimental. What has continually impressed me about Mia is her wilfulness and ability to assert her desires and intentions in ways that are utterly disempowering to many of the adults seeking to encourage her to conform to school narratives and systems; this often taking the form of going to ground and not getting up until she wants to. I also noticed Mia’s ability to affect me and my colleagues with great feelings of wanting to care for her and also great feelings of frustration, when her choices are ones that can make our days harder. As I see her, Mia is not an individual who in my eyes and experience lacks ability, but who has many different abilities, most of which differ intensely from the socially-normative humanistic conception of “ability”, but are real and true. When I look at Mia, particularly in those moments when she is refusing to conform to the wishes, requests and demands of adults around her, I honestly am amazed that anyone could consider her lacking in ability — it could even be argued that she disables the adults, through her powerful wilfulness.

The question that comes to me is “how did this concept of lacking ability, rather than being powerful and able in different ways, come about?”. To try and find something of an answer for myself I turned to language and etymology, but limited this to English terms. I found that the term “disability” comes from the 1570s [1]; handicapped is a 20^th century term [2]; invalid originates in the 1700s [3]; and the word cripple comes from the mid 13^th century [4]. Obviously most of these terms are considered offensive now, but they have been used as descriptors for individuals like Mia for centuries. According to Historic England, medieval Britain favoured terms like “lepre”, “blynde”, “dumbe”, “deaff”, “natural fool”, “lame” and “lunatick” [5].

During this period of AD 1040–1485, Historic England state that individuals who we today call disabled would typically be placed within the care of the church. This raises another question for me. What need is there to remove these individuals from their families and wider communities and place them under the provision of the church? This then lead to me reflecting on what the church is as an institution. In my eyes, the church, particularly during this period of history, is in many ways part of the institutional apparatus of Romanisation and Rome, retaining ties to the old Roman Empire and the Catholic Church. So there seems to be something of these individuals being used in a way that maintain the colonial institutions that were brought to these isles during the period of the Roman Empire — I feel it is worth mentioning that the vast majority of what I have read about disability within the Roman Empire has been suggestive of pretty brutal treatment of individuals who did not conform to the normative standards of ability and thus did not participate within the every day productive narratives, as desired by the state.

I got to wondering about the role of empire and colonialism within this context. I found a paper written by Nicole Ineese-Nash and published by the University of Toronto, which argues that disability is a colonialist construct placed upon individuals indigenous to Canada that conflicts with their perspectives and practices, and maintains the harms brought by colonialism [6]. I then found an article published by Disabilities Studies Quarterly, written by Minerva Rivas Velarde on indigenous perspectives on disability, which shares that little or no conception of disability or impairment comes into the identities of indigenous Maori, with “disability” being seen as a concept that serves to Otherise [7].

This reading emboldened my feeling that there is some link between colonialism and the general perspective regarding individuals like Mia. I sought out information regarding the perspective before Romanisation occurred here. I could not find much — like much of Celtic history, this matter is somewhat shrouded in mystery and unclear. I managed to find one small tidbit of information from the Langdon Down Museum of Learning Disability website, which describes the Celts as “enlightened” and states that they were supportive of individuals we call disabled [8], though there is nothing here of whether or not the concept/category of “disabled” existed within their language. The Irish language contains the adjective “duine faoi mhichumas”, which means to lack physical power, though I could find nothing on the etymology of this. Of course, over the centuries, it is entirely likely that a term could have been created within the Irish language to match the concept from the English equivalent, maybe. While its by no means confirmation or proof, this has intensified my feeling that disability is a category that comes from empire and colonialism — I imagine that within the pre-Roman Celtic world, much like within the Maori world, there would be little or nothing of the notion of impairment or disability, with individual difference being appreciated and affirmed for the strengths it brings.

To consider what seems to me to have happened here, I turned to the thought of Deleuze and Guattari in their book Anti-Oedipus. In this book they describe a form of psychic-imperialism occurring within the psychoanalytic practice of psychotherapy, where a territorialisation of consciousness occurs when a despotic signifier decodes and then over encodes thoughts, desires, etc., as a state-form that encourages machinic-enslavement [9]. Using this language to inform an understanding of disability as part of colonialism could follow like this: a Maori individual experiences their identity being decoded by the despotic signifier of the colonialist state-like medical institutions of New Zealand from that of who they have been throughout their lives, then encoded with the colonialist concept of “disabled”, which does nothing to empower them individually or within the context of their tribe, but serves the narratives of machinic-enslavement. From this perspective, “disability” is part of the territorialisation of the body, the mind, identity and life, through despotic-signification. A Celtic individual who was blind or perhaps non-verbal, perhaps of the Dumnoni or Iceni tribes — I mention these as I live on land where the Dumnoni lived, who seemingly resisted a great deal of Romanisation and as the Iceni are documented to have rebelled and revolted against the Romans — they might well have equally been appreciated for their differences in abilities within their tribal relationships, while seen by the Roman’s as lesser and lacking. This makes sense to me, as I think about it. It makes sense to me that individual’s like Mia could only be considered as individuals who are lacking from the ontology of despotic-signification, colonialist concepts and, ultimately, statism.

If this is the case, then surely there is going to be some form of challenge from anarchists, rebels and those who are revolted by statism and colonialism? Surely there will be individuals who have sought to affirm the power and ability and presence of individuals like those I have known, within radical discourse and praxis? Sadly, there is little to nothing of this.

The vast majority of anarchist writings on ability, disability and ablism comes with a great deal of transhumanist ideology mixed in, with technology often being positioned as transcendence or salvation from disability, in ways that retain and reenforce the despotic-signification of individual difference as lack. For example, Lexi Linnell pushes anarcho-transhumanism as means of defeating ablism, positioning neurodivergence, with particular focus on autism, as something to “cure” — further despotic-signification, decoding and reencoding neurodivergent individuals, like Mia, as in some way ill or diseased [10]. Of course, Linnell is one individual and does not represent all the individuals writing within this ideology. But this does not appear to be an isolated example, a one time case of this type of thought. One of the main individuals involved in the larger transhumanist movement is Nick Bostrom. In a paper on existential risks, Bostrom advances dysgenics as a means of being able to engineer offspring with “desirable traits”[11] — dysgenics being genetic engineering, which would progressively work towards the erasure of “undesirable traits”. The similarities and links between the dysgenic technological push and eugenics has not been missed, with individuals going as far as to considering transhumanism as inherently ableist [12]. I know that I certainly find myself feeling deeply untrusting towards this ideology and revolted by what I find within it.

At this point I am left wondering what disability liberation or ability liberation means in this context? What does rebellion against despotic signification look like and what does resistance towards dysgenic genetic engineering look like? How can these questions be answered?

Rebellions against genetic engineering are not new within activist conversation and practice, with individuals like Situationist and anarchist Rene Risel employing various means of tactics, inspired by Luddites. My instinct is very much that this matter, being far more emotive to many than genetically modified crops, requires greater sensitivity than the tactic of direct physical sabotage. In the second part of their Capitalism and Schizophrenia collection, titled A Thousand Plateaus, Deleuze and Guattari make the claim that a concept is a brick that can either be used to build a courthouse of reason or be thrown through a window [14]. Following from this, perhaps a new language with new concepts can be a means of smashing the despotic-signification that individuals called disabled undergo and serve as defence from the threat of dysgenic practices? This could be seen as something of psychic-Luddism, conceptually sabotaging the ontology of lack brought by despotic-signification. I don’t know and don’t claim to have or believe I have the answers. This is just how it seems to me.

Before I bring this to a close, I want to share something that I am lucky enough to be very close to. I am not the only individual within my household who has dedicated much of their life to the care and support of individuals who we generally describe as having a learning disability. My wife is a clinical psychologist who, during the research component of her doctorate took the opportunity to get the voices of women with learning disabilities going through menopause heard, by talking to them about their experiences, rather than the “experts” about them, and sharing their words. This research was not only published in a peer-reviewed journal but published open access, so that not only so called “experts” could encounter their experiences, something that Katie fought to make sure happened [15]. Obviously I am not suggesting that the answer to these matters is for us all to do phenomenological research and to have those accounts published within peer-reviewed journals. My suggestion here is that, like Katie, we don’t turn to the so called “experts” of individuals who get categorised as disabled to learn of their experience, or in the attempt to create new concepts and categories of identity, that might be bricks to smash despotic-signifiers. Instead lets listen to these individuals and appreciate their voices, wants, wishes, their concepts regarding who they are and their freedom to choose to live as they wish. For those of us who are revolted by ableism, my belief is that the best way we can rebel against the colonialist conceptualisation of these individuals is to positively affirm who they are, who we experience them as being and who they feel they are.

