Anti-Identity and Self Defense
'my home is my broken heart'

"Those who plead their cause in the absence of an opponent can invent to their heart's content, can pontificate without taking into account the opposite point of view and keep the best arguments for themselves, for aggressors are always quick to attack those who have no means of defense." (Christine de Pizan) - Then how am I supposed to start all of this while the meaning is distorted and stuck right in the shimmer of Ken Dedes' calf![1]

My birth became a reality for life's misfortunes. Where my existence --as a way of anarchy on the path back to the Self-- becomes a form of the complexity of a formless world. I'm some kind of trapezoid replica. The fusion of Hanacaraka[2] is filled with question marks on life's incomprehension about the fragility of the increasingly fragile torso cliffs[3]. Is there a louder voice besides that of the madness of a child looking for her mother when the only place for them is the nonsense of national identity and gender?

"From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were I have not seen
As others saw I could not bring
My passions from a common spring
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone
And all I lov'd, I lov'd alone"
(Edgar Allan Poe on ALONE)

I still question three things that torment my breath the most:
What is human?[4]
What is individual freedom?[5]
What is acceptance of war and love?

In reality, I have to continue to struggle to accept myself as a creature with an ‘attachment disorder’ and undergo brainspotting therapy, which is so emotionally draining. This labyrinth patents me as an accursed human whilst humans, with their red eyes and words, persist in killing me for their victory feast. The individualist anarchist again has to stand on the brink of defeat, even within anarchist circles.

I'm estranged from childhood memories. I'm knocked out of family memories. I was manipulated from household memories. What kind of world is this?! Isn't the cult of atonement enough for the barbarity of the aristocratic past sins? When this sadness-grief is my way home.

At one point, decades ago, between me and Batubulan[6], Max Stirner colored my life like a new rainbow: "I only have been the unhuman, am it now no longer, but am the unique, yes, to your loathing, the egoistic; yet not the egoistic as it lets itself be measured by the human, humane, and unselfish, but the egoistic as the unique." I thought back to Blavatsky; "It is an occult law moreover, that no man can rise superior to his individual failings without lifting, be it ever so little, the whole body of which he is an integral part. In the same way no one can sin, nor suffer the effects of sin, alone. In reality, there is no such thing as separateness and the nearest approach to that selfish state which the laws of life permit is in the intent or motive."

After hanging myself at the end of the year in a melting romance, I was as empty as the early world between Kebyar Duduk and Bedhaya Ketawang[7]. The psychosomatic breakdown of ballerinas created for grim darkness. I was knocked, crushed and squashed - "in space no one can hear you scream; and in a black hole, no one can see you disappear." (Stephen Hawking)

I miss dance and poetry....[8]

Jakarta, February 2021

[1] Ken Dedes is an historical queen frequently depicted in sitting meditation, with shining calves. The author's use of this imagery conveys the superstitious nature of common people.{1}

[2] Hanacaraka is a Javanese script used for writing a number of languages.

[3] Torso cliffs invokes the ribcage and breath, hanacaraka, vibration, and how all of these relate to mental health.

[4] During translation, when asked about the phrasing of this question, the author spoke briefly on a text found in "Species Being and other stories" by Frere Dupont.

[5] The author's concern is with feudalism in Indonesia and Benjamin Tucker's ideas on liberty of socialism.

[6] Batabulan is a village in Gianyar, Bali, where the author learned the traditional Balinese dance; Batabulan has a complicated regional past, involving first unification and then splitting of Java and Bali, and an erasure of history.

[7] The author, a professional ballerina, was banned from performing the traditional dance because she is too "Western" and not "Eastern" enough.{2}{3}

[8] The author has been designated a radical and so is banned from performing in Indonesia.

{1} Ken Dedes’s myths:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/316068546_Arok_Dedes_dan_Pararaton_Transformasi_Dan_Dinamika_Sastra_dalam_Wacana_Globalisasi_Sastra/fulltext/58eed05d458515c4aa52d147/Arok-Dedes-dan-Pararaton-Transformasi-Dan-Dinamika-Sastra-dalam-Wacana-Globalisasi-Sastra.pdf
https://tirto.id/sejarah-ken-arok-perampok-jadi-raja-eeAj

{2} KEBYAR DUDUK Traditional Balinese Dance:
https://asia.si.edu/essays/article-vitale/
https://palm-living.com/gamelan-gong-kebyar-balinese-traditional-music/

{3} BEDHAYA KETAWANG both based on GENDING BEDHAYA KETAWANG AGENG (lyrics), Javanese Classical Dance:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/3351112
https://www.persee.fr/doc/arch_0044-8613_1989_num_37_1_2569