A Feral Life
One Last Nihilist Exposition

Some believe in a grand collectivity – a togetherness above and beyond any single individual. This interpretation of reality views a single life as a complex web of different lives all interconnected and interactive with one another, where ideas are recycled through the filtration of each individual interpretation. And so each individual responds to those ideas in unique ways that ultimately influence and shape the reality of others - some more directly than others depending on proximity and personal relationship. How people, on an individual level, are impacted by a single individual’s actions or lifestyle depends on the values of each person.

With such a diversity of unique individuals, each accompanied by an infinite range of emotions, I can’t help but feel the civilizing attempt to universally categorize behaviors or actions as positive or negative - good or bad - fails upon inception. Drawn from what is commonly known as morality, this binary attempt is self-evidently a mere human construct, based on how it relies on a human-centric interpretation of reality. Through the lens of morality, all things in reality are perceived with the same binary dualism that’s used to uphold every form of hierarchal oppression: white supremacy for a white and non-white dualism, male supremacy for a male and female dualism, human supremacy for a human and animal dualism, and so on. What I have come to understand personally for myself is that morality functions as a humanist narrative that artificially divides animals into socalled human and non-human categories. This division is manufactured for the sole purpose of social control aimed at ordering life in a way that suppresses any animal instincts and spontaneity expressed by anyone socially identified as human. This also places human as categorically godlike in comparison to all other beings, utilizing ideas of discipline and purity in order to discourage unbridled exploration beyond the ideological frameworks neccessary for upholding industrial civilization. I believe it is here that the roots of a mechanistic way of thinking become interwoven with one’s perception of the world around them, creating an artificial separation between the individual and their surroundings. Morality prohibits spontaneous play and interaction with one’s surrounding, like a glass wall with a filter that distorts one’s perception of the world on the other side. This filtered view is the binary dualism that creates social differences that only exist within the frame work of supremacist ideologies. Blackness exists because of the imposition of white supremacy. Woman exists because of the imposition of patriarchy and male supremacy. Animal exists as a derogatory for uncivilized human. Anarchy exists in the face of a coerced, symmetric order.

A quick side note - I wonder if leftists who glorify technology are aware of the ever-expanding alienation it creates – from the division of labor necessary in operating machines built to ravage the earth for materials, to the alienation technological devices create through the slow degradation of faceto-face interactions. It’s strange that those who believe strongly in unity would adhere so strongly to that which is designed to separate.

An individual can either learn to adapt to and live in this ever-increasingly alienated reality, fine-tuned by industrial society, or - if they are so brave - pursue experiences that smash the glass wall that all at once separates and filters reality

In practice, morality influences the way people behave and act. The logical conclusion of this influence is a population of people imagining themselves and each other only within the confines of a limited worldview - one which can only be understood through more binary interpretation. But despite the glass wall that attempts to filter and guide our perception of reality, the anarchy of imagination and independent thought causes chaos. As long as the concept of morality has existed, the idea of good and bad have continued to escape conceptual uniformity. Words and definitions lose their rigidity to the thought-crime of curiosity, causing perceptions of reality to change. Whether an action or behavior is considered morally right or wrong depends on what definition is assigned to right or wrong, and who assigned it in the first place.

I find it worthy to question who it was that so long ago was considered the most qualified to create those definitions, and by what criteria was that person chosen as the authority to create those definitions in the first place? Historically, at least according to popular opinion, these definitions were instructed by a god, and therefore by proxy his followers. But what about people who don't believe in a god? Where does their definition of right or wrong come from? The thought-crime of curiosity didn’t just encourage changes to the perception of right or wrong. While shifting its meaning depending on the individual perceiving an action or behavior, and depending on the creator of the action and behavior, curiosity also brought into question the very existence of god. This is not only an example of how concepts change, like the way a river bends around a curve, but also an example of how individual uniqueness resists conformity to ideological standards normally set in place to encourage social rigidity. Just as every individual is uniquely different beyond measure, the definition of positive or negative -good or bad - is subject to infinite variation. Only through coercive enforcement can moralist values be maintained, and even then, anarchy still takes place.

To make this shit simple, what may be considered positive for one individual might be understood as negative by another. And despite the enforcement of morality by the church and State, there are individuals who either live by a different interpretation of morality – or live with no morality at all.