I am now thrown into an awareness of the systems, structures, institutions and politics that impact a great deal of what happens during day to day life. There is something seemingly absurd about talking about challenging colonialist concepts, when colonialism first occurred here almost two thousand years ago, with much of human effort here since the Romans left being to attempt to maintain, expand and develop the systems, structures, institutions and politics that were brought here with empire; which have then been exported and imposed upon other areas and peoples, through colonialism. While I have been known to say “relax, nothing is under control” while at work, and see politics as being very much like a ship in a storm at night, ultimately at the mercy of the sea; it would be dishonest to suggest that that these don’t have huge means of influencing and impacting upon the lives of individuals seeking to survive amidst their presence.

My mind returns to Mia. Mia is tiny in body, but in presence she is powerful. Politically Mia has no meaningful influence within those larger systems and structures that seek to define her journey, but ontologically, existentially, in her environment and in my eyes, heart and mind, Mia is mighty. If I were to put money on the outcome of a battle of wills between Mia and any emperor, Alexander the Great, Mehmet the Conqueror, Caesar, Elon Musk, I don’t care; I’d bet on Mia every time.

Maybe the effort to decolonise our perspectives on ability and to challenge the technological push to try and erase individual differences, which is really diversity and uniqueness, can start with a stubborn refusal to move down the directions we’re being instructed to move down? Maybe going to ground and wilfully refusing to conform to the narratives of these institutions, systems and politics is what I have learnt from Mia and what I need to take away with me, into my praxis?

Thank you.

Notes

Revolting Folk Religions and Dialogic Praxis

“I and me are always too deeply in conversation: how could I endure it,
if there were not a friend?” Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

“All real living is meeting.” Buber, I and Thou

Much energy, effort, sacrifice, violence and abuse has gone towards, continue to go to and will likely still be made towards the efforts of dialectics and dogma, religious, political, social, etc., for as long as there are individuals willing to expel energy and efforts, sacrifice others and engage in violent and abusive acts in their name. And while there are differences between dialectics and dogma, the intensity to which those differences matter seems far less when the conclusions reached are largely the same. This being said, it seems necessary to note that authentic experiences of living beings inclines me to affirm life and sincere communication between living beings has a dialogic quality that does not conform to these totalitarian approaches to conversation; which is the intended affirmation of this piece of writing. The presence of dialogic relationships between individuals affirms the potential to engage in praxes other than those of dialectics and dogma. This affirmation of dialogue is not intended as a negation of dialectics or dogma, but as destructive-differentiating, to undermine both’s absolution. This affirmation of dialogic praxis undoubtedly falls short of a full description and, while I am intending to articulate more thought about dialogic praxis and preservationism in another writing projects, this failure seems inevitable to me, as the holism this pertains to can never be accounted for through the reductionism of writing. For this piece, my focus is on religion and activism and perhaps activist religions.

Dogma and Dialectics

Before affirming dialogic praxis, it feels poignant to provide a description of dogmatic and dialectical praxes. This description is being done from a dialogic approach, so the engagement of dialogic praxis has already begun, which seems to necessitate reflection and affirmation from the outset. Authentic and holistic dialogic relation involves an intensity of self-awareness and self presence, speaking from the phenomenology of personal, individual experience. This involves speaking from the “I”, affirming that there are bias’ and limitations to the descriptions of experiences that any individual can provide and not seeking to hide the speaker from what is being said. I am here, now, writing this, to describe my experiences, my perceptions. These descriptions require situating them in relation to other living beings and perceptions, with their own experiences of the world, which are not mine. In affirming their presences, differences are apparent and I have no desire to synthesise these, advance any absolute totality or dominate over any other voice.

Dogmatic praxes are perhaps best known within religious contexts, though I have frequently found activist ideologues to communicate and behave in ways that I would call dogmatic. Religious dogma is easily recognisable in the authoritarianism of unquestionable truths, which have and continue to inspire some of the ugliest and most violent abuses, particularly when questioned. In activist conversations, I have found dogma to emerged within the moral authoritarianism that many activists assume, often leading to authoritarian-type attempts to reduce the conversation to their concept of what individuals should do. It would be easy enough to list examples ranging from Christian and other religious dogmatisms, through to ideologies, such as socialism and techno-progressivism, that I have seen upheld with dogmatic rigidity amongst activist conversations.

Dialectical praxes are better known within political and activist ideologies, though are present within religious activities. In previous essays and my book Revolting I have sought to present fuller descriptions and challenges to dialectics than I am doing here. The main challenge that I have sought to affirm has been that dialectics largely surmount to the logic of totalitarianism, as they seek to assimilate all within the totality they can, while erasing that which does not conform. When providing feedback on Revolting, Max Cafard put it to me that the religious dialectics of Buddhism and Taoism do not fit my descriptions of dialectics. Maybe he is correct. However, I notice that descriptions of Buddhist dialectics I have found to be largely oriented towards the absolution of a singular “the wisdom” having a very totalising quality that render me skeptical of non-totalitarian claims. Equally, the Taoist concept of yin-yang being an example of the dialectical notion of “the unity of opposites” — this being the only reference to Taoist dialectics I have found — is questionable to me. This skepticism draws from multiple different points, which I will describe here. First point: there is no opposition between light and dark, as they are not actually in conflict — with the conceptualisation light and dark as being oppositional and in conflict seemingly coming from agri-religious attempts to ensure good harvest — which means that they are not opposites. Second point, which follows from the first but doesn’t continue: that they are not oppositional does not mean that they are united, as they are divided as differentiable aspects of the world, with none being entirely monologic, as there are different lights and darknesses, and so are able to be individuated. Third point, again following without continuing: as divided individualities, light and dark might bleed into each other, whilst emerging from different sources who co-exist within the world — as I cast a shadow on the ground, creating darkness, I am different from The Sun, whilst co-existing without opposition or unification. Fourth point, again following but not continuing: the division between myself and the sun, which is not oppositional, the lights and darknesses we cast within the world (none of which are unified or monologic) affirms our differences through a non-verbal dialogic upon the ground of existence, rather than any dialectic oriented towards absolution. Given these thoughts, I question the intensity to which I hold Cafard’s feedback as true.

Dialogic philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin considered both dogmatism and dialectics to be totalitarian, as they are directed towards the monologism of “unitary language”. Unitary languages centralise thought, not in ways that are merely abstract, but in ways that erase voices and reduce conversation to monologic-absolute-universal truth — this is a similar perspective to how Nietzsche critiqued Christianity and Platonism. Bakhtin affirms within his dialogic philosophy the decentralising and disunificating power of “heteroglossia”; generally meaning the presence of two or more voices/perspectives being expressed in text or other art forms, though I would certainly not limit it in this way, as my lived experience is that the phonetic and paralinguistic expression of alternative perspectives immediately shatter the absolution of monologism too. The force of heteroglossia is found within the individualised speaking, which Bakhtin affirms in individual dialect and thought; and I would add to by affirming the individuating quality of speaking from the personal and subjective experience. As I have no desire for dogmatic or dialectical religious or activist praxes, I feel affirming of heteroglossia as a means of de-totalising monologic forces. One area where I do differ greatly in perspective of Bakhtin is with regards to poetry, which Bakhtin considers to be a monologic form of art and articulation; as poetry seems to be able to contain multiple perspectives within a single piece, as well as being the poet’s individualised voice as a rebellion against the monologic forces of political and religious machines.

Dialogic Praxis

At this point I am somewhat concerned that I have thus far presented dialogic praxis as just some form of reaction to dogmatic and dialectical monologisms. There is definitely a rebellious refusal to conform that I am seeking to affirm within dialogic praxis, when that praxis is done in-relationship and in-response to monologisms. However, there are other aspects of dialogic praxis that differ from this. One of these aspects, which I do not intend to focus on here too much, is when communication happens when there is only silence that can be met, as the speaker is speaking to the dead. The aspect that I intend to focus on here is that pertaining to dialogue as meeting, as a lived encounter of being-with. I am sure that my account is limited and lacking, but there are always limits to descriptions and I am limited as a describer.

