You may already be an anarchist.

"It's true. If your idea of healthy human relations is a dinner with friends, where everyone enjoys everyone else's company, responsibilities are divided up voluntarily and informally, and no one gives orders or sells anything, then you are an anarchist, plain and simple. The only question that remains is how you can arrange for more of your interactions to resemble this model.

Whenever you act without waiting for instructions or official permission, you are an anarchist. Anytime you bypass a ridiculous regulation when no one's looking, you are an anarchist. If you don't trust the government, the school system, Hollywood, or the management to know better than you when it comes to things that affect your life, that's anarchism, too. And you are especially an anarchist when you come up with your own ideas and initiatives and solutions.

As you can see, it's anarchism that keeps things working and life interesting. If we waited for authorities and specialists and technicians to take care of everything, we would not only be in a world of trouble, but dreadfully bored -- and boring -- to boot. Today we live in that world of (dreadfully boring!) trouble precisely to the extent that we abdicate responsibility and control.

Anarchism is naturally present in every healthy human being. It isn't necessarily about throwing bombs or wearing black masks, though you may have seen that on television (Do you believe everything you see on television? That's not anarchist!). The root of anarchism is the simple impulse to do it yourself: everything else follows from this."

~Noam Deguerre, CrimethInc. Black Writers' Bloc

www.crimethinc.com

SO, WHAT DO YOU THINK? ARE YOU AN ANARCHIST?

Gifts...

Aren't gifts awesome?

I mean, there's the gift of life, the gift of having the necessities taken care of, the gift of little things people do for each other daily that are often taken for granted....

And then there's the gift that appears - unexpected. It's not your birthday, not Christmas, Easter, or any of the many Hallmark holidays. But suddenly a gift appears.

You open it up and it's a __________. It doesn't even matter what IT is. Well, it sort of matters. I mean, it wouldn't be quite so touching to get a book about how to heal your inner bitch or some god-aweful lacy outfit that even your great grandmother wouldn't be caught dead in.

The best part about this gift is that someone was thinking about you. There was a moment in their day when something made them think of you.

Today, I received a gift from Michelle Bornt. She found a cigarette vending machine that has been re-imagined into a miniature art dispenser. It totally made my day! And it inspired me. I dig it when people create. I love INGENUITY and THE UNEXPECTED and AUDACITY.

And I love my friends. Thank you, Michelle.