The numerous social and economic benefits of social conformity in general, and with the personal embracing of morality in particular, demonstrate a pattern found within this binary social order; a society requires a level of behavioral coercion in order to function - including those who are punished for disobedience and those who are rewarded for their conformity. Those who are disobedient and punished are used to scare others into conformity, and those who are rewarded are used to motivate conformity. The bottom line is social control. With that understanding I am led to understand that the primary function of morality is conformity through mental governance. From this perspective, I understand morality to be a value system socially constructed with the intention of universally ingraining preset codes of conduct in order to systematically govern the behavior and actions of a dense population of people. And I don’t find it to be mere coincidence that the same binary interpretation of reality that’s inherent to morality is similar to that found in all forms of oppression – including the oppressive power of industrial society itself, which to this day continues to expand its control and domination over all that's wildly insubordinate. Over a vast population of people, control begins on an individual level - the target of every form of oppression.

Where industrial society fails in its efforts to control and dominate those actively refusing assimilation – the insubordinate wild – moralism is exposed as having failed at controlling and dominating all. Ultimately, every individual with enough courage and motivation by circumstances in constant flux decides for themselves what they consider good or bad. But since any given society requires social unity and communalism, a universalizing definition of good and bad is necessary in order to maintain social cohesion. Therefore all individuals within the confines of that society must equally conform their unique ideas of good and bad to an agreed commonality. And followed by this agreement and surrendering to collective consciousness comes a reified experience of the world.

I believe without morality, a person is exposed to a life without the sanitization of a pre-configured, civilizing framework of value and meaning. In my opinion this allows for greater potential in developing individualized values based on personal desires and practicality rather than social conformity. This could include a renewed understanding of ones elf through adventurous self-creativity and individual power.

After discarding my christianity in my mid-teens, and even further down the line discarding my internal sense of moral duty and loyalty to leftist organizing, a life of my own didn’t come to me in a neat package of positivity. Instead I found myself facing a vast nothingness that stretched on for eternity. Intimidated at first, I stepped out into it squinting my eyes, desperate to find some hidden meaning to it all... But there wasn't any. It wasn’t until I pushed myself, continuing to move and breathe, and having stopped reaching for something to hold onto, that I begin to smile and laugh maniacally at the overwhelming sense of freedom that existed before me. And followed by a diminishing fear came a loss of gravity where I found myself suspended by the realization of infinite potential and possibility. Any notions of good or bad - positive or negative - simply became irrelevant. All I could feel was moment-to-moment experience between every breath, affirmed with every heartbeat.

It was around that point that I begin to find difficulty believing in the idea of a peaceful, harmonic social interconnectedness. Because while it is easy to see how we are all, in fact, interconnected and interwoven, not everyone is in harmonic relationship with another. So not everyone will understand this perceived interconnectedness to be a peaceful or desirable one. Even the words comfortable and desirable are subjective to individual definition and interpretation. And while our individual experiences influence one another on a shared planet, we do not always come to the same conclusions. And sometimes these differences in conclusions lead to radically different outcomes. For example we share the earth with cows, chickens, pigs, deer, and fish – yet their lives are significantly reduced in quality due to the collective decisions that a majority of humans have decided to act upon. Therefore, as long as there exists a moral entitlement to the bodies of nonhuman animals granted by the concept of human supremacy, non-human animals will never be allowed the full potential of a wild experience free from commodity status.

If one were to apply this same crititical view of morality and its binary thinking to even the concepts used in the idea of togetherness, I believe it is easy to see that even the idea of unity is subjective to individual interpretation and therefore could never accurately be used in a universalizing context. Depending on the individual, unity could mean a grouping of people based on categorization (for example, identity politics), or a group of individuals who desire to be together based on personal choice and/or compatibility. While one can acknowledge individuals as all being part of a whole in a planetary sense, this does not necessarily mean unity in terms of personal desire. Geography (or specifically, location) do not imply personal affinity.

Despite attempts to unify a so-called superior species through the social construction of the human identity category, there are individuals within this category who work tirelessly to socially and institutionally preserve hierarchical divisions i.e, white supremacists, homophobes, patriarchs, and so on. Despite the appearance of a co-existing togetherness with the earth, many people continue to dominate and destroy eco-systems, mutilate nonhuman animals with slaughterhouses, and consume them after having arbitrarily designated them as so-called food items.