With regards to communicating with the silence of death, there is a definite quality of the ending of the conversation. In ending, the silence of death demarcates the limits of dialogue in much the same way that death is the limit of a life. When an individual dies and, with them, their unique voice and experience, what do you do? If you appreciated their presence, their voice, their perspective, then, in my experience, something of grieving this phenomenological encounter of absence is needed, if we want to not fall into despair. Grieving that seems both healthy and desirable, seems to happen when there is a meeting of those who connect through the dialogic practice of story sharing, which helps those involved reorient themselves in this world without those who died. All to often, within this culture that is oriented towards totalitarian monologisation, I see that this grieving process becomes usurped by either, the narratives of dogma, through after-life rhetoric and God’s plan, or dialectics, through the rhetoric of “they were good for the Cause/thesis”, or both. This usurpation is never entirely homoglossic, never an entirely absolute centralisation of conversation, as individuals do just share their stories, but can block the grieving process and the acceptance of silence.

Moving on to dialogic praxis as meeting, I am drawing from the thought of dialogic philosopher Martin Buber, with specific reference to his concepts I-it and I-thou, with some differences in perspective and experience — affirming these differences is not intended as suggesting anything of correcting or improving upon Buber’s concepts; only to be clear that I am using these terms with slight differences to Buber. I-it and I-thou are both relationships that occur within dialogic praxis and are valuable in different ways and situations. I-it refers to the relationship that occurs when someone is with another presence in ways that is not entirely open to their experience and is limiting in objectifying terms. When I pick up the guitar that is sat on the other side of the room I am sat in and use it to make music, I am engaging with the guitar in an I-it relationship. Similarly, were I to catch a fish for my meal and pick some wild garlic to eat with the fish, my relationship with the animal and the plant would be of I-it. I-it relationships are integral aspects of survival, though not entirely appreciative or receptive to the experience of the other — this undoubtedly can be intensified and/or lessened. In I-thou relationships there is real openness to the presences engaged in relationship, with particular appreciation for the non-separation of the different presences who are individuated bodies within the ecological holism of the relationship; like musical harmonising. Though Buber is less inclined towards individuation, “experience” and non-human presences within I-thou relationships, in my experience sincere and authentic openness to individuals and experiencing non-human living beings is I-thou meeting and the ground for intense dialogic praxis.

Creating Folk Religious Praxes Through Unhuman Dialogues

My attention turns to two thoughts. The first thought is that it seems desirable, for myself and others, for there to be spaces for religious praxes that do not conform to the monologic totalitarianisms of dogmatism and dialectics. The second thought is that my experience of I-thou relationship with wild non-human presences, which have frequently felt intensely mystical and numinous, fit this desire. This second thought is my final consideration for this piece of writing and I am very much aware that my description here will be limited and affirm this in as much as dialogic praxis is not oriented towards absolution or completion. Attempting to describe in words the non-verbal communication that occurs when in I-thou relationship with non-human presences has an obvious absurdity to it, much like the absurdity of trying to describe the beauty of a sunset, which really needs to be seen to be appreciated. David Abrams described these communications as “the spell of the sensuous” and this strikes me as the type of dialogue Muir meant when he wrote about his conversations with bears; even their descriptions cannot account for all the qualities that actually being there contain. My mind turns to primitivist critiques of symbolic cultures, as mediatory forces, and my preference for directness.

Such a dialogic religious praxis seems to me to best grow from the ground of direct meeting, which seems to be at the root of folk religious praxes. What I mean is that meeting mountains, rivers, seas, non-human animals, forests and other living presences, with an I-thou openness to non-separation, holism, mysticism and numinous experience, involves directly being-with in body and mental attention — I am certainly not suggesting here anything of mind-body dualism, but affirming that individuals can be mentally not be present through distraction. My personal preference for this praxis is to meet with living presences that are local to where I live, as these relationships feel more authentic than those with greater geographical distance. This quite literally involves physically being-with living presences and doesn’t need any ritual, rite or assimilation into churches or temples.

I will end this description through sharing a moment of personal experience, as folk story, as I personally want for with this. My Nana died and I am found myself desiring the presence of wisdom and agedness that I associate with tribal elders. I go walking in ancient woods that are about a mile away from my house, as part of my personal ecotherapeutic/shinrin yoku practice, with reorienting myself to a world without her in my mind. In a part of the woods that are a little off from the centre I notice an oak tree that is covered in moss, with an open area in front of it. I lay on the ground before this tree, upon the leaf litter, breathing into me this presence and exhaling myself in response. We are together here, non-separate within the holism of this space, different individuals creating numinous and mystical space through the relationship. I lie upon the ground until I hear the chitter chatter of humans walking with their children. When I sit up I hold on to as much of this I-thou encounter as I can, keeping this dialogue alive for as long as possible, before the conversation becomes interrupted to the point that the exchange has been lost in this moment. I get up and return to walking. I come back on a different day and sit at the base of the oak tree, starting new communications between us. This tree is not God or a god to me. They are a presence and our unclosed meeting renders me with an experience that is more valuable to me than any icon, idol, symbol, text or ritual, of acceptance, appreciation, affirmation, trust, belief, desire and a closeness that enters my being without violence and feels utterly loving.

Cancer, Technology and and Ineffable Visceral Space

(Originally published by Gods and Radicals in 2017.)

I.

I regularly commit what might be considered a severe social faux pas, though it is not really a blunder and I do not feel shame about it. This faux pas is that I mention, often too lightly, in conversation a subject matter often deemed too taboo for everyday conversation.

The subject matter is that which goths, nihilists and existentialists love to talk about – I talk about death.

From my mother’s death and my father’s near death from drug addiction in my early childhood, as well the loss of other family members and loved ones; death and life have been constant themes within my thoughts. But undoubtedly the biggest influence on my relationship and perspective towards life and death has been the experiences I went through as a young cancer patient.

As I go to write about the process of being-a-cancer-patient, I’m immediately struck by how the words I turn to feel entirely inadequate. If I were to try to really communicate to you (as in you individually reading this, if we were relating one to one) something of what it feels like to be the other side of cancer treatment, I’d probably lower my stance, draw in air and release a guttural and primal scream; then grab hold of you in the tightest, fullest hug I could muster; and then play you something on the guitar. So little of that felt phenomenon can be expressed this way – as-in via text. But I’ll go on.

II.

They found my tumour initially because they were trying to find out why I was developing double vision. I first noticed the double vision in its early stages when I watched seagulls fly by the river in the town I live near to. Given the state of British ecology, these birds are forced to live within the built-space this culture has constructed on top of the land. They are an extremely regular sight, and often labelled vermin by those who do not have eyes to see their beauty.

My eyes were seeing in double. It was weird. It was confusing. Corrective glasses made normal day-to-day activity easier, but why was this happening?

I had my first MRI scan, to see what was going on it my head. What an experience that was! They had to restart the scan because I’d moved too much looking around the scanner as it did its thing.

If you’ve never been in an MRI machine, let me paint you a picture in words of my times in MRI machines. First thing you do is you lie on this platform, positioning yourself so your head rests in the slot designed for it. Then they place this grey-thing under your knees, so your legs are slightly raised throughout. You then feel the platform rise towards the ceiling, stopping when you are level with the opening of the machine. Your head then gets put in this open-box thing, with wadding to make you more comfortable, and you are handed something to squeeze should you need the process to stop or attention for any other reason. Then you feel yourself moving backwards into the machine, into silence. This is a hideously uncomfortable silence, where you are fully aware of how uncomfortable your body feels within this colossal piece of technological construction. And it feels as if it would go on forever, but then it starts.

The first time I heard that noise I felt my heart pounding immediately. Everything about this was wrong! If you can imagine all the worst elements of drum and bass, mixed with the worst elements of industrial metal that would be the best comparison I could give. That sound pulsates through your entire body, and it feels like it is the noise shaking the machine with your body inside it. My muscles tightened. My mouth went dry. The first time I couldn’t stop looking around to see if something was going wrong – as I said, they had to restart it and begin again because my moving had meant the scans were unusable.

