Do It Your Way

I have always loved to travel. My parents often told me about my great enjoyment of a trip to the upper Midwest taken when I was just three years old -- I don't know whether I've reconstructed things from their recollections, or if they're genuine, but I've a few wisps of remembrance of immense bridges and lots of water from the trip through Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan. By the time I was old enough to consider it, I was yearning to get out of small-town Ohio and see some of the world. It took decades to accomplish that, but I have, yet wanderlust still pounds in my blood.

As I got older, I became fascinated with not just the places, but the people, too. That's a big part of why I became a psychologist, but even so, the academic interest has never exceeded the intensely personal interest I have in humans. By "intensely personal" I don't mean busybody nosiness -- I simply mean an interest in the unending variety and creativity of human creatures. As a teenager, I read Richard Bach's Illusions, and much of it resonated with me. One of the more powerful elements was Don Shimoda's attempt to teach "the reluctant Messiah" of the profound differences between individuals -- I'd thought a lot about that years before reading the book, and grokked its importance then. This was the first time, as best I recall, that I confronted the reality that other individuals didn't recognize that truth. I think that I had also begun to realize that freedom and tolerance are the essentials for creating a happy, healthy person and life, although it was (again) to be many years before I realized the full implications of my youthful philosophical ponderings. Having recently returned from a walkabout to the Arizona desert, doing a lot of thinking and observing (both within myself and of the areas I traveled to and through), I've been powerfully reminded of the glorious diversity of humankind.

From the cold, frozen Midwest, my companion and I traveled south and west. Breakfast was typically coffee and eggs of some sort, but as the temperature warmed as we neared our destination, so did the spiciness of the ingredients accompanying the eggs. Tabasco sauce was ever-present on the table, or brought with meals without needing to ask -- a welcome sign that I was among people who like their food the way I do. Shapes became less pasty and pudgy -- darker skin and darker, straighter hair became common. Physiques seemed to separate into "lean" and "fat" -- few people appeared to exist in that corporate-cubicle in-between of couch-potatodom. The pace of life slowed. As the landscape became drier, the effort required to live in its embrace became a visible constraint -- but not an insurmountable one. When we reached the small town that was our base of operations for the walkabout, I was met with another surprise. Or, more accurately, I saw it shimmering in the distance as we drove through the desert -- a glimmering white sea that was not sand, not salt, but aluminum. Snowbirds fly to the area in their RVs, creating a senior-citizen city the likes of which I'd never imagined. The sound of a toddler's laugh from a nearby table at Sunday breakfast was as foreign there as a moose call would be in downtown Los Angeles.

All that differentness, in a relatively small trip across one small area of this planet ...

The reality of Richard Bach's message walloped me again. Each of us is different, unique. The commonality we all share may be no more than being Homo sapiens.

So how can anyone dare to presume to tell someone how to live her or his life? How could the nannies possibly conceive that their narrow little boxes can adequately hold all of humanity's (and inhumanity's) possibilities? How can I tell my children in good conscience that I know what's best for them, that I know how they "ought to" live, when the times, society, and knowledge they're growing up in are so different from when I grew up?

The nanny-ninnies can't conceive of my horror at their prescriptions and proscriptions -- but that doesn't stop their efforts to push their ideas on others. I'm not convinced that their pleas of doing good are sincere, anyway; it's a good cover and nothing more, as any perceptive individual can twig, even under cover of the state-approved media outlets. Their ultimate answer, when they're pushed to it, is that they're protecting us from anarchy -- a claim that stops many intelligent individuals, wrongly, in their tracks.

I've never shied away from the A-word. I transformed from confused statist to full-blown ancap in a span of days, and was much happier for it. While I've often pondered how to best offer my thoughts on the beneficence of anarchy to the freedom movement, it has never been an important enough issue to take up my digital pen and create the essay. Now, it would seem, I don't need to. I came across a clear, beautiful essay that says it much better than I likely ever could. Butler Shaffer is the author, and it's worth interrupting this ramble to read it now (or refresh yourself with it, if you've already seen the essay at LewRockwell.com. Go ahead. I'll wait.

For those who didn't bother to follow the link, here's a paragraph that sums it up nicely, and is worth plastering on every freedom-lover's site on the web:

"'Anarchy' is an expression of social behavior that reflects the individualized nature of life. Only as living beings are free to pursue their particular interests in the unique circumstances in which they find themselves, can conditions for the well-being of all be attained. Anarchy presumes decentralized and cooperative systems that serve the mutual interests of the individuals comprising them, without the systems ever becoming their own reasons for being. It is this thinking, and the practices that result therefrom, that is alone responsible for whatever peace and order exists in society."