HOW TO NOT BE BITTER AND ANGRY DESPITE TODAY’S WORLD STATE

Life is fucking short, too short to be bitter about the state of the world if you ask me. I stay informed to an extent to have an accurate grip on reality, but as far as the nonsense that most of the world spends hours arguing about, I ignore it. Yet one of the biggest traps I see anarchists, agorists, and libertarians alike falling into is bitterness…bitterness towards the state, family, parents, doctors, and anyone else who might want to oppress them.

Surely, a lot of what the government is doing in the world currently sucks. There’s no good way to put it. This goes for all governments. They all have standards that make them fucking suck in some regard. Even the ones that are less intense like Mexico, just now recently declared that it’s racist to do random immigration checks. Progress is slow within governments and societies as a whole and we don’t really have much control over what happens other than the goings on within our own lives.

Something I have learned since the murder I witnessed 3 years ago is that a lot of people are currently or have gone through some equally dark shit. I’ve had a lot of people open up to me about their stories since and learned more about my own mother’s past that helped me see this. There are literal millions of reasons to be bitter in this world. I was bitter for a long time myself, until becoming shocked by a few different near death experiences.

There’s got to be another way.

Agorists as a whole do this the least and it’s what drew me to agorism, but I think after some personal experiences I’ve had, it’s helped me really develop this mindset in regards to what I’m willing to spend my energy on. But still especially as the world becomes more intense, I think we all struggle to stay motivated and excited for what is to come for the world at large.

Sure, I could be angry at the cops who arrested me ~7 years ago, or at people from my past for the things they did that really did hurt me. I have a literal mountain of reasons to be angry. But every second I spend being bitter and angry with things that have happened or are happening, is time I can’t spend doing things that I actually like…the things that make me feel alive.

The last year for me has been a process of taking care of my body, my little cactus garden, and hanging with my cats while heavily training in the circus arts. I do not spend my time on situations that bring needless emotional trauma, so to speak. These are things that are needlessly dramatic and constantly intense. Life is full of twist and turns but no relationship or situation should be mostly bad. And most of the time when it is mostly bad for people, it’s mostly about mindset and usually a little about life circumstance to back it up.

I am lucky that the place I ended up is Mexico. I can afford to have my ideal lifestyle off the money I make which currently isn’t a lot by US standards. But it’s enough for me to take as many circus classes as my body can handle, not to mention the fact that I’m lucky there is such a driven and passionate circus scene here that inspires me daily. I eat good food and even have a little money left over for art and fun and I make a point to really enjoy my life.

Because what is freedom if you can’t enjoy it?

I notice a lot of people getting caught in black and white thinking when it comes to things and that, in my experience, can lead to depression and anxiety and all the other things that lead to living a life in fear, bitter at life’s circumstances. No situation in life is truly good or bad. There’s in fact a good and bad side to every situation that exists, and that’s ok.

A lot of the situations we tend to worry about the most (myself included) are the ones in which we cannot change. The frustrating part about life is there are a lot more of those situations than there are ones we can control, especially with entities like government and police in existence. So what do we do?

Storm the capital and protest loudly? Clearly not.

I’ve mentioned circus arts a few times and it’s for good reason. The strength and flexibility I’ve added to my body over this last year has taught me a lot, especially when it comes to how I feel about anarchy and how to live our best lives in spite of the government.

First off, it’s worth mentioning that the circus arts in general are really the most agorist out there. Traveling bands of body artists span back for longer than we probably have record of, stopping from city to city doing what they love for some money.

I had no idea until I tried aerial silks for the first time just how much all of that would teach me about life. For one, strength and flexibility in the body definitely translates to the mind. Old rigid beliefs are suddenly not so rigid because the reality is that no thing is good or bad. Even the fails in silks are learning experiences that have allowed me to trust the process and advance to the point that I have.

My failures and eventual successes in silks have allowed me to help others who are learning around me to do better themselves and this has translated into my real life. I shared a meme inviting people to not be bitter and had two people message me today asking, “How do I not be bitter?” That is what inspired this post.

But for me the most important thing about my circus classes is that they bring me happiness. Nothing is quite as freeing as spinning around on a trapeze reliant on your grip to hold a really difficult position. Pulling off spins for the first time on the aerial hoop or suspending yourself midair just to fall dramatically, but controlled to a snug hip hold with fabric and nothing more. On top of that, there’s nothing more freeing than being able to do something you’ve always wanted to try but never thought you could.

And then to do it well? That’s where the good stuff in life is. Do what makes you happy with reckless abandon and watch what happens when you add passion to the learning process. The reality is there are a lot of people out there wishing for happiness and freedom, yet still actively involving themselves in the drama of the world instead of focusing on the things that make them happy. The life that really matters today is the one in front of you. What are you going to do with it?

What’s that thing you’ve always wanted to try, but never thought you could? Life is too short to wait for the government to do what we want, or for mainstream media, or the general public for that matter.

Freedom exists for those willing to take it in the moment.