The idea of togetherness is only an idea if what materializes is a world built by a divide and conquer mentality. For example, the Human and Animal distinction reinforces a separation so deep within that - rather than accepting ourselves as animals - many are offended when humans and animals are compared in any way. Despite the common ground we might (literally) share, personal differences are vast.

Despite what people think should exist in the world, it is detrimental to our full understanding of the world around us to deny the reality that these divisions ultimately do exist. The biggest differences, and perhaps maybe even the most emotionally influential, are those involving the desire for personal freedom.

Just as everyone is unique, so is each individual’s concept of freedom. Just as our interconnectedness can be easily observed and experienced, so can our differences in how we relate to industrial society. While there are those who feel liberated more by technology and industrial progress, there are those who feel imprisoned by it. A vivisectionist whose appreciation for life and freedom also drives the justification for restraint and torturous experimentation on non-human animals. While on the other hand a vegan whose appreciation for life and freedom may also drive the justification for liberating non-human animals from vivisection labs. Or for each individual who desires law and order, there is an individual who desires ungovernable liberation.

All living beings become endlessly polarized when it comes to a matter of freedom - especially in a world so heavily dominated by the domesticating notions of right or wrong, and mechanized by the rigidity and limitations of a scientific worldview. All behavioral variation and insubordination is condemned to social and institutional cages for coerced conformity, making violent attack a final act of self-preservation.

So in acknowledging a grand interconnectedness, observed in how social relationships are influenced by one another, what is the reason for its glorification in social circles? Of course, different people have different reasons, but one theory I have for its popularity and massifying appeal centers on how populations of people who are traumatized by an everalienating industrial society find comfort in ideas that suggest they are not alone. This would explain why political movements or organizations are such a popular response to societal problems. Industrial society in general, and capitalism in particular create and uphold a dualism of desirable solitude and fearful isolation.

Capitalism encourages a value system of private property ownership protected by the violence of the State. As an ideology reproduced on an individual level by those who materialize it in their daily lives, it expands as the number of those materializing it increase in population. So understandably, over a wide enough land-base, an ideology is applied, and all those living within its parameters are subject to its control and power. With such little individual power against the collectivist power of the capitalist society, it makes sense for individuals to feel isolated and alone. Not only are individuals up against the capitalist system, but by the same principles of private property ownership, people become competitive with one another as a means for survival. Each individual is then further isolated not only from the earth but from others who are forced into a competitive mindset for survival. The same way that ownership of the wild leads to the practice of commodifying and carving up non-human animals, the earth is also commodified and carved up into borders and territories, which are then carved up into cities, blocks, and then finally, housing and lawns. This is the illusion of togetherness disguising an underlying tension of social competition and isolation.

While survival in the wild can be and certainly has been competitive, the range and resource availability was much more vast prior to industrial civilization. Similar to morality, capitalism – also an ideological human construct – maintains a rigid and confining binary interpretation of reality: the rich and the poor. So generally speaking, it makes sense that people who experience the most isolating aspects of capitalism and industrial society are more likely to gravitate toward ideas of togetherness. And I believe it to be true – there is power in numbers! People can become activated and energized just by seeing large demonstrations of people angry about their impoverished conditions, filling the streets and walkways, flowing through areas normally restricted for cars and motorized transportation. The Occupy Movement demonstrated power in numbers in a way that terrified the State into rolling media blackouts and positioning rooftop snipers above marches in a few cities. And from my own personal experience, there is nothing quite like the lawless pandemonium of hundreds - or even thousands - of people who have actively decided to become ungovernable, even if only for a few nights, and even if for reasons that are not all congruent. These ruptures of disorder have throughout history highlighted the limitations of police and military power, as well as examples of instinctual mutual aid which can blossom between strangers. So what brings these ruptures of joyous destruction to an end?

Just as a breakdown in law and order happens, so does a breakdown in even the most well-organized revolt. Despite its precise coordination of actions across the country, the Occupy Movement succumbed not only to a cancer of ideological differences among the radicals involved, but to a decrease in social popularity in general. And even the most riotous, informal mass-scale rebellions succumb to decomposition as individuals gradually disperse back into the routine of capitalist conformity. Some will say this necessitates movement building and mass radical education. But as observable as our interconnected togetherness on this planet, so are our personal differences which breakdown the foundation of every formal organization.