Not in my first time, but in the vast majority of scans after that, they’d stop halfway through, to inject this dye through a cannula I’d already had put in place, so they could track everything better; then to return to the shaking booming machine. Sometimes you’re given headphones and they put music on, but I’ve never heard it over the mechanical thumps in the belly of those things. An energetic, visceral surge desiring escape flowed through me, which remained the case throughout every other time I found myself inside one of those machines – though I eventually learnt to get myself very Zen in them and to ignore what was going on around me.

The day after this first scan, my 19^th birthday, I went in to get the results and a doctor informed me that the scan had found a pineal legion, a brain tumour, which at this stage couldn’t be confirmed as cancerous, benign, or what. What followed for the next year and a half was months of regular MRI scans, the occasional lumbar puncture and waiting for the tumour to grow large enough to get a biopsy of; because it was too small and they didn’t want to risk damage when all it was doing at that stage was moving my eye.

III.

I had been practicing Buddhism since I was 17 and I turned to this heavily during this time, as well as throwing myself into creative projects. The waiting period was strange. I’d been a study-geek since I was a kid and I continued to find myself drawn to studying all I could find on philosophy, radical politics and “spiritual” stuff. Life continued as normal in many ways. It was just always there, as this ever-present thing.

A friend performed reiki on me, which was weird. Christians and Muslims who knew of me having a brain tumour prayed for me. The tumour was growing still, but at an incredibly slow rate – which meant it was still too small for the neurosurgeons to do a biopsy of it. Was this “spiritual” stuff contributing to this? I didn’t know, but fuck it, I wasn’t gonna knock it!

As I mentioned, I was embracing a Buddhist practice at that time in my life – though possibly a more westernised form than many of you reading this will view as true-Buddhism. I would meditate semi-regularly and occasionally chant. My recovering addict father had pushed the idea on me throughout my childhood than everyone “needs” some form of “spirituality,” and for a time I had largely internalised this notion. This conflicted though with the writers and philosophers I was finding myself drawn to; individuals like Wilde, Nietzsche, Camus and Armand; as what I was getting from their writings were words that fuelled my fire to rebel against this push from my father.

So in place of his Christianised Buddhism, I adopted a much more (indifferent-)agnostic Buddhist practice. Before my embracing a Buddhist practice I had explored Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Taoism and Neo-Paganism (with a consistent solid interest in Hinduism, but didn’t consider practicing until after treatment- and only for a short period), but none of these really stuck as long as Buddhism did and that was what I was embracing during my time as a cancer patient.

My father and I have always had a strained relationship, with him consistently pushing the idea that I should forgive him for his part of our relationship, because if I don’t I will suffer, as I go to hell/have a hellish life for not forgiving him – gosh darn it, don’t you just love Christian morality! With this, he asserted on multiple occasions when my treatment actually started that he believed that, because the tumour was a pineal legion, and some “spiritual” people have called the pineal gland the gateway to the third eye, that I had the tumour because I wasn’t a more spiritually-forgiving person (though I strongly suspect he was simply pushing for me to be less pissed off at him, so if I did die he would feel like at the very least we had made peace and he could feel like a decent dad).

Let me take a second to say though that, in many ways my father was a great dad during treatment, pushing to get me the best care and driving long distances to appointments and lots more. But if I’m going to write about how cancer affected my perception of the world, life and death, I have got to write about how he pushed that the tumour was basically my fault and I had to get more “spiritual”, as he saw it, in order to not die (but this piece is not about him or my relationship with him). Moving on.

IV.

Before treatment actually started I’d had this headache for 3 days. It wasn’t too bad and I wasn’t worrying, but worried family pushed for me get an emergency appointment to see my GP, so I did. At that stage they weren’t worried about the headache. But a few days later I’m in A & E with a migraine, being given the steroid dexamethasone to reduce the pressure the tumour was putting on my brain – now the little fucker was getting interesting and starting to kill me.

Suddenly shit got different! Suddenly I was back and forth between appointments. Everyone wanted to keep Julian alive.

Julian however was mostly focused on sleeping and eating. Dexamethasone had two side effects, both of which I found near unbearable; I couldn’t sleep and I was always starving hungry. Stress and having lots to think about still has an impact on my sleep patterns, but with the meds at this time I was getting three hours maximum most nights – there was lots of watching TV throughout the night, trying to fall asleep to it. And the hunger, words are entirely inadequate for describing the depth of the hunger I was feeling. This wasn’t “I’ve missed a meal and now am more hungry than I would normally be at this time” hungry! This was “I am screaming at you to put food in me or else you will fucking die arsehole” hunger; it was a hunger that felt like there was an emptiness within my being that was going to collapse in on itself if I didn’t eat something. So you better fucking well believe I ate! Salad sandwiches multiple times a day, fajitas, crisps, pasta and SO MUCH CHOCOLATE ICE CREAM YOU WOULD NOT BELIEVE ME IF I TOLD YOU! (I owe a great deal of my mental well being throughout the months of dexamethasone and afterwards to Ben and Jerry’s Half-Baked ice cream).

While so much around me was about keeping me from dying, I was consumed by the suffering this medication I had been put on to keep me alive was bringing me. It was only in the months after treatment that I started to value that experience of suffering – but I’m jumping ahead of myself.

My first night sleeping in a hospital for observations was a new experience for me, one that I did not want, but went along with because the doctor I was under the care of at that point had insisted on it, despite my obviously finding the idea extremely upsetting. I’d seen my mother die in a hospital bed when I was 7; and I’d stood there screaming at her body for her to wake up and to be my mum again. Years later I learnt she died because the hospital made an administrative error and she could have survived what happened to her. To my mind, hospitals meant death. Those cold, sterilised walls and floors felt like lifeless expanses that something entirely visceral inside of me was rejecting, in a very primal way. But as I said, I did it. I slept there, or at least tried to, and made it through until the morning.

The next day I asked the doctor if I could start coming off the tablets, because the headaches had gone and I wanted the suffering to end. Without properly understanding what they were doing and in an utterly careless fashion, he stated yes and gave me an incredibly short weaning off period to come off them – which I accepted because, here was the professional saying what I wanted to hear. Days later I was rushed to hospital (a different one to the one I’d slept at) with an excruciatingly painful migraine and in a zombie like state of lifelessness and put straight back on the dose I’d been on, along with another steroid to help my endocrine system recover from the “crash” in hormones I had just undergone. I’d very, very nearly died and felt like death – the doctor fucked up and I never saw him again.

V.

It was a strange feeling, nearly dying, and coupled with the lack of energy, because my body was void of nearly all the testosterone, adrenaline and cortisol I usually had flowing through me, I felt like a nothingness, empty and soulless, with all my personality sucked out of me. It wasn’t that I felt depressed, or sad, or anything like that. No! That would have been something – even when I felt sad and depressed I felt alive. This feeling was death.

Being back on the steroids perked me up, a bit. I was still exhausted and not-all-there, but I was more me, which was something at least. That same visceral feeling I would have with the MRI machines I had with the meds. They were entirely undesirable, but they were working and doing what I needed them to do. Taking them was a choice made for my personal welfare and I am selfish about my personal needs.

Shortly after this though came the second close brush with death. I was taking the medication, but had a mind-blowingly bad migraine. This one was more intense than the others had been. This was pain I couldn’t have imagined feeling. I didn’t want to move, so tried to sleep it off. This didn’t work and pretty soon the paramedics were at the house and I was being carted off to the hospital.

The painkillers I had at the hospital went down an absolute treat! I was the happiest I’d been in a long time! Everyone around me was panicked and trying to work out what to do with me. Calls were being made between hospitals, my father and girl friend were terrified and loved ones were being called with updates on how I was doing. And while all that movement was going on around me, I was high and happy.

Hours later and a journey from North Devon to Bristol in an ambulance, I found myself on the neurology ward of Frenchay hospital, having my surgery plans explained to me by a lovely old hipster brain surgeon (with a brief chat about mutual music loves). I asked what general anaesthetic would be like and was told “like a good gin and tonic.” I was on the bed, about to go into the theatre room, and told they were about to put me to sleep. There was a moment when I was aware of them administering the painkiller and then I was awaking in the recovery ward.

