To be everything, or nothing

[Public Domain]

For a long time now I've found myself daily
contemplating 'Revolution or Suicide?'.

I've defeated myself down to those two answers
in my life, and so far I've done neither and that
isn't the option I like. This itself makes me feel
selfish for abandoning myself.

The world around me seems so depressing.
I can't talk with anyone, no one knows where to begin.
No similar thoughts anywhere, Orwell in 1984,
alone in the crowd.

I'm not rejected, I can carry conversations and
be funny and all that junk, but I have some strong
commitments and have never been silent about
what I believe in. No one rejects this,
they just don't respond. I'm found talking to stone walls.
No one cares, apathy roams!

And... ugh.. Each day feels more pointless.
They all merge into one because the numbers mean nothing.

School, Work, Die, it feels.

I feel too young to have already rejected what they
hoped I wouldn't reject for 50 years! I don't want to
work for them, I don't want to slave for them,
I don't want to be rendered a number and used as
a part of their machine. I'm tired of benefiting them.
I can't accept it.

So I smoke pot (no alcohol, no cigs) and listen to
hundreds of radical songs, and write revolutionary
poetry, read literature on violent revolution and
sabotage, and attempt at making art. But none of it...
does anything... None of it solves the problem, the
problem is bigger than me, the problem needs to be
tackled by society...

But I'm the only one who's read the answer in history
in the society, more people are going to think I mis-spelt
'lmao' then think of the Chinese revolutionary.

So I find myself at an impasse:

Whether life it truly worthless and pointless in our
capitalist society, as we are just commodities and the
movement is oh so silenced. So alone, fighting alone,
warring alone, it's not logical, I become the very
definition of crazy for a society like this. Would it be
selfish to continue living when I only seek to bring
down the society around me, the society that allows
for fools to be happy. Would it ultimately be better
as one who is a loner and an insignificant in society
to take myself out of the equation all together?

Or if I should commit to the revolution and understand
my existence as being a life for the purpose of personal
excruciating pains? As they say, 'become the epitome of
revolution'? Sabotage at work, dissent in the halls,
vandalism, and propaganda...
There is only so much one person can do.

There is also the sadness in how I'm perceived mentally.
Because I think these things, I'm first drafted as wrong,
then considered completely and utterly crazy or stupid.
And I find myself grasping for the rope because I feel so
certain that I am more then just the punkass teenage
communist for mindless destruction they accuse me of being.
I can't ever be a 100% on anything but I have some
confidence in my possible intellect... I'm sure my thoughts
are rather full and independent.

I don't speak madness, I'm convinced that my strong
responses are almost always dead on and opinion-changing
for those who've never seen a revolutionary before...
I carry out full impassioned debates with any capitalist and
in this day and age there's no way for a communist to lose
such easy arguments. But regardless of who's right, I'm ignored.

For the people around me, I get the impression of giving up.
They have all surrendered. Stunned by the suggestion of
boycott or destruction. Worker democracy has become
a pipe dream. It's just so much easier driving their SUV
to the Safeway to buy more hot dogs and just putting it
out of mind... It's just so easy to be a slave in capitalism,
it's so EASY to suffer. It's almost the cowardly response!
The beaten and violated animal, doing whatever the boss,
the leader says.

So they vote, buy, sell, and work for others.

If I give up, I won't live. If I live, I won't give up.

And I've talked with therapists and all the people in the world...
And as soon as I explain anything... They get stone faced.
They haven't got a fucking clue what I'm on about.
They don't like that my depression comes with real answers,
already nicely attached.

[cenv]

Yes, this is what it means to be a revolutionary in this society. Seeing how much better things could be yet not being able to tell anyone. Struggling to stay afloat in a sea of passivity. Every day, we get up, perform our "duties" to bourgeois society, see the absurdity of our actions, feel our powerless -- yet we still get up every day. We continue to live our lives, and this fact alone testifies to the existence of some kernel of hope beneath the despair. Even as we go through the alienated motions of capitalism, we carry a new world in our hearts, and we realize that within capitalism itself lies the as-yet unrealized and hidden, yet still very material and real, potential for revolution. (After all, Marxism is a theory of hope because it helps us understand the concrete possibility of revolution and the way capitalism lays the foundation for this act.)

