All that silence did get me thinking, though.

Talk can often feel like action.

Throwing words around, creating shared meaning, discussing terms and plans and possibilities and problems... But talk, primarily, is not action. It lays the groundwork for action. It can, bureaucratically in a sense, create the space for action...But all those things we talk about doing do eventually need to get done. And so much of what we talk about doing is just more talking. Especially in the kind of economy within which myself and my peers function. Words on paper, words through telephones, across the internet, words translated into other words, words to sell things, words to emotionally "fix" things, words to schedule things and manage people... Words alone become our bread and butter. They pay for our food and shelter and clothing and habits and everything else that means anything to anyone. So no wonder words get given so much value despite the fact that they're essentially vibrations in the air, electronic pixels of light, or chewed up trees covered in chemical swirls of pigment.

So if words are not action, what is? When I try to understand action very simply, I think of growing food; planting seeds in little furrows in the dirt, watering them, treasuring them, protecting them into fruition. I think of building houses or shelters; collecting wood or making cuts with a circular saw, measuring things, the sound of a hammer or a power drill. I think of cooking food to eat, teaching children how to cook or build, how to take care of themselves and others... These things do require speech if you're doing them with others... Which is how these things are done, generally. Some even benefit from writing.

When I think about "doing" something, however, especially when I push myself to ask what I WANT to do, deep down, I think about words. I mean, I would love to learn some of the skills affiliated with the doing of things. But to be honest, that's out of my survival instinct, and out of a need to legitimate the amount of time I actually want to spend with WORDS.

Why?

The very root of me knows how hollow they are, how powerless and small and pervious, so why am I so drawn to them? Why, when I feel anything at all, am I driven to write about it, to record it, to understand it through language - a language whose heritage and functions and meanings I also have huge ethical problems with - so much so that I get lost in my own damn words?

As this writing soothes me, so too can I become aware of other things that words have DONE and can DO.

The tricky thing is that line between making something happen, and doing something. If I give a speech that leads to 12 people storming a government building, stealing the acts of parliament and setting them alight, have I done something? If by their symbolic action of torching what are basically more words, 300 people decide to start a squatting cooperative in an abandoned building (or an occupied building, for that matter), 500 decide it's time to leave the country and 2000 people decide to buy the paper the next day, 2000 more than would've before... whose words have done what? The acts of parliament have power, my speech had power, those who acted to destroy previously existing words had power, and now the newspaper has power. No, words can definitely act. Words can definitely do things... But it still comes down to action. Word are a part of that.

I guess.

Ugh. But do you see what I mean?

Anyway, that's what I was thinking about... Wish I knew what you were.

by any means

the problem with the lifestyle I’ve found myself in is that it is the cause of my revolutionary politics. As such, I can’t dismiss my educational history or my position of privilege as unnecessary or unethical parts of my being, because they have led me to where I am. What I can say is that the way I have come to my politics has been a series of happy accidents and a great deal of arduous unlearning, a process I am still and will always be undergoing. What I’d like to offer as well here is the idea that where we come from – our positionality – can be a tool. When we rebel, we must remember that we are rebelling as much against ourselves as the system that created us. Knowing that we came from the very place we now find repulsive can be inspiring of a reflexive state pf being necessary to continue the internal revolution. Julia kristeva discusses the need to be in a constant state of revolt – discomfort, interrogation, anger. we need that within ourselves, towards ourselves, just as much as we need to maintain that towards the state, the institutions, the structures of control. with this in mind, however, it is also important that we accept parts of our past as a part of the path we’re on. we have a responsibility to that past, as much as we may feel we have overcome it, challenged it, changed it. we may be completely different people, believe different things, live different ways, but we once lived that way, believed those things. as we progress, we must remember that past self in a sense to remind us that we are never not learning, to remind us that others too can learn and change, but also to take responsibility for that person, and how they might have used and abused their power or their position. through this self-analysis, we can come to see the structures that have given us privilege and power over others. as people who have benefited from these structures, it is OUR responsibility to destroy them. they must be destroyed completely. to ensure that we have the strength to do what is necessary, again, we must maintain and cultivate our disgust at these systems of inequality and violence, and at our past selves. we must simultaneously maintain the memory of ourselves, while destroying all that made that person possible. in the process of this destruction, think about the things that led you to where you are, the things that tore your blinders off, that enlightened you, the things that made you uncomfortable enough that you had to change. think about these things as ingredients in the creation of a better path. nurse them even in the present. as you destroy the oppressive forces in yourself and in your world, think about what it would take for a new set of eyes to grow into anarchy, to avoid taking the privilege of existing systems, to understand the importance of avoiding systems altogether. what did it take for you to see? how would a child grow up without these systems that you grew up with. without imagining the eyes of a child, we’ll resort to the habits of our own parents. this cannot happen. the family is the first institution that must be destroyed, but we cannot destroy the concept of new life. we must find a way to educate without institutionalizing…