When I woke up there were two definite differences to my body from when I’d gone to sleep. The first I was prepared for and had expected. The surgery I had was called an endoscopic third ventriculostomy and involved them placing what is called a ventricular reservoir in my head – basically a tube in my brain and a silicone bump on my head to protect me from potential future hydrocephalus. This is something that I have in my head still 6 years on and will most likely have until the day I die. I have often joked about being a bionic human, with my body forever changed by technology. I’m not going to lie; it is very weird to think about – but I’ll write more on this later. All that mattered at that point was – I am alive and this is gonna help keep me alive! The second difference, though less permanent, was far more traumatising at the time.

VI.

Soon after waking I came to discover a tube attached to my bed that had not been there before. After a brief investigation of the bed and my body, I came to realise the tube was inserted somewhere I had never EVER expected to find a tube! (If you haven’t guessed already, they’d inserted a urinary catheter). THE HORROR! I don’t mind telling you that my penis is something I value and treasure, for a multitude of reasons, and have degree of aesthetic preferences around its appearance and treatment, which includes not having a tube up it. There was an element to which it was apparent, the doctors had seen my naked body, in a way I had not considered before, which, given the amount of body-shame I felt at the time was a bit embarrassing. But more so, again in a very visceral, animal and primal embodied sense, I DON’T WANT A TUBE UP MY DICK!

Hours after waking up, when I felt like I had enough energy to walk a little bit and had shown I could move my legs, I asked the nurse to remove the catheter, so I could walk up and down the ward. She held my member and then moments later I felt a sensation in my dick that makes me squirm and recoil in disgust still, as I write this. After a minute to recover from what just happened, I started to get myself off the bed. A nurse from Somalia, whose kindness throughout my stay on that ward I will value for the rest of my life, held my arm as I walked the corridor from one end to the other. No one thought I’d be walking that quickly, but I was defiant and knew I was going to do it – I knew that this body that I am wasn’t going to just lay in bed with a tube where no tube should be; I was going to walk, and fuck anyone who said otherwise.

After the surgery I spent several days and nights on ward and then came home for a few weeks rest, before I went up to hospital for the second and hopefully final lot of brain surgery. This was a weird time. I felt in many ways ruined, especially the day the last of the general anaesthetic wore off and I couldn’t stop crying. I had my head shaved, because where they’d shaved a rectangular block out of my long fringe looked ridiculous, and that was a particularly sad moment, as I’ve always love my hair. I was low energy, because of my hormones and what it was taking out of my body to recover from the surgeries, and still starving hungry all of the time. I had started seeing regularly a craniosacral therapist and the holistic treatment was definitely helping me sleep, which was a plus, as well as supporting my recovery in other ways. Chocolate ice cream was continuing to be a great pick me up. But what helped me the most through those weeks was something entirely beyond words.

Between her university classes and exams, my girl friend Katie, then of 5 years (now wife), was doing all she could to be there for me and be loving and supportive. The experience of love I got from her was more than just words and deeds. There was an energy I could feel in her touch, as she held me with my head on her lap, not judging as I wept uncontrollably. Whether we were watching TV or talking to family, her arms around me communicated an intention that rendered all words as lesser. One night she washed me as I sat in the bath and the love and care I felt her hands communicate made all language slip away into an abyss that left me in bliss. Amidst all the horror that was going on around me, all the suffering and shit I was going through, here was something completely wonderful, that brought the beauty of life and experience back to me in a direct and immediate way. As much as her actions were beyond words, my descriptions are entirely inadequate. You will never be able to know the energy that was felt between us in those moments (and honestly that is something I am glad of).

The second lot of brain surgery was quicker than the first and in many ways a lot easier. I spent most of my stay on ward consuming that beautiful hyper-real spectacle that we postmodern 21^st century westerners remain addicted to: TV. No catheter! And was again able to walk afterwards faster than expected. The thing that was the best part of my second brain surgery was that the biopsy had found out the type of tumour that was in my brain.

If you know anything about pineal germinomas (also know as germ cell tumours), you will know that, as far as brain tumours go, being told you have one is extremely good news! These tumours are very easy to treat; they don’t often come back; and really this was confirmation that I was going to kick cancer’s fucking arse and live beyond this hellish ordeal I was going through! This was the best news yet and everyone around me was glad to learn this.

I had a month between my last brain surgery and starting radiation therapy. That month involved mostly listening to music, watching TV, playing guitar, eating (LOTS), siting in the garden and the occasional outing to shops or town, if I felt well enough to do it. I was exhausted though. It took me 3 attempts to stand up from the toilet one morning. The thing I kept saying to people was that I just wanted to go and walk outside. That primal urge to move my body across the land was something I felt deep within me, but at that time I simply couldn’t. That was something deeply upsetting and frustrating. My body, the being that I am, felt like something other than myself, but equally I was consumed by this-is-me-now – and I had to deal with that.

I knew I was alive and that was valuable. I felt like death, but knew that this process was transient and I would soon be a different space and in a different space.

Radiation therapy was weird. The first thing I remember them doing was making me this mask to hold my head in place on the table – a mask I kept after treatment ended and have a solid love/hate relationship with. For a month I would go to the hospital 5 days a week every morning; lie down on this table, in front of this colossal machine that looked straight out of science fiction; have my head locked in place by the mask; have radiation beams fired at my head, which you cannot see, hear, or smell, but after the first week or so start to feel the effects of; and then go home, and spend all day resting, playing guitar, video games or watching TV. The day my hair fell out sucked! I was in the bath and it all just started to come out in clumps – it felt much more like losing a part of myself compared with when it had been shaved off 2 months earlier (that was (kind of) my choice at least). But the real impact of radiation therapy didn’t start until after cancer treatment had ended, in the months immediately after – a period of time I have barely spoken about with anyone.

VII.

As I go to write about this now, I’m aware of my body tensing and I’m thinking more about my breath and what my eyes are doing in their sockets. This is very much a space where I have always found the idea of trying to put words to it something I couldn’t do. This was a space of finding myself in the dark-mysticism of what philosophers like Bataille, Foucault and Lacan have called limit-experience. This space is probably the closest I’ve been to the impossible and probably the closest I’ll get to the impossible.

If this comes across as non-sense to you, what I’m about to write, that is ok with me – if you haven’t experienced this you most likely simply won’t get it. This period, the months immediately after treatment, around my 21^st birthday and immediately after; this was a point of falling into a schism, whose abyss seemed like it was going to consume me. I kept this very, very private at the time, as I didn’t want to upset those who had supported me throughout the proceeding months and who had done all they could to keep me alive. It felt like utter madness, where I was split between contradictions and caught between monoliths. This wasn’t feeling depressed or sad but something like being both caged and liberated, will also climbing and falling.

I’d thought about suicide a fair bit during my mid-teens, but mostly in a distant sense. The time I considered it most was in the months immediately following treatment. Why? Well to answer that I have to start a little before this period.

As I was going to and from between radiation therapy appointments, watching people in their cars from my seat as we drove past them, I would often think about them going to work to get money to buy food and pay for everything they needed to stay alive. I would also think about them feeling exhausted from work when home, watching TV and sitting on their smart phones playing games and tweeting crap they didn’t really care about. I would think about this over and over and over again. I would think about society being made up of people distracting themselves from death and doing all they could to avoid it all day every day. The more I did the more it all appeared to be one noisy MRI machine; one giant radiation therapy machine; one catheter up everyone’s dick.

Everyone was a cancer patient and everyone was--like all those people who go to cancer hospitals, have the best care in the entire fucking world and don’t make it--going to die. This was an all-consuming thought. And really, what was the point of it all? Why had I bothered to go through all that, if it was just going to be a less intense version of that for the rest of my time alive? Why not just kill myself? I would never be anything of who I was before – I’d always have the tube in my brain and knew I’d never see the world the same again. The Buddhism I had embraced for years was feeling more and more like a lived suicide; a denial of my life through trying to lose my attachment to this body that I am and that I had just gone through so much to keep alive. I contemplated suicide, a lot. I thought of what it would be to just not exist.

