Getting Older in a Neverending War Against Everything; Laughter Helps Us Survive
anarchistnews.org/

"...Most of those kids have long since quit anarchism, Against Me has renounced their former revolutionary aspirations, and I’m still here, queer, and pissed off at the state. Only I’m getting older. I’m still young—in my thirties. Yet often, I am the oldest person in the room. As I get older, I’m sad to say, I don’t see a lot of older radicals around. But a few resilient older anarchists are sticking it out. They are the ones who know how to laugh."

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Editorial: How you gonna come?
anarchistnews.org/

"...There are many of these tests; sometimes they are quiet, and sometimes they are loud. You may be tested with an arrest, a health issue, or the exposure of parts of your life that you wanted kept private. What is important is not the way in which you are tested but how you deal with the test, and more-so, how you deal with the aftermath (whether you pass or fail). Most of us do not pass our first test. Some of us divulge too much information, some of us are inappropriate with our friends and need to be checked on it, and some of us stay injured for the rest of our lives. The shame of that failure can haunt us. It can chase us away from association with anyone other than coworkers and family. This is a great tragedy.

This withdrawal comes from society’s puritanical insistence that each of us act like ultra-capable, appropriate machines of ideological coherence. That insistence is destroying our ability to grow strong together. We are spending hardly any time picking each other up, other than to tear others down. We aren’t learning skills about how to age, share, or progress through certain perspectives because instead we shine lights on each other; we are pointing at the shadows instead of the washed out faces or the blinded eyes."

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