I've discovered recently that I'm an Anarchist. In other words, as a child through my teenage years I always felt the sense of estrangement within the hierarchies of family, school, church, government, and so on, but eventually those feelings were subdued and general conformity began to creep in.
Over the past decade, I've gradually re-awakened to those feelings and have come to understand that the sense of freedom I desired as a young person is the most important thing in my life. After a while, I discovered writings by people who considered themselves anarchists, and realized how much their words resonated with me.
Now, I'm consciously choosing to live my life more and more according to those principles of freedom, and as a result have become more at odds with the family and friends who used to be (or at least seemed to have been) very close and intimate relationships. I expected these conflicts to arise with the context of the powers-that-be in government, work, school, and so on, but was unprepared for the reaction of my family.
Finally (sorry for the long intro), the question I have is how have other self-described anarchists (or those believing in the idea of anarchy) dealt with close family or friends who can't fathom anarchy or who are not willing to face the destruction and pain that the hierarchical thinking has created?
I still want a certain level of closeness, or at least acceptance from them, despite my clearly different views and actions (as I aspire to live more and more without money, for example). Any experiences or thoughts are welcome as to how to navigate all of this. Thank-you.