All “spirituality” grew less and less beautiful, and seemed more like a technology of flesh renunciation, as I found myself increasingly within-my-body. For a short period I explored Hinduism, but the more I did I found myself trying to find meaning in this space that just didn’t resonate with me (though perhaps was the religion that best mirrored my experience). I’ve always hated arsehole “humanist” atheists, who are often more dogmatic than most religious people, and didn’t want to reject what might be beautiful in religious stuff. But I knew that that stuff was no longer for me. It all felt like part of the same life-of-death this culture was looking increasingly like to me, and I wanted to embrace as little death as possible. (Perhaps if my father had been different I’d have a different relationship with this stuff – but that would be a different me and a different world, so I can never know.)

Something un-worded, visceral, embodied and entirely animal kept me from doing anything like attempting suicide. During this time I was still playing a lot of guitar and writing songs, and I had lots of love and support from people around me, in particular from Katie. This gave life more beauty during this horrific time. I then started re-reading existentialist philosophers, in particular Camus and Nietzsche, and took creativity in the face of all the meaninglessness around me to be my pathway. And I began to find value in what had happened, knowing that I was in many ways stronger for what had happened, though forever changed.

I started at the same time my undergraduate degree in social psychology and philosophy, and putting myself out into the world as a singer-songwriter. As I explored these spaces I found myself within, delving both into my studies and my creativity as a musician, I found myself drawn towards the weird, the fleshy and the wild, in ways that I couldn’t put to words, but that fitted this sensation I had been undergoing.

After the first year post-treatment I was doing well. I’d started exercising more and the body I am was feeling more and more like me. My degree was going very well and music was bringing me lots of joy. I was beginning to find a vocabulary to articulate something of what I was aware of but could not say, not out of taboo, but because it felt beyond the words.

I read Heidegger’s The Question Concerning Technology and was exploring existentialist ideas on authenticity and inauthenticity, which was the closest thing yet to the feelings I had undergone and the awareness I had of myself within the world. I explored this alongside poststructuralist ideas on hyper-realism and the self as an object constructed through the technology of language. I began to explore philosophy of technology and found resonance with philosophers like Zerzan and found rekindled a visceral childlike love of what is Wild and living. And as my body grew stronger, I would walk more and more through the woods that surround me in the British countryside, listening to the birds as often as I could hear them. Aesthetically, I’ve always been drawn to music that conjured images of Wild “natural” spaces, with poetry of living-beings, and works of art that are of non-domesticated scenes and full of madness. I’d found a space that I shared energy with, and, though it was in so many ways horrifying, as I studied with increasing intensity the ecological situation and what that entails, I found myself increasingly energised and more passionate about living as furiously as possible.

One night, as I was starting on the first draft on Feral Consciousness: Deconstruction of the Modern Myth and Return to the Woods--a work that was largely me trying to put words to this sensation I had undergone--the words I had received through the studies I was engaged with at that time – I spent several hours reading articles and watching talks on “diseases of civilisation”, which includes, as you might have guessed, cancer. Weirdly enough though, this didn’t make me feel angrier about civilisation or about what I had gone through as a cancer patient, in any way that might immediately seem logical. That unworded, visceral, animal and entirely defiant energy within me was burning in a way that felt beautiful to me.

What became apparent to me was that civilisation is a cancer and that cancer’s manifest form, as a phenomenon, is technology: the technology that is keeping people alive is also killing them. Two things can happen with cancer – either it kills you, or you kill it. If I kill it, like I had done before, then I survive and keep living. If it kills me, then my body will become something else, something the cancer has no way of affecting. This was a strange but wonderful realisation to have. It was neither hopeful, or hopeless. Whatever happens, regardless of whether you have cancer or not, you and I are definitely going to die, which is ok, because we grow into new beings, still very much part of life.

It all felt absurd, but beautifully absurd. Horrific and ugly, but also something I wanted to grab at and bite into. That ineffable visceral energy, whose Wild burnings I’d felt throughout all that time going through treatment, like some skilled fish who lingers just below the surface ready to strike at insects or birds who come to close, that nameless energy, born out of the paradoxical dark-mysticism of the impossible limit-experience I had found myself within, I was starting to be able to articulate it, through the book project, through other writing projects and, though it was finding itself less in song and more in instrumentals, through music.

I was aware that I couldn’t find another living being doing what this culture does. The badgers, birds, trees and foxes weren’t living that cancer, those their lives were obviously impacted by it. And it seems to me, the more I study civilisation, that this is not a “human” phenomenon, but one specifically of this culture.

VIII.

I am still trying to find words to describe this impossible, embodied process to people who might find resonance with this experience of Being-in-the-world. I study loads and write loads, because, to a large degree, the project of my life is trying to scream at the world “YOU ARE FUCKING ALIVE” and as much of what that means, in as beautiful deconstructive, destructive and creative ways as I am able. I don’t know how successfully I am doing this, or will ever do it, but it is where my passions are drawn to.

But here is the thing – we don’t really have a cure for cancer (and I write that as a cancer survivor, who knows we can kill it). And all our bodies, like the earth we are manifest Extensions of, are infected with civilisation. Technologies might dull the pains and reduce the affect it has, for as long as we have the means to provide those technologies – like the painkillers and steroids I loved and hated in so many ways. Greater more powerful technologies might kill this cancer; but like how radiation therapy could have given me another tumour and still might well make me infertile as an on-going affect on my body, they could well lead to other, potentially worse, horrors. I don’t know to what degree the prayers and the crystals, the juices and holistic therapies, the reiki or the meditation, did anything, but I’m not arrogant enough to claim that I know they did nothing and am glad for any part in my healing they could have provided. Getting through cancer is messy – it is shit, piss, blood, tears and involves being looked at in an entirely naked sense. To survive cancer you have got to put the image you want to have of yourself aside and simply be who the fuck you are in that moment.

We all have civilisation within our being. Many(/most) of us will die from it. It is not a nice comfortable thing to acknowledge, but it is the truth I feel within my body and am as sure of that as I am sure of my own existence within Life, as this mammal who dances mad dances in the woods of Briton. If any of us are going to survive it, it will be those of us who remove our catheters as soon as possible and summon up all the strength they have within them to walk. It is difficult, it is heart breaking, but it is also wonderful, in a weird paradoxical way.

I am not writing this expecting many of you reading this to like it. I am sure lots of you will disregard me as some hypocritical “primitivist” bashing the technology his life has depended upon, through the medium of the internet that wouldn’t exist if he had his way. To those of you who feel that way, I’m not bothered by you not getting it, because I doubt I would if I had not felt the sensations I had done and if your body has nothing similar to draw from you just won’t get it. And if civilisation is what kills you too, I hope your passing is as painless as possible.

Politics has come to seem more and more to be a machine of death, that cultishly worships itself; with its varying factions being different deities within this pantheon. Though less the case than in mainstream-politics, this largely seems the case with radical-politics too, with its endless arbitrary factionalism, call-outs policing of each other and politics-as-fashion. Because I feel a visceral, animal pull of will towards life/power, rather than embracing death, for the most part, while sometimes anti-political, I have tried to keep the bulk of my projects away from politics. This is also the case for the 2 political ideologies I have been occasionally lumped in with (despite having voiced critiqued of both) – anarcho-primitivism and eco-extremism.

With this, I have tried to focus my writings, not on quietist renunciation, but on what it means to Live, while we are surrounded by this Leviathan of death, this cancer, this vile and disgusting machinery. I’d also like to put it here that I haven’t embraced anti-civilisation philosophy because I read anti-civ writers like Zerzan, Kaczynski, Quinn or Jenson – though many of their ideas and arguments resonate with my experience – but because what I as-my-body has gone through, both as feeling-what-it-is-to-be-dead and as being-an-Extension-of-the-world-that-is-dying. This is something beyond words and argument; it is the space that you find yourself in after the full stop at the end of the last sentence.

Here I am, committing that faux pas again – the great cosmological-taboo. I love the work by Camus The Myth of Sisyphus, though my writing project has been and ones currently in process, have all been reversal of his assertion – whether or not we commit suicide is a rather boring and unimportant question; whether or not we commit Life is the philosophical question that my being feels drawn to. Sure, Life might be weird and absurd and impossible and confusing, but there is an awe inspiring mystical beauty to all of that, which I find to be a desirable place to dance in. Anti-civilisation politics and philosophy is never going to be popular within “society” and is always going to offend those who don’t like and don’t find resonance with it.

