on surfing's anarchism

At its root, anarchism is the absence of rulers, not rules. If everyone were to abide by the agreed-upon codes of conduct, everyone would be able to live in happiness, liberty, and peace. This is especially relevant out in the churning swells; surfing is essentially an anarchistic activity. There are no police, no time keepers, and no crossing guards, wherefore it is necessary for everyone trying to catch waves to act honorably and with due consideration for all the other people risking their fragile health and spending their precious time trying to float across the face of a piling heap of water.

Some people are better surfers than others, and therefore believe they are for some reason entitled to a greater share of waves. This is a spurious notion. Since they can better read the waves and keep themselves in the correct position for riding them, they tend to charge on every arriving peak, regardless of how many waves they've already ridden and how long every other salty soul has been waiting. Plus, they tend to drag themselves past the other people inching toward the peak and put themselves at the front (this is called snaking) instead of displaying a modicum of self-respect and putting themselves at the back, there to wait their turn. Without honor, without patience, without generosity, the act of surfing degenerates into an ego-boosting pissing contest that frequently ends in vocal or physical violence, externalized aggression, and general sadness (for everyone but the snake). Outside of an official competition, there is no justification for stealing others' sea-time by jumping to the front of a line of surfers, every time. Just as today's consumption-oriented capitalistic system encourages the individual to grab as much shit as he can without regard for and often at the expense of the rights and desires of the people around him, consumption-oriented surfing – that is, paddling out just to shred as many waves as possible in the shortest amount of time without giving a floating fuck about the others guys out there too – taints the majesty of the shared experience called surfing, reducing it to something akin to masturbating in public.

There are few conditions as pitiable as greed, few traits as undesirable as blind self service. Without a healthy respect for community and the notion that we're all in this together and none of us is getting out of here alive, a person tends to get wrapped up in what is going on inside his head-space, believe what his ego is telling him, and lose his connection to the less tangible things in life – honor, giving, sharing, and joy. The sea is always a dangerous place, rain or shine, and a person knocked unconscious has but a few score seconds to live. Here, in Bali, there are not many lifeguards; a surfer must rely on the other people bobbing in the brine to save his ass if things turn south. Hence, it helps to make and keep as many friends as possible out there, to display poise and self restraint, and to conduct oneself in a manner respectful of everyone else's time and right to exist. For many people, happiness means the absence of suffering; if everyone were to follow a few simple surfing rules (wait your turn, keep hold of your board, don't snake, don't paddle into a breaking face if others are trying to jump on it), the beautiful justice of anarchy could truly work, at least out at sea, everyone going home having happily ridden a few. In one model of the Universe, the person who gives the most receives the most; give way, give thanks, and receive the ultimate gift – love.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

foxtrot tango whiskey

In the movie The Dark Knight starring Heath Ledger and Christian Bale, Michael Cane's character sums up the Joker's actions with a single, iconic sentence, saying, “Some men, Mr. Wayne, just want to watch the world burn.” To some degree, my desires mirror those of that green-haired maniac; on some level, I think that the most expedient and the simplest way for us to return balance to our world and to curtail mankind's dangerous over-expansion is to stop trying to control things that are wholly out of our control (such as human economic and moral behavior) and return to a state of blessed anarchy.

Hence, the title of this piece: foxtrot tango whiskey, or fuck the world, which is often abbreviated as FTW. Less a declaration of intent and more a general musing, the roots of this desire to foxtrot tango whiskey stretch all the way back to the anarchist who changed the world by blowing up Prince Franz Ferdinand while that pompous ass was being driven through Sarajevo. Beyond this bold act that tipped the West into its First World War and set the stage for today's Ynki supremacy, I look at the United States of America and our own early anarchism, a bygone state of total liberty that was first truly tested, and first truly crushed, under the jackboot of Northern aggression during the 1860s. Before that time, the federal government had operated as it was designed to operate – as an entity tasked with negotiating foreign trade agreements and with making sure no foreign power invaded our soil. Then, however, a dozen states decided that they wanted to pursue a course other than that of their neighbors to to the north, and they split off from the Union, forming their own nation on this continent's lower half.

