Thoughts on 'reluctant leaders' within occupy...

A little context for this blog...

A friend wrote an open letter to David Graeber and Chris Hedges. The letter discusses Graeber and Hedges possibly being clouded by one too many history lessons. The letter also dives into the blac block tactics used by a small number of people within OWS. You can read it here:

http://kenvallario.com/blog/anxiety/open-letter-to-david-graeber-and-chris-hedges

I have wondered if the various occupy movements have been lead by ‘reluctant leaders’... When asked what I meant by ‘reluctant leaders’ I had to pause... Three or so days later I threw some words down...

And after casting the words down, I finally caught up on a movie that I had wanted to watch for years... Before Sunset. There was a piece of dialogue in the movie that ‘coincidentally’ spoke to what I had just been contemplating...

“I see the people that do the real work, and what’s really sad is that the people that are the most giving, hard working and capable of making this world better usually don’t have the ego and ambition to be a leader.”

After the movie this TED talk was ‘coincidentally’ on my Facebook news feed:

http://www.ted.com/talks/drew_dudley_everyday_leadership.html

It’s not a coincidence if it means something to you.

When it comes to swift social change, I remain a hopeFUL romantic, but I think my friend has a point... Just like the information I’m willing to dump, I may have to break up with the first social movement that touched my heart if it fails to evolve...

Whatever the case may be, I have been a reluctant leader. Whatever the case may be, I will not be a reluctant leader. <3

On 'Reluctant Leaders' within Occupy

As far as mass movements that have taken place in my lifetime, nothing has moved my soul more than OWS. I’ve been brought to joyful tears by videos I’ve seen, all the raw footage I’ve consumed, Nicole’s posts from LA, my friend Sean’s posts from Chicago, your Brooklyn Bridge piece, the other reporting from your trips down to NYC OWS, and so many other D.I.Y journalists. While many in the movement were initially concerned about the mainstream media’s lack of coverage, I was excited... I thought, finally, finally people are turning away from the old sources, the old outlets, the old stories, the ‘experts’ drawing to heavily from the history books...

Though the OWS movement’s physical tents were destroyed by a bunch of stormtroopers, a much larger psychological tent hangs overhead and remains for people of many disciplines/ideologies to stand under.

I have wondered for too long time if I was the only one with concerns of the bigger picture, if I was the only one who believed that humanity could rise up and become co-creating participants in the evolutionary process, that there could be a group comprised of open, honest INDIVIDUALS, a group large enough to be that ‘tipping point’ that could widen the lens of mankind’s budding consciousness, finally getting it off that UNconscious autopilot loop. I am beyond happy to say that OWS crushed that feeling of political atomization I once had. The clicktivists went afk, amassed and stood up to say “fuck you” to a machine with no regard for the emotional intelligence of human beings everywhere, not just in one nation state... So many more showed up just to stand in solidarity. They may have not necessarily known all the reasons why things are the way they are, but they knew enough to understand, things do not have to be this way. They knew enough to take off the social masks that once held them back, to reveal themselves, to commune, to laugh, to cry, to fight the good fight by not fighting with one another... The OWS movement’s brilliant tactic was to camp out and not move... That’s one of the hardest things to do these days for any human being in the west as the innocence of childhood is smashed quickly by conditioning coming from so many fronts that trains us to be human goings and human doings, anything but human beings sitting down sans glowbox to become one with an involutionary and evolutionary process... And it was beautiful to see, it’s beautiful to still see as it is my hope the movement is just getting started.

But there was still that misunderstanding, not one that I had, but one that our fellow human beings had. The ones that still tuned into the Olberman/Maher/Beck/Hannity ‘voices’ to receive filtered information on something those ‘news’ casters couldn’t possibly understand because they either believe in, or feel too invested in, the very spells they cast... It’s easy for me to say people should just turn off their televisions, take a cold hard look at reality and that alone will help them to understand the grievances being aired by OWS... But it took me eight years of a Siddharthic retreat from society/culture to have a profound moment of clarity, to finally get that much of what we’re experiencing in the negative sense is a crisis of consciousness more than anything else. Before the parties, the politricks, ‘the man,’ the machine, the institutions, there is us struggling to find a way to relate to reality, to find meaning. And finding meaning is made even harder when going through dogmatic motions, partaking in outdated mythological or cultural rituals that no longer resonate, when occupying worthless occupations that provide little to no purpose for one’s life and that often pits us all against one another...

And I feel that many of the people in the OWS movement are on the same page with me... Willing to forgive ourselves and each other, willing to let go of our follies of the past, willing to let go of the social contracts politricksters signed behind closed doors and finally make our own....

A collective “my bad yo...” A dismissal of history, letting go of broken promises and imaginary lines of time... Transcending the notion of lines in the sand, nation states, turning away from banners on a flag pole, opting to instead pledge allegiance to love, to the rise of the creative human spirit, truly being tolerant of peaceful worshipers, of other’s world views, of fostering more locally driven forms of organization that arise from an organic free association... It’s a ‘radical’ page to be on, though it doesn’t feel ‘radical’ to me... In fact, it feels rational, which is funny as the self proclaimed stewards of rationality/reason/pragmatism often scoff at the ideas put forth by myself and other dreamers.

What I meant by reluctant leaders: I wonder if they’re reluctant in the sense that if they’re on that same ‘radical’ page I’m on, they quite possibly would have absolutely no desire to ‘lead,’ they probably wouldn’t ever even consider themselves a leader. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. My favorite leaders have been more like sages I suppose, that have helped me to understand that it is I who must take responsibility and bare the burdens of life, of ‘the struggle...’ So if I feel that way, I wonder what that means for the various people leading Occupy groups throughout the world... I wonder if they feel like ‘reluctant leaders’...

And now here I stand, a dude who once looked to leaders for help/hope/the answer... And after having his heart broken too many times by the politricksters, I became a dude who once swore them all off, who grew tired and weary of anyone stepping up to lead a crowd..... Now a dude, wishing more would step up to communicate with clarity the concerns expressed by the ‘radical’ wing of the OWS movement, to make sure a small group of brick tossers, arming themselves for a ‘coming insurrection’ because they’ve romanticized a steam punk apocalypse do not became the black masked faceless face of such a wonderful movement... Hoping that this movement doesn’t turn into the classic divide and conquer, ego driven, us vs them mentality, that 1% scapegoat that you mention... Hoping this movement engages all fronts on that higher plane of which you speak, a plane that we can only point to hoping they’ll come along for the ride... a plane that is so hard to ‘lead’ people to... And I hope this movement can be led by those with the skillful means to communicate with clarity the ‘radical’ ideas fostered by a group of individuals with imaginations that imagine no nations--in peace... holla...