I’m not trying to write something people are going to like – I’m trying to communicate something honest. We are drowning in information, thanks to the internet and TV. There is very little honesty, very little authenticity. If this is a faux pas, so be it.

The Autobiography of John Lynch

[A short story I wrote that was published online by Night Forest Press on 2/1/2024)

At this point I don’t know why I sat here preparing to write down my life story. I am terrified by what I have seen and hope that these words harm no one. I’ve flaked off so much and am so much a downer that Poppy and Jules are the only people that I’m really close to, like family. Dad will probably want to learn what has happened to his only child and he will find this horrifying and unreal to read. I’m still going to write this, even though I don’t know why. Maybe the story of my life may be useful to someone who like me is a flake or sees the same way out of shit that I have and is unable to tune it out.

I was born in 1951. My mother was 12 when she arrived in London, I think, and have a memory of Dad saying it was 1937. Her family came over from Hungary, like many Jews, trying to get away from what was going on in Europe. Dad told me once that she always remembered that when she arrived, there was thick mist. Remembering this leaves me feeling uneasy, given events over the course of my life. My old man’s folks were of Irish stock, coming from Cork originally, but had come to England during the last century, as many Irish people did during the famine. This always mattered to Dad and always came up when he would complain about England, the monarchy and the empire. They met and married in 1943, which I always remember because Dad would talk about it in the same sentence as the Labour Party’s victory in 1945. Dad supported the Labour Party, though the Bolsheviks were more his bag — probably still does. While Dad’s family lived in Kilburn, they moved to Greenwich, though I don’t know why. There are plenty of Jews in Greenwich, but I can’t remember speaking to them ever, unless Dad was talking to them about politics. During the first few years of their marriage they tried to get pregnant, but after years of no success assumed Mum was barren. They must have freaked out when she got pregnant with me. I was born March 20^th 1951, with both of them terrified that I’d be stillborn and not prepared to try and get pregnant again. I think Dad told me that it was a misty day, which is way out considering my situation now. I don’t remember much of my early childhood, but no one really does. Mum died when I was 5. Her lungs were weakened by the 1952 smog in London, so she was often ill. Living close to the coal station in Greenwich, we were among the worst affected by the smog.

She seemed to do alright for a while though. She got cancer and there was nothing they could do. It’s unreal, but the only thing I can remember of her funeral was seeing a white hare on the other side of the graveyard. After that, most of what I remember from my childhood is Dad’s politics. He was always tuned into to USSR’s news and supported the IRA. Marx’s revolution, turning England socialist and Irish independence were his bag. I found it a bummer and as I got older it bugged me more and more. I haven’t seen him since 1966, when I took the train from London to Totnes, though we did write to each other when I was there.

I went to Totnes to become part of The Divine Light Society and live at the meditation centre. I just wanted to get away from London and politics and be somewhere that was less of a drag. I knew of meditation classes happening in London, but a friend was really turned on by this centre after he stayed, and I thought “I’ve got nothing better to do”. When I arrived I could barely see where I was going, as it was so misty and night. As way out as this will sound, I saw another white hare, like the one at Mum’s funeral, and felt fear, which I tuned out by trying to find the centre. The centre is easy enough to find in the light. There’s a stone that they think came from Troy in Totnes and the route is easy to walk, if you can use that as your starting point. Between the dark and the mist, finding the stone was going to be impossible. I asked this guy how to get there. He asked me if I was a grockle and after I said that I didn’t know he walked me there. He had lived around there his whole life and found it funny that people from London travelled to Totnes to study the religions of people who lived in Asia. I didn’t say much back. He didn’t seem nasty or intolerant or anything, but didn’t get why people were tuning in to that stuff.

I lived and worked at the centre until 1970. My work involved cleaning the centre, which I mostly did alone, and preparing food, which everyone did in silent meditation. We studied the teachings of Sivananda Saraswati and Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, mixing transcendental meditation with vedanta. I kept to myself, focusing on my work and meditating. I enjoyed preparing food, as a lot of it was grown in the garden of the centre, and no meat was consumed there. Hearing animals being hunted nearby on the moors was always a downer and I would get ticked off when I saw hare carcasses being carried by men with guns, but I would tune out and meditate. I wrote to Dad, telling him about what I was learning and practicing and he wrote back telling me about the work he’d been doing for his politics and his thoughts on what needed to happen in this country to get it more like the USSR. We wrote less and less in each letter, and were not as fast at responding as the years went by.

Sometimes, on days when I could hear lots of gun shots and it would become a drag, I cut out from work. This would bug the others, who would get uptight around me. They would lay it on me that this was a chance to strengthen my meditation practice and for a while I tried this. I got shot down when I would say that I couldn’t tune it out, which ticked me off worse. I’d gone there to live a peaceful life, but could often hear gunshots out in the countryside. When I’d take a walk on Dartmoor, the barren desolation was often peaceful, but at the same time unnerving and I’d often turn off. It was like the peace of a dead person. It was like the peace that I imagine happens after a battle or some other extreme violence, and you’re just standing there in the quiet. I enjoyed the forests, when I would go there. One guy who stayed at the centre for a while told me that Dartmoor had once been all forest and I wondered if it could be haunted by the ghosts of the trees and animals.

When I was at the centre the mist that came off the moors and the sight of hares, alive in the fields nearby or dead in the hands of huntsmen, only got me more uptight over the years. I would wake up in the night, dripping with sweat, from dreams filled with gun shots, the sounds of wild animals dying and not being able to find and help them. It was like the ghosts of Dartmoor and the surrounding countryside were haunting me in my sleep. My unconscious mind was full of the ghosts of the animals and trees that had been, and I just couldn’t tune it out. When I started hearing voices as I was doing my work I knew I needed to drop out. I could never make out what they were saying, as it was always whispers, but it was terrifying and I was done. I cut out for good in 1970 with a group of hippies who had stayed for a week, on their way to The Isle of White Festival.

When we got to The Isle of White the first thing that I noticed was the mist coming off the sea. This didn’t bother me, like the mist that would come off of Dartmoor. This was just the sea and felt easy. I wanted to flake, but helped the group that had brought me set up our camp. That first night I was gone, blitzed. LSD and beer had me totally on fire, and like I was flying and swimming all at once. I ended up joining with the group who I’ve been with since, who may be the only people to read this, unless I gave one of them Dad’s address and they sent him this. We bonded over being all drop outs, but they had a bus and had come over on the ferry. When the festival was over, I decided to travel with these guys. Inspired by a group in the USA who were called The Merry Pranksters, the bus collective was named The Naughty Kids. For the past 3 years the collective has mostly been trying to spread a pacifist message around the country, hooking up with pirate radio stations to talk about the troubles (one of the other members had been part of the riots in Belfast in 1969 and my Irish family gave weight to our words), and we sold weed to keep money coming in.

The past three years have been a blast and the best of my life, but have also been the hardest. They’ve been the hardest because of how close to Poppy and Jules I have gotten. It’s been gnarly and unreal getting tuned in to them both and them tuning in to me. Right now, the consequences of this are terrifying. Jules Dubois is French, Parisian, and has been the closest thing I’ve ever had to a brother. He crossed the channel after participating in the riots in Paris in 1968 and was known to the police to have been responsible for the destruction of a great deal of property.

Jules could read and speak English as well as any of the rest of us and had brought with him books and pamphlets, in both English and French, by Henri Zisly, Albert Libertad, Edward Carpenter, Han Ryder, Henry David Thoreau, Jack London and Renzo Novatore. We would often read these together and discuss the thought shared by these writers, as well as our own, but the others would bug out earlier than Jules and me. Jules would call himself a Luddite, which I always found strange, given that he is French. When I told him that I was raised by a Marxist but didn’t really like politics, he laughed and told me that I am just as big a threat to Marxist civilization as I am to Capitalist, just as big a threat to USSR and China as to Western Europe and the USA. He was obviously taking the piss, but I appreciated it. We are different from most of the others in the group, who think that the revolution is coming and that civilizations will come together in harmony. The only other person in the collective who was tuning out of flower power was Poppy, but she’s never really been that political. Our conversations were heavy, but I didn’t tune out. Over the past three years we have destroyed civilization and built utopias, in words and in our minds and it’s all felt so solid, so real. That our words and ideas have not been made real is a bummer, but, until now, I have talked to Jules every night, basically. I could probably have spent the rest of my life travelling and talking to Jules, if what happened last night hadn’t. I don’t know where to start with writing about Poppy. This frightens me and I can see my handwriting is getting worse as I’m shaking more.

