Wonderful question and comments. I too began describing myself (rather than *identifying*) as an anarchist later in life. I've always disliked authority, though there have been times I've gone against my own interest in despair and misanthropy. Like cb, I've mostly been rural, and this has most definitely been influential.
Having kids within the current circumstances definitely takes a toll on the lifespan of one's anarchic sense. Also, I think the tendency identifying with a certain strand (or hyphenation) of anarchism has something to do with it as well. Metalist touches on this somewhat. Moralism is exhausting and many anarchisms are moralistic. Anarchy, I feel, is best seen as a process rather than a paradigm, or a blueprint, and each expression, each anarchism (ex: individualist, communist, green and primitive) that's come along simply best seen as a temporary focus, a perspectival place, through which one refines and strengthens one's own capacities while simultaneously creating new possibilities in the world. The 'inner' and 'outer' are interwoven. I think that stopping in one hyphen creates the conditions for, as I said, moralism and the accompanying features of dogmatism, fanaticism, self-loathing, resentment, etc., all finally concluding in that exhaustion in striving for that singular Higher Ideal.
