I didn’t pop out of the womb swinging a red flag. I wasn’t raised by union organizers or taught to quote Marx before I could walk. Like a lot of Americans, I coasted on autopilot for a while. I figured the president—whoever they were—probably knew what they were doing. The system seemed fine, or at least functional. Corrupt, maybe, but stable.
Then came Trump.
That was the first crack in the illusion. Suddenly the office of the presidency wasn’t just some boring institution, it was a circus, a cult, a threat. It wasn’t just bad policy. It was kids in cages. Racist dog whistles cranked up to bullhorns. And half the country cheered. That’s when I realized the system wasn’t broken. It was functioning exactly as designed.
That’s when I started reading. Rand again, first. I loved her in high school—thought she was deep. Then I picked up Atlas Shrugged as an adult and felt like I’d been duped. It wasn’t philosophy. It was selfishness with a thesaurus. The heroes were sociopaths. The poor deserved it. The rich were gods. It clicked: capitalism doesn’t just tolerate cruelty. It requires it.
From there, I fell down the rabbit hole. Camus hit me like a freight train. The Myth of Sisyphus gave shape to something I’d felt but couldn’t name. This low, constant hum of absurdity. The rock rolls back down the hill, and we push it again. Not because it’ll change anything, but because we refuse to give up.
That absurdism became fuel. So did my misanthropy. Not in the “I hate everyone” kind of way, but in the “I don’t trust people to do the right thing unless they’re forced to” kind of way. I watched people defend billionaires like they were sports teams, as if Apartheid Clyde was going to show up and hand them a Tesla for their loyalty.
I started arguing online. Then organizing. Then donating. I joined the Democratic Socialists. I started lurking at meetings, listening more than talking. I wanted to shake things up, but not just with signs and chants. I wanted disruption. Chaos. Direct action. Guerilla organizing.
I kept reading. Kept pushing. Anti-natalism hit me hard—David Benatar, Cioran, all of it. The idea that no one consents to be born, and that bringing someone into this world is an inherently selfish act. In a dying planet, under a dying system, having kids felt like feeding bodies into the machine.
All of that coalesced into anarcho-communism. Because socialism wasn’t enough. The state isn’t neutral, it’s a tool of capital. Voting helps, but it’s a bandage on a severed limb. I believe in mutual aid, in decentralized power, in horizontal structures. I believe in burning down what doesn’t serve us and building something new from the ashes. Something where people matter more than profit. Where community matters more than hierarchy.
And yeah, I still own guns. Gifts, mostly. I don’t shoot much. But they’re there—”just in case” feels more relevant by the day.
What radicalized me? The cruelty. The absurdity. The lies we’re told about success, about work, about life itself. And the quiet hope that maybe, just maybe, we can break the cycle. So I meme. I write. I organize. I fight. Because if this is a pyramid scheme called life, I at least want to go down pissing off the billionaires at the top.
Sisyphus Shrugged 
There is an idea out there, which is that everyone should be the same, right, left, green or whatever relgion a person was born into. I don’t know if I felt wronged by this more because I happened to be born female but it made me notice how there was a way I was meant to act, to think and to be. Sometimes I wish I could be like everyone else, sometimes I wish I didn’t think the things I do, to flow along with the pack would be easier I think.
Ultimately though I think we are a product of our experience and if you think, really think, if you read, really read and watch then it takes very little time to see that things are not as they should be. What do most of us do? Grumble, not much else, many of us don’t have the nous to fight back or the skill.
Funny, I had the same exact experience with Rand when I first read Atlas Shrugged I wanted to be Dagney, I wanted that phone call, much like most people want a deity to intervene I guess.
Keep up the good fight.
LikeLiked by 1 person
According to conservatives, you’re meant to be barefoot, in the kitchen, and pregnant at all times. Fuck that. Fuck the patriarchy. Fight back in any way you can. One thing I think that made me love the hell out of you was your anti-natalism as well. You don’t accept that that’s just what women are supposed to do. You buck the system in that way as well.
I think sometimes we’re a product of our environment. Sometimes we break away from that. My mom did as well as I. We were both Republicans for a while just because our family was and that’s what we thought we were supposed to be until things just weren’t as they seemed. Mom became a Democrat. I became a libertarian socialist/anarcho-communist. I want to tear the entire fucking system down.
I became so disillusioned with Rand when I grew up. Atlas Shrugged used to be like my Bible when I was a teenager until I got older and discovered other philosophers like Camus.
LikeLike
I liked you from the moment I read your first blog, it was snarky but funny – not to mention bang on, I think it was something to do with people claiming to be writers at thoughts. There were some people there who were pretty entertaining but not many who could actually write. My favourite thing that used to make me nauseous was “I love your flow”, it’s kind of like – I can see what you were trying to do there but sucky.
Still, it was a lot of fun annoying the pensioners and serious people, it’s dead now, Thoughts, I tried to find it and it goes to a domain name sale site. I guess Ben has finally been committed.
Your mum sounds great, a decent person, I can see why you think the world of her.
There are snippets of philosophy I find works for me, the closest thing to something I’d subscribe to is Nihilism, I completely agree with anti-natalism, the idea of having kids in this world is insane. Even my mates who’ve bred – I just cringe inside – those little buggers are going to have an awful life just because of some whimsical fantasy about what might fill their parents’ otherwise empty life.
Blood Meridian arrived today, It’s next in cue, I’m looking forward to it. I was surprised it has a Western theme. We’ll have to compare notes!
LikeLike
Blood Meridian is more of an anti-Western. It takes all the romanticism and heroism out of the classic Western and obliterates them in a blood soaked haze of violence and nihilism.
LikeLike