potatoes

Don't be an anarchist. No, really. You shouldn't ever decide to break whatever rules you want to do whatever you want. Don't get me wrong, I'm having a great time. But I don't want you to do the same thing.

You can probably figure out why. Although I usually don't act very anarchy-ish, if I do break a rule of society here or there, it's safer for me if no-one else is an anarchist. That way if I annoy someone, they're more likely to ignore it. So please, don't ever let it become a world without rules, and I can go on breaking whichever ones I feel like.

Not that I actually break all that many, come to think of it. Occasionally I'll cut in line or something, but for the most part I'll appear to adhere to the rules as much as anyone else. The difference is, I don't follow rules because they're rules. I follow them either because they make sense to me, so I would do it whether there's a rule or not, or because someone with power over me is enforcing the rule. Of course, I suppose you could argue that everyone does that, so I'm not really an anarchist after all. Personally, I don't know who is in the majority, those who follow rules because they are rules, or those who follow rules for the reasons outlined above.

At the very least I think the idea that anarchists break every rule possible just because they are rules is stupid. I consider myself an anarchist because if I think a rule is pointless and if I can get away with breaking it, I will. That doesn't mean I have to run every red light I come to, just because it's against the law.

Ohh, oh, I've got it! Another way to repeat essentially what I just said. Isn't that exciting? Anyway, I consider an anarchist not to be someone who breaks rules, but simply someone who makes their own rules. If those rules happen to coincide with society's at large, fine. But if they don't, then an anarchist will follow their own rule, breaking whichever of societies that means. So when I cut in line, I'm following my rule which goes "I hate waiting in lines, so do whatever it takes to minimize the time spent waiting in a line".

And now for my customarily abrupt.

Anarchronism