Poppy is beautiful and I have thought this ever since I first saw her at The Isle of White. She’s always got this way of seeming to be here and of being really far out and away. Poppy, Poppy Spargo, is from Cornwall and is as strange as any story of the county, which I’ve heard her tell many of, as well as heard her sing songs in the Cornish language. We’ve travelled here, upon Poppy’s request, as she’d heard from folks over here about wildlife being gassed, and she wanted to return. Most of the others didn’t get it and asked why we should stop what we were doing, spreading anti-war propaganda and talking to people about what is going on in Ireland, to go see if badgers were being killed. Me and Jules, who are more of the same mind as Poppy, helped convince the others, and so we’ve come to Cornwall. This is our fifth night here and the longer we stay the more terrified I am.

I have loved Poppy for a while and on our second night, we made love in woods close to the village we’ve parked up in, which was the second time we have done this (our first time was at The Isle of White). As we lay there surrounded by trees and under the light of stars, mist crept over us like a blanket of uncertainty, and I was so scared, terrified, while yet also full of joy and awe at the sight of her on top of me and the feeling of our bodies writhing together in this exquisite, primal, animal pleasure. The wildness of the woods and the mist began to appear to emanate from her body, as if she was and had always been some wild pagan spirit, with the intention of drawing me into the wild. I was terrified and in awe. This is something I could never tune out with meditation.

During the days I’ve been with people who are part of The Hunt Saboteurs Association, who the collective are joining during the day, to try and protect the badgers. The days have been gnarly and fun, and we’ve managed to sabotage several attempts to gas the animals. The third night I barely slept. I had gone to try and find Poppy, who had cut out after we’d eaten, and when I found her saw that she was talking to three hares, one white, one brown and one that was so black that I could have not seen it, if it had not been in front of Poppy. I watched with a strange feeling of unease and longing to join, as I watched her turn and follow the hares, into the darkness. When I got in my tent and lay down, I had maddening nightmares until morning.

The fourth night, last night, was so unreal and I’m just freaked out. The group had decided during the day to not look for Poppy, assuming that she’d just gone to see someone she knew, and to get back on with what we have been doing. In the evening I said that I was going to look for her. Jules could tell that something was up and went to cut out with me, but I asked to go at it alone. I walked to the woods where Poppy and I had been together and when there saw three hares. I was sure that they were the three from the previous night and followed them, as they seemed to want to guide me somewhere. A cold feeling of fear struck me as I saw them moving into mist rising off of the river, but I kept on. Then, beside the river, there was Poppy naked and covered with blood. Beautiful and terrifying, she took my hand and placed it on her bosom, kissing me softly and with a tenderness that was utterly loving. As she pulled off my clothes, I looked into the river and saw the bodies of men, with the immediate realization that these must have been men involved in the slaughtering of badgers and other wild animals. We took to the ground again, this time with her back against the earth. She bit me and clenched her nails into my skin, with wild and animal passion. Around us we seemed to be being visited by creatures of the night and ghosts who were coming in celebration of what we were doing. With each thrust I felt something within me changing and as we orgasmed and moaned without a care for who might hear us, it was as if there was no civilization, no war, no culling, no politicians, nothing of any of it. There was just this wild and untamed joyous and horrifying love that we had found. We lay there a while, neither of us saying a word. I then remembered the bodies, with a feeling of terror. I started to get dressed, but as I did noticed that Poppy was nowhere to be seen. I did see 4 hares moving away from me and had the strange and uneasy feeling that one of them was Poppy.

Today has been a waking nightmare, unreal and heavy. I’ve not told anyone what I’d seen in the river and have heard nothing of any bodies being found. After this autobiography is found tomorrow maybe whoever reads it will find them and do more than I have done today. I swear that I didn’t kill them. I don’t even know that Poppy did it. I don’t know if those men deserved to die for what they did or if they didn’t. Maybe it wasn’t about punishment, but Poppy, or whoever else did it, trying to defend those who these men might have killed, or were going to kill. I don’t know. I just don’t know and this shit is impossible to tune out. I’m sorry whoever finds this and reads it, and I know that this is way out there, but it is all true. The mist is thick tonight, heavy and what I’m going to do is turn off almost anyone who reads this. But its the only option that feels solid anymore and I know its what I’m going to choose. When I’m done writing this I’m going to go step out from the village in the direction that those hares were travelling in yesterday. I write this with an uneasy sureness that I shall never return to civilization and civilized life, unless I am shot and taken back as game, by a hunter. I know this is mad and unreal, but it is true. I do not believe the pigs will find me or Poppy, if they come looking for us after this autobiography is found. They probably won’t believe most of what is written here. Dad wouldn’t either.

To Jules, if you read this, remember those words by Henri Zisly: “We must abandon civilization, that idiotic regime of Science and Chemistry, Artificiality, Luxury, modern gods and goddesses, and live a simple life, the lives of our ancestors that we should never have had to give up, and fight this over-heated, steam-laden life that the Civilized lead much to their detriment!” Good luck and stay safe. I hope that nothing I have written here gets used against you or any of our friends by the state.

I am now finished and going to drop out again. The fear is intense. I don’t know what is going to happen to me.

[1] https://www.etymonline.com/word/disability?fbclid=IwAR1YhjCvdJXDHUAPXWWLvPNYexO8SB7B8MZzjXdYngyq7EbmINuYIxcMVco

[2] https://www.etymonline.com/word/handicap?fbclid=IwAR3hozRIjigvDEtug3A_h-SBr6d5cte1_rp5F_fo43GfOvYaarh-qozu12Q#etymonline_v_41573

[3] https://www.etymonline.com/word/invalid?fbclid=IwAR2r1v3cNuGrKBkPkBnXOaiWyJfuTZAaqnrTYnvtvyU8eJLJoVCEcPyaXuY#etymonline_v_42598

[4] https://www.etymonline.com/word/cripple?fbclid=IwAR1D8EPmyqNPS6GH_OXFXrA7Wszp6wZ6bQhtkEkoRiWkLMR9Vmleg0pkgI8#etymonline_v_360

[5] https://historicengland.org.uk/research/inclusive-heritage/disability-history/1050-1485/

[6] https://cjds.uwaterloo.ca/index.php/cjds/article/download/645/899?fbclid=IwAR2r1v3cNuGrKBkPkBnXOaiWyJfuTZAaqnrTYnvtvyU8eJLJoVCEcPyaXuY

[7] https://dsq-sds.org/index.php/dsq/article/view/6114/5134?fbclid=IwAR2oR4-ES9NC8Bl_SvF4XDpFBkjG133YnUTD7norDn-BkKB6cTjNFKUntAw#:~:text=Being an indigenous person was,role in defining their identities

[8] https://langdondownmuseum.org.uk/the-history-of-learning-disability/social-history-of-learning-disability/#:~:text=The Celts were more enlightened,rd and 4^th centuries.

[9] Anti-Oedipus, Deleuze and Guattari

[10] https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/lexi-linnell-this-machine-kills-ableism

[11] https://nickbostrom.com/existential/risks?fbclid=IwAR3Frrj9Nnc8tc4A0mgJIF5xmY6gfqaybqu1xfxCWAPdQtbHhlI4JVmTeSI

[12] https://biopoliticalphilosophy.com/2023/01/19/transhumanism-is-eugenics-for-educated-white-liberals/?fbclid=IwAR0drmIF9dEd2hzNbvwWN035I27xBU-pEoR9e4dcUFoEA-nchoWKhtZDrho

[14] A Thousand Plateaus, Deleuze and Guattari

[15] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/bld.12527?fbclid=IwAR0VmyMu7KJjiGYi8MjfsHVA9IAcseE0u_nD5v_h-AoSzcXr6ctCSsogGQU