I suspect another reason many cling to the idea togetherness is due to a hope for something big enough to defeat all the sources of misery experienced in our current existence. But (gathering from the saddening stories of radical burn-outs) this hope all too often carries along with it the tragedy of insurmountable disappointment and perceived personal failure. In a society that conditions people to measure each other’s worth by how much they produce, one can see how an inability to produce solutions to the infinitely complex problems of capitalism could be internalized as a personal failure. But in my personal opinion, this sense of failure is most likely the product of an over-simplistic understanding of the world – an understanding limited by a mechanistic way of viewing industrial society. This perspective presents industrial society as merely a collection of broken parts that can simply be repaired with so-called proper tools. Quite often, the so-called proper tools are mass organizing and unity. And when mass organizing and unity don’t work, one falls into personal despair. Because if organizing others under a singular ideology is to be understood and accepted as impossible (or even undesirable), what other solutions are there? Perhaps even the concept of solution itself is merely a social construct intended to put forth the illusion of control.

As I have mentioned in previous writing, a class analysis of industrial society is limited, but not at all useless! I, (and I believe many others), can not deny the reality that it is, in fact, the working class who possesses the power to build worlds. And it is the working class who possesses the power to expand this current world further – as well as the power to tear it all down! But despite the unity of the working class and all of its collective efforts put forth to build every inch of industrial society, there is a lack of unity and collective desire to rebel, which keeps industrial society functioning and expanding. And it is this same lack of unity and collective desire that, year after year, continues to fail every leftist movement attempting to organize the working class for the overthrow of capitalism and the State. The common denominator here is a perception of the working class as a monolith – devoid of individuals who on a personal level, have independently decided their own lives. Those who want to work and have no objections to contributing to the expansion of industrial society will continue to work, and those who do not want to contribute to the expansion of industrial society will drop out.

Within each and every individual is the power to make choices and take action. While decisions and actions can be - and often are - driven or influenced by external factors, I believe the will to act is primal and selfdriven. Despite the possibility of starvation, an individual may still choose not to work. Despite the existence of police, an individual may still choose to break the law. Despite the traumatic captivity and death march of industrial society, an individual may still decide to live through it. And many individuals do survive without work and in illegal ways while evading arrest and jail. Sometimes an individual becomes so immersed with instinct and reaction that solutions become integral to the experience of acting.

For some, the idea of interconnected unity is appealing because without the group, organization, or even The Movement, there is fear and uncertainty. Life without law and order, routine and social conformity is unfamiliar and vulnerable, leaving only the blunt force of one’s unfiltered individuality exposed before them. When all social constructions, labels, or identity categories are abandoned, all that is left is an open nothingness that – in the face of society, group-think, and social organization - is subject to harsh judgment and discouragement. The same interconnectedness portrayed as harmonic unity also interlocks our social relationships like a prison, discouraging individualized escape. As I mentioned earlier, in a society where one’s worth is measured by how much they produce, abandoning everything - including a life of surrendering ones’s self to the continued production of industrial society - exposes the deep divisions concealed within the illusion of unity. In pursuit of one’s freedom from all categorical roles and identities, and all philosophical and ideological guidance, one becomes the ungovernable creator of their destiny - but also an enemy to those who are determined to continue governing the lives of others. An individual who reclaims their life in joyful pursuit of anarchy may face hostility and criticism by those who fear to do the same. Misery can be used as a form of social bonding and as a coping mechanism between individuals.

When a person refuses the chains of social conformity, the order of passive submission is upset, leading to social tension between the fearful and the courageous. (For example, those socially designated as woman are subject to bitter mockery and harassment for simply embracing confidence and personal independence.) It isn’t just the institutional establishment that has a problem with dissenting views and lifestyles – all those individuals who make up the establishment consider them problematic as well, often envying the escape of free-thinking individuals.

It’s one thing to talk about anarchism as a philosophy. But for some, it’s a way of life that speaks for itself. In a world so heavily determined by arbitrary codes and social constructs, words and even language itself become limited by an inherent inability to express the actions and experiences of those who create anarchy with a feral life. Because how exactly does one summarize the seamless experience of day to day negation without political confinement? The variety of politicized labels constructed to convey ideas also works to confine one’s perception of freedom. As the building blocks of domestication, words and language have been used so extensively to uphold notions of servitude and social conformity. And since the values and social organization of industrial society communicate with this language of subjugation, some individuals make the choice to embrace nothingness as an actualization of iconoclastic self-creativity.

