I'm not really sure what I'm writing about today.  It comes from a place of confusion and guilt, the events of the past week sort of loosely flowing all around me.  But this blog starts from my son asking me if he and his friends could stay with me.

The facts are these:  The anarchists need a place to sleep.  So far, they've pretty much worn out their welcome at two other homes, and I haven't even offered mine.  There have been blow-outs and discussions with other folks involving responsibility and taking advantage. 

I wrote earlier about my no  anarchist sleepover policy, and it seemed funny to me at the time.  But the point for me about saying no to putting up three people plus my own son for an extended period of time (forget the blog about guests and fish for a  moment) is about responsibility.

If you chose a lifestyle (no job, no money, no car) you choose that lifestyle over and over again.  You say, "I won't go to work because I don't have or want a job."  So you don't get paid, and you can't buy what you want.  So you steal it instead.  Or you borrow things from others who have had to pay for them.

You say, "I want to go to Portland," and you have to find someone else with a car to take you--or you have to hitchhike.  Or you have to ask other people to buy you bus or train or plane tickets, relying on others who are willing to support the gas companies.  You don't support the gas companies, but support once removed must not count.

You say, "I don't believe in the system.  The system is repressive and totalitarian," so don't expect the system to believe in you.  Why would expect things to be fair and wholesome and lovely?

I must have some lack of backbone because I do buy into many systems.  I have jobs.  I have a car.  I pay my taxes, despite the fact that my money goes to things I do not approve of.  War, war, war.  There is so much I don't approve of in the system, but I don't want to leave it.  Maybe you could say that I'm really living in the Matrix, scared to wake up to see the utter devastation all around me, the way humans are enslaved and repressed and used by the system to perpetuate itself.

Or you could say I like comfort.  I like to buy and prepare my own fresh food.  I don't want to dumpster dive or go on food stamps.  I don't want to go to jail or live in a communal home.  These are my choices, and I pay for all those choices in the same way everyone pays for his or her choices.

But we don't have to support each other's choices.  That's the truth.  We can say, "I love you, but I don't want to be involved in your choices."

It hurts when people say that.  I know because people have said things such as that to me in my time.  But I get it.  My choices are not their choices, and if my choices begin to effect others, others have a right to bail.

And maybe we also have the responsibility to not let others' choices bleed all over us and subsume us.  Maybe we have to say "No" in order for them to see how their choices effect us.

I have no smart end to this discussion, no conclusion or reiteration of the thesis because there is no thesis.  I'm clearly still a work in progress, in so many ways.

Jessica