Let's talk about being anti-establishment.

I have this default attitude of challenging any sort of authority. The 'authority' often shifts from person to person.

At a young age, it was my parents and family who were the authority. In school, it was my teachers, in my job, it's my bosses or whoever is paying me.

And ultimately, the authority is now the Government.

But I've been wondering for a while what was the origin of this anti-authority attitude.

The first answer is in my childhood. I was a terrible af student, didn't really excel at anything and I always felt like adults hated me. So I hated them back.

Second answer is in power structures. Since I really didn't have any real power or felt like I had any, it was always a game of taking power away from others.

My attempt is to Redistribute that power to people who need it.

Now I can detect a power hungry human being from miles away. Earlier I used to slink away and not really deal with them, but now I actively seek them out.

Now I try to chip away at that power they have accumulated over the years and give it to other people who don't have any.

In my head, nobody deserves to have insane amount of control over other human beings.

Pretty much explains my attitude towards everything.

There is an element of saviour complex here, of course. But then I also think about how privileged I am that I am able to even think like this.

That too is power, in its own way. Knowledge IS power. So if you are an anti-establishment person like me, understand that you're not alone.

Hi5!

Sidenote: This is the kind of stuff I'm going to use Mastodon for. Going to try and spark conversations like these as much as I can.

So please, do express your thoughts on being anti-establishment and what it means for you.

I'm listening eagerly!

@Memeghnad While growing up as a kid, heard/read too many stories of Indian freedom fighters, and how they were anti-establishment. It was very clear that to stay on power, every person/family/govt will do all bad things possible & not everyone has the courage to question them.

Asking questions about the norm and doing things what I felt right caused enough troubles in school life, but, every time I felt good about it personally. The same attitude now still continues in life.

@Memeghnad The Internet helped to find and make connections with people who think different than the average friends/family.

For a person like who got laughed at for everything I did in my school/college/most of office life, finding and meeting those other people helped to think more about life in general, about the politics in general, and how governments. function.

@Memeghnad I wanted to become a politician, but, my father (who was heavily active in unions and politics) told me one day: "We never taught you to become so much morally low, you will not stay alive long in politics", that quote (and the family tradition of asking questions to powerful people) made me think more about the existing power structures, and how those effect people's lives.