Industrial society, through years of group-think and patriotic propaganda promoting the illusion of harmonic unity, conditions a person to fear their individual self. The perception of individualism that most people have (including self-identifying anarchists) is an individualism that’s encouraged in order to facilitate competition with others. Under capitalism, individual competition results in individual degradation as the individual assumes an increasingly mechanistic mentality. When hierarchies are produced by win and lose binary interpretations of reality, an individual becomes consumed by an imaginary sense of superiority over another. Despite the social interconnectedness of a capitalist society, inequality reigns because hierarchy and the threat of poverty are necessary tools for motivating wageslavery. With this capitalist association with individualism, alongside the social indoctrination of collective subordination, an individual may fear taking on a life of their own beyond the realm of this familiar life.

The fear of venturing out of civilized, normal life is most often based on how industrial society propagates its successes of technological progress with claims of providing wealth and eco-friendly consumerism. Fear is a useful social currency for discouraging individualist independence. Despite vast differences, leftists (and right-wingers alike) claim that their movement, their ideology, or their way of life is more fulfilling, and therefore should be enforced upon all. The common denominator shared between leftism, rightwing politics, and industrial society as a whole is the presention of a universalizing vision of life intended to be uncritically consumed by all. All three propagate their visions of the world as the most just and morally righteous, while also politicizing the idea of unity and togetherness as a finalizing touch to their neatly wrapped gift to the world. Not only are each of their attempts to socially re-organize the world fundamentally antiindividualist, but also naive in assuming all people want the same thing.

Sometimes I have to ask, what does it mean to be fulfilled? Is this another example of language seeking to filter and re-define reality? I guess for me, fulfillment implies an end to desire. And I have to wonder what world could ever exist where desire is pacified by some all-encompassing fulfillment. It is clear that right wing and left wing politics have definitions of fulfillment fine-tuned to support their versions of reality. In my opinion, the concept of fulfillment (and other positivist notions) are deployed as political tools for deception and seduction by those who view individual beings as machines devoid of impulsive desires, lacking the capacity for an imagination that changes seamlessly with the fluidity of personal experience.

Speaking of changes, lately I've begun imagining expressing my ideas and thoughts with more face to face interactions rather than through the medium of writing. I could surely do both, and have been for quite some time. But as I write this, I feel I have reached a point in my life where I am finding the activity of writing these texts as limiting as the very words themselves. It is fun and easy to do during the winter, or spontaneously during or after exciting experiences at riots, etc. But I think I am ready to shift my focus onto something else.

Over the years, I have made many accomplices and enemies with the circulation of my writing – these literary expressions of my thoughts, experiences, and ideas. And I am deeply moved by the kind things many of you have said – as well as the awful things too! Maybe I will pick up writing again if the desire overcomes my hesitation to open a computer and type in a coffee shop, or in a notepad under a bridge while waiting for a train, or during or after a riot – or even after an exhilarating heist! Maybe I will write again from within the confines of a prison cell - because really though, let’s be honest, how much damage to this industrial leviathan can one really do within the limitations of legality? How much freedom can one really reclaim without provoking those who benefit from enslavement? (But of course, I’ll do my best not to get caught!)

So to the readers of my writing, I bid you a literary farewell! If my writing has inspired you to think differently, it is only because you had the courage to read something unfamiliar to you in the first place. If any of my writing has encouraged you to live more freely, it was only because you possessed the power to reclaim your life and live on your own terms. On paper, I am just an idea that you read aloud in your head with your own voice.

To dispel any potential future conspiracy theories or internet rumors, this is not a suicide note of any sort! Instead I venture out in all directions, alive and well, deeper into a world of both interconnectedness and ruthless divisions, prepared for both loving accomplices and hateful enemies, and everything in between, and whatever unimaginable beyond. To my enemies of various socialized orientation, perhaps one day we will meet and our hostile tension will detonate with cathartic brilliance!

I want to riot. So much more than I already have. And I don’t want to wait. With or without accomplices beside me I want to shake shit up, disrupt the silent conformity of industrialized relationships, and make trouble for those who demand my passive obedience! If everything is as futile and hopeless as the pessimists insist, then let this funeral be a rave!

I disperse, becoming one with the flora and fauna, my anarchy expressed with destructive creativity in this colonial land of law and order.

Long live anarchy!

-Flower Bomb, December, 2023