To survive in a world where everything is stacked against us, a society that tends towards our destruction just as we tend towards the destruction of this society, we have to find that kernel of hope and extend it to all aspects of our lives. You wonder whether it would be selfish to keep living and fighting for revolution -- on the contrary, in an age when this hope for a new world is so rarely found in everyday life, it would be selfish not to keep trying to share it with other people. Even the most trivial moments of everyday life are dimensions of capitalism and can be used to undermine the assumptions we make about ourselves and about life -- as long as we keep in mind that the point is not living life for the sake of revolution as much as it is making revolution for the sake of life.

As you say, we are commodities; however, we are not just commodities. The fact that we feel so much suffering at the hands of capitalist society indicates that we contain something more, waiting to release itself in the violently creative act of making revolution. And I'm not just talking about communists and anarchists here, but about everyone who is repulsed by the lives capitalism forces them into. Our responsibility as revolutionaries, but moreover as human beings, is to recognize this element in all workers and bring it to life.

This is a difficult task, but the fact that, in the face of everything, we have continued to fight thus far indicates how strong, important, and fundamentally human the revolutionary project really is.

[Ele'ill]

Welcome to the struggle.

[Ele'ill]

I'd have to say that personally- the worst is when I see other's around me- be it liberal progressives or members of radical communities- become bogged down and otherwise hopeless.

Fuck - that. It's the worst feeling in the world.

*Lately I've had to break it down for myself- I though 'I'm going to start reading a book series' (A Game Of Thrones by R.R. Martin btw) and After all the other shit I'm going to trudge through daily I will always be able to sit down and read and get lost for an hour.

*Rather than hoping to achieve and take part in a revolution sometime in my life I realized that maintaining resistance to oppressive systems is also extremely important and it might not be that we're not doing enough- it might be that it just isn't time yet- and that's ok- it's not great but it's ok.

*Things will likely get worse- or at the very least seem to get worse. Fight it.

*You have every reason to have such feelings- guess what- you're right- now what are you going to do about it?

[Public Domain]

Thanks comrades.

I think I know what I'm going to do, survive. I should set some sort of structure out for myself to helped clear my mind, because how I do things has been general chaos for a long time. The idea of specifically setting a time each day to read is great.

I agree so much with what you said Mari3L about people around giving up, I have a much older Christian co-worker stuck in the capitalist system and I've been teaching her about the reality of the workplace and the worker, and I try to do my best to show her, there is a way for none of us to suffer. Seeing her giving up is crushing as she's a great friend of mine. Our job sucking shit doesn't help.

[Thirsty Crow]

Maybe you could try hard and enjoy some sort of an activity which is not explicitly connected to social issues (i.e. the issue of exploitation, alienation, wars...). Try to enjoy yourself and, as someone stated, lose yourself for a couple of hours (this loss is, at least for me, quite pleasurable and "recharging"), without losing track on the bigger, I dare say - historical perspective of capitalism and the possibility/ies of abolishing it.

[BuddhaInBabylon]

Take heart comrade.
Many, many, others feel the way you do. It IS exhausting to be leftist in this world. It IS exasperating to feel alone in your vision. We know. You have chosen wisely to choose to survive. There is little circumstance where suicide is a good option and i don't think you are there yet. hopefully you never shall. Life is just as much about dying well as it is about living well. To snuff the life out of oneself for frustration at the uphill struggle that is being revolutionary in a capitalist/imperialist dominated world, is a waste and a tragedy.

If you really feel so strongly, that you have only two options, go all out for the revolution. Many will join you in revolution but you go to the grave on your own...that's just how it is i'm afraid. So, discover your comrades. become enthused about their talents and the possibilities of the contributions you can make to the overall picture of revolution. Be it through art and poetry, or dissemination of truth.

Solidarity