Why not let the South split off and follow its own path? Why force it to stay in the Union? Why spill the blood of hundreds of thousands of strong and otherwise productive men in order to try to coerce a people into doing something they had decided they no longer wanted to do? As we saw in the most recent presidential election, the old schisms still exist, with the same exact states that once made up the Confederacy voting overwhelmingly for a religiously and socially conservative candidate who spoke of curtailing immigration and keeping America American (whatever that means) and the remaining states, those of the Northeast and the West, voting for a president who at least seems to be a bit more conscious of the reasons for why our Constitution was drafted in the first place, among them to secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity. I hear in the news talk of secession among a number of groups scattered across the South, and I say let them go, if that is what they wish to do. Why waste more blood and more treasure trying to force people to stay where they don't want to stay? If history is any sort of guide, we can deduce that people will forever yearn to be free, and that the sooner they are granted that freedom, the better off they and their neighbors will be. If we all just fucked the world a little bit each day, I hazard that we would get up in each others' business with less frequency and pass fewer laws to regulate personal and professional behavior, preferring to let inherent human forces work things out than to try and micromanage a nation from giant, gilded palaces built on swampland next to the Potomac. So today, if only for a moment, foxtrot tango whiskey, and help make things better for everyone. Mahalo.

mentiri factorem fecit © 場黑麥

on dating & economics

  The intricate dance within a romantic relationship can be compared to the efforts of economists struggling to contain erratic market fluctuations. In either situation, the party that responds to the sweeping changes taking place in his counterpart will find himself on the losing side, forever racing to keep up, forever implementing new methods to bring to heel the unfathomable maelstrom he thinks he has the capacity to control. Whether this unfathomable maelstrom be the mind of a woman or the global crude-oil market, the economist, an outside observer inherently blind to the vast and incalculable influences that shape the mood of his counterpart, will enact measures he hopes will soothe the fury of that which he holds dear, often sacrificing long-term stability for the brief elation of short-term gain.
  I have learned one thing about relationships, one truth I have had to relearn time and again: the less you try to control your counterpart, the better off you both will be. When done with patient persistence, attempts to fathom your lover and to steer him in a direction you think best can indeed effect change; the nature of this change, however, will likely range from intensive introspection, over increased volatility, culminating in full-blown systemic meltdown. It is impossible to predict accurately how your counterpart will react to the pressures you have applied – any action will have an appropriate and equal reaction, but its full scope will forever remain known only to the reactive party.
  Imagine for a moment your closest friend, the innumerable events and countless little decisions that helped to mold him into the person you (think you) know today, the environmental and gentic forces that influence continuously the shaping of his being. Now imagine hundreds, thousands, millions of individuals of similar complexity who by going about their daily rounds become what we call markets, with every act shifting the fortunes of various businesses, with each transaction affecting the cycles of supply and demand, their every decision impacting and being impacted upon by unique and innumerable forces. It is all but impossible to know the mind of your closest friend – how could anyone claim to know the minds of thousands of strangers in thousands of different locations across the globe?
  Controlling your lover is a Sisyphean struggle full of complications that subside one day only to reappear the next, a cruel practice that will gut your lover's soul, leaving behind a mindless and docile golem content to do your bidding, within her no room for independent thought, no capacity for abiding Happiness, the dark promise of future abuse her only constant. The controlling lover exhibits deep insecurity and persistent self-loathing every time he endeavors to bend another to his will; the controlling economist exhibits appalling arrogance and damnable small-mindedness every time she endeavors to shape the course of markets influenced by forces far beyond her ability to reckon.
  Just as in dating, attempts to control the market are bound to cause unforeseen complications, new trials that slither forth from the stumps of those just severed, new issues that reduce the economist to the point of mindless docility, her energies sapped by the despair that comes with the realization that, as a single piece of an enormous, shifting puzzle, her actions are unlikely to have the desired affect. In a romantic relationship, the supposedly dominant party can achieve an approximation of control, whereas in the economic arena, a market will defy all attempts at subjugation, the sheer number of influencing factors contributing to its enduring volatility.
  Every economic theory, be it that of John Keynes or Adam Smith, Milton Friedman or Joan Robinson, has proven incapable of condensing the markets into manageable and predictable entities – invariably, each falls short of stabilizing that which cannot be stabilized, causing long term damage greater than the short term benefits with which it is credited. In the romantic as well as in the economic relationship, the method that promises the greatest liberty to the individual is that which disposes of all restrictions on thought and deed, the one that allows for the unfettered fluctuation of markets, the one preferred by humanity since we stood upright and learned to use our thumbs: anarcho-capitalism.

Ultima Ratio Regum - 場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp