Hello World !
Ahem, it just wouldn't feel right to start my first substantial post any other way, than with a Hello World (Those of you with some minimal degree of training in the computer sciences know why.) Anyways, my name is Roland Marez, and although I'm generally misanthropic and heavily introverted, I've been told it isn't hard to get along with me. I'm withdrawn, but I am still passionate. I want the world to be a better place for everybody, not just me. I see the sickness that is our world and I yearn for possibility of a better future, as I am sure many of you do as well. We'll get back to that sentiment, but for now, this is the story of how I became who I am today, as best I as I can account it.
From a very young age, I was absolutely fascinated by the way things function at every level from the micro to macroscopic. By the ripe age of three, my favorite activity in the world was to sit in front of the TV and absorb the science, discovery, and history channels. On the first occasion the 6 day creation story of the universe was presented to me in Sunday school I already was highly skeptical of that, as I believed in cosmological evolution already. Though I hadn't quite the language skills to articulate that, I knew in private that I found the man in the television behind the animations of stars and planets more convincing than the lady at Sunday school who was trying her very best (and failing) to be more interesting than the toys in the Sunday school room. I wasn't always proud to be a heathen, I tried to believe in what they were saying, but I never really was able to. When I found out some people just didn't bother with going through the motions of religion because they didn't believe in that nonsense and called themselves 'atheists' that news was, ironically, a godsend. I knew more or less from the first time I heard of atheism in a formal sense around 11 or 12 years old that that's what I was.
Atheism was great! No more did I worry about what some bronze age moral code had to say about me and what I was doing. Abandoning religion was the first major stepping stone for me in discovering who I am; looking at the world without the filter of religion (and not just any religion, but the kind of Lutheran Christianity practiced in Tx) I was able to come to some very different conclusions about what was acceptable, and it helped me to accept those things in myself and others. Most importantly, I didn't feel ashamed about my interests and was able to feed my insatiable curiosity unabashed.
This intellectual freedom would lead me into alternative politics, an interest in the sciences, and indeed a great eagerness to learn about that which had previously been occult or forbidden but which was now simply other voodoo which was fun to read about. Eventually I stumbled upon atheistic satanism and was absolutely captivated by its central message of acquiring knowledge for the power it bestows. To this day I consider myself a bit of an atheistic satanist and I accept the literary analysis of the bible by mainstream satanism that the most moral act in that text is when Lucifer convinces Eve to eat of the fruit from the tree of knowledge and thereby bestows humanity with its intellectual potential.
I've always been a leftist, from the moment I had my own individual awareness of politics, and my adventures in leftism have indeed led my far astray from mainstream philosophy. Growing up, my parents were democrats in a deeply red state, but they didn't talk about that very much to me or others. Being much more bull-headed than either of my parents, I was destined to learn why they didn't care to talk about politics later in life when I experienced the nastiness in others firsthand as the town communist-atheist in the upper class christian town where I attended school K-12. But the reaction I got from others did not discourage me at all, and over the course of my primary education I went from a general leftist, to a socialist, to an outright proud Marxist and continued to be vocal about my ideas. Of course life would have been easier for me if I had just quietly accepted things and moved on, but I didn't desire an easy life; I wanted then as I do now to propagate ideas which have the power to effect positive change in the world even if that meant swimming against the current.
Despite being largely ostracized in high school, I found shelter among those who were less violently opposed to my ideas or identity and had what I would consider a relatively healthy social life. I had a small but tight-knit group of friends. We were by no means a homogeneous group in terms of politics, race, religion, gender, sexuality etc, although of course some of us did belong to separate groups of friends with much more uniformity, as is the case in the complex social world we live in.
I went to college at Oklahoma State University, for Computer Science. Long story super short I ended up switching to management information systems and graduated with a BS in that. During my time in college I did some stuff I probably shouldn't write down yet for legal reasons, but I also became less of a statist and more of an anarchist. I didn't believe that a state apparatus was the correct way to implement communism or even a viable way anymore, and still don't. I was inspired by thinkers like Bakunin and Kropotkin and by philosophies such as post-scarcity anarchism and fully-automated luxury communism.
My view is that the state, is inherently hierarchical (obviously) and cannot ever implement full communism- the absence of social hierarchy. I think this view is largely supported by historical evidence which suggests that for long spans of history mankind organized itself into more or less egalitarian communes, and that only after the enclosure movement and rise of social hierarchy did we see states form as the vanguards of that hierarchy. The recent failed attempts at enacting state-communism in my opinion also validate the idea that the state is inevitably the vanguard of hierarchy and cannot possibly implement full communism. Therein lies our difference; I don't wish to liberate the people as they do, I wish for the people to liberate themselves. I know many other communists want to be told that the workers can form a vanguard party and usher in communism using the state infrastructure, and I have had bitter debates regarding my refusal to accept such an idea.
Regardless of leftist infighting (which is one of the reasons we can't have nice things.)I believe in dismantling all forms of social hierarchy (patriarchy, hetero-supremacy, racism, the state,etc...) through direct action and as such I am an anarcho-communist. Of course I feel anarcho-communism is more true to the idea of communism than state communism, but obviously like anybody else I have to grapple with confirmation bias. I try my best to be a principled anarchist and communist, I share freely of my resources to the extent that I can, with no jealous attachment to material value, giving to the homeless and those in need as I can (of course I know the mainstream paternalistic thinking which is that that doesn't help the big picture, but it helps that person individually) and acting against instances of misogyny, racism, and general bigotry as they happen around me. For me, anarcho-communism is about cooperation and radical solidarity and to that end I help others directly and spread anarchist/communist propaganda both verbally in my real world interactions and in photographic/written content online.
Oh, and I did put in the title that I'm queer and that's still true. My whole life since birth I've been disoriented and confused by the concept of gender roles, so the first time I was presented the idea that gender and sex are distinct I knew immediately I had no gender and later learned that is called being agender. Sexually, I can be/have been attracted to people literally anywhere on the gender spectrum, although when I initially realized I wasn't 'normal' (fuck what hetero-normative values do to us) I identified as bisexual, now I identify as pansexual. Really though, neither of those things are as important to me as communism (as you may be able to tell by the amount of text devoted to it.) I am not closeted and generally don't try to hide being queer but I also don't tell people who don't ask so I have known some people for years that found out I am queer and were genuinely surprised/shocked. To be honest, I dont talk about it alot for the dual reason of it being uncomfortable to be asked to explain your sexuality and that I feel it shouldn't be necessary. Straight people don't tell the world they are straight, I see no reason why I should feel compelled to clarify to people that I am queer. Whatever assumptions people make about me only says anything about them.
That's about all the general-context level stuff I have to say about myself. More specific biographical stuff and just general thoughts and musings may come in the future...
