TOWARD UNKNOWN SPACES

"Each of them seemed to see the mortal challenge in the others' eyes - to feel that the other two were sweeping him along by the whole force of their bodies and their wills - out to sea - farther - toward unknown spaces - toward a gulf from which return would be impossible - and neither of them had any doubt as to the insidious nature of this abrupt accord of their will and their destinies. IT WAS NO LONGER POSSIBLE TO RETREAT."--Julien Gracq

"No longer possible to retreat." We are all so cautious in our revolt, in our creative venture of making our lives our own. How would we ever reach that point where it is "no longer possible to retreat"? And yet, if we are ever going to move past the current inertia, break out of the movement of capital, of the state, of what is - with its trajectory toward boredom and disaster...

Let's think for a moment about certain times in history (the Paris Commune of 1871, May 1968 in France) or in our own lives, those times when we knowingly cast ourselves into the unknown. Certainly, at first, there was that mortal challenge in each others' eyes. When did that challenge start to fade, transforming into a look of fear, a compulsion to turn back, to find safe ground? And when did that, for some, become an ideology of safety, of security - the demand for safe spaces, safe language, safe words, for caution to be the order of the day?

After all, I am an anarchist. I don't follow orders. And any meaningful conception of freedom defies safety and security and tosses caution to the wind.