Without even noticing it, I began to believe that certain roles and circumstances (work, home, family, you fill in the blank) were unchangeable, fixed, out of my control. I fell into patterns of behavior, ruts really, that had become comfortable, even when I knew they were wrong.

Then, just recently, I woke up. I’m not sure what snapped inside me. Maybe a whole bunch of things coalesced into a great realization: If you want something, you have to ask for it.

Asking for things has turned my life around in a matter of weeks.

Part of me groans to see this epiphany put into words, imagining you, Dear Reader, thinking either, “What an incredibly obvious, emotionally stunted person” or, “Someone has been spending a little too much time with O, The Oprah Magazine.” But bear with me for a second.

Imagine what would happen if you uttered the unspeakable truths in your life, or were just honest for once about the things you usually dissemble. (Maybe you need to ask for some space, or respect, or love, or to be heard, or just to try a different way of interacting.) Would the world end? Would the ground open and swallow you up? Would time stop? Would you pass out? Would you make someone (gasp!) uneasy? Or, just maybe, would you feel incredibly relieved? Would you even get some of what you want?

Things will change, sure. They’ll have to, because you’ve said what people have depended on you—what you’ve depended on yourself—to keep pushed down inside. Change is terrifying, and you might experience rejection. But being brave gets easier with practice. You’ll change, if only because it’s become too painful not to.

Most of my life has been good behavior punctuated with occasional rewards when someone happens to notice. It worked well for the first few decades. It’s how I first found a profession, a relationship, a city to call my own. It never occurred to me that it was a mostly passive way of being, or that it would eventually fail me.

Everyone wants to be acknowledged, to have someone say, “I see you.” The most surprising part about asking for things is that a lot of the time, people say yes.

There were better reasons, too. It just felt like an outmoded tactic, marginalized out of any influence by time and money and, maybe somewhere, cynical or even malevolent volition. The march I remember in DC was deeply dispiriting. It was big, and we were very certain we were right, and it was in and out of the papers in a day. Nobody cared except us and possibly Anne Fucking Coulter.

Maybe Occupy Wall Street will vanish, too. It’s cold out there, and momentum is not an easy thing to regain. But already this is very different. NY1 is talking about it right now as I type, and the guy is saying it’s two months already it’s in the news. Fait accompli, as much noted: a substantive, non-negligible redirecting of public discourse, an energizing of some dormant leftist impulse, the wide dissemination of things about class you and I and all our friends knew and considered important, and the grudging attention of the ever centripetal leftish establishment.

Making a demand is a very short process if it’s denied. This is process that resists resolution for the moment, and that’s almost entirely good. Favorite concepts of mine like “negative capability” and “sitting with the question” are in operation here, and that means we’re already off the script, off the chute from gratification to impotence.

I’ve gone a couple of times. I’ve gone to show support for something that my gut says is right despite some misgivings, and to sort out my own feelings about the whole thing. I went with a friend with whom I’d never had a political conversation, and we had one. I’ve talked to strangers, which is easy to do there, and been alienated by a few zealots, and wondered how much I will participate and what I should do.

Your fellow Whatsiteer and I went down on Saturday. We stood near the southeastern corner of Zuccotti Park and watched a charismatic young woman facilitate a basically uninteresting General Assembly that, while we were there, was focused on whether fifteen people marching to DC could and should use the name “Occupy Wall Street.” Two months in, the crowd was orderly, attentive to established process, ruly when prodded to be more attentive, and I think it’s fair to say, alive with purpose and good will.

We participated in the human microphone, the technique I’m told was devised by farm workers, and here used to sidestep the problems of amplification. The speaker’s words are echoed by the crowd, outward in enough waves to reach the edge. It is a speech act not unrelated to the lamentable three-word chant, except it’s engaging and utile. It accomplishes a number of things at once including, I daresay, shunting that need to speak that causes people to tell their life stories in the form of questions into a focusing activity rather than a diffusing one.

Repeating words that have just been thought up sidesteps the numbness that comes from what is more properly termed chanting. It didn’t feel like Yom Kippur is what I’m trying to say.

*My favorite of these is my friend S’s unintended manifesto “The history of me working for other people can be summed up in the question ‘who the hell are you to tell me what to do?’”

1.) This song “A Real Hero” by College (feat. Electric Youth) is from the movie Drive. I could not stop playing this song every day, ten times a day, for a week straight. Especially after experiencing the movie. Go ahead, see the movie and see if you do not play this song obsessively. And if you go, which I strongly recommend, know this: it has some serious violence. I felt a bit traumatized when the movie ended. But also, I felt like I had just watched something amazing. One of my favorite movies of the year. Anyone else feel the same?

Click here to view the embedded video.

2.) Berlin. While visiting that city a couple weeks ago we were struck by a few things. First, it’s a really really fun place to visit right now (ok, for a few years now, but we’re late to the party). It’s cheap. It’s energized. There is a DIY artistic entrepreneurial-ness everywhere. Except for the food–which is terrible (Such a weird defect in a world-class city. But, communism, I imagine, was not a nurturing patron of inventive cuisines. Also, as a guide book pointed out, Germany’s short-lived stint as a World Empire meant that its colonies never got a gastro-foot-hold in Berlin, unlike say, Britain’s Indian cuisine, France’s Moroccan, Dutch’ Indonesian, etc.) Another thing, a lot of people walk their dogs off-leash. And people don’t seem to care. And people walk their dogs right onto the subway. It’s a very permissive city. You can buy beer, wine, liquor at just about any corner store. And throughout the night. And you can carry it on the street. Or onto the subway. Berlin’s treatment of alcohol is fascinating. I’ve never seen people on a subway car at 10:30 in the morning enjoying a large green bottle of beer. People who look like they’re on their way to work. Perhaps other countries in the world are just as permissive, I’ve just never seen it displayed like this before. The other thing about Berlin is how it makes you confront some heavy heavy shit. You don’t get that gut-kick visiting Barcelona or Beijing. The War, the holocaust, the Wall. There are some really moving memorials and museums completed in the last few years, in particular, the holocaust memorial and the Jewish History Museum (by Daniel Libeskind). I won’t describe them here, but by themselves they would make the trip to Berlin worth the trouble.

3.) Amsterdam. Has anyone else been there recently? Is it just me, or is it just a little bit boring? For all the ground-breaking permissiveness of this city (red-lights, coffee houses, legalized outdoor sex in their public park, etc.), it felt really sleepy. Central Amsterdam–outside of the red-light district–is a gorgeous and dreamy world of canals, bridges, and 17th Century houses and is clearly inhabited by very wealthy people. It’s like visiting those tiny brownstone streets in the West Village, except with much greater acreage and more beauty, and everyone rides bikes instead of cabs, but it still feels unwelcoming, like you don’t belong there. And for a city known for its nightlife, it closes down really early. We had a hard time finding a place for dinner after ten. And it was hard to get find a decent place to have a drink after eleven. It felt at times like a movie-set that gets abandoned by night–except for that occasional bike whisking by. Maybe Summer is a lot different than October. And with a pack of friends in the know, it’s probably a lot more fun. Did we miss something? Is there a good reason to visit again soon?

4.) Occupy Wall Street. A couple days ago I came across this link to Adbusters that proposed OWS finally take up a unifying cause: The Robin Hood Tax. Why hadn’t I heard of this until now? The Robin Hood Tax video (feat. Bill Nighy) below is from February. Of 2010. I should really check my facebook more often. Regardless, the video’s pretty clever. Could this idea really work? Bill Gates and Warren Buffet have signed on. And a lot of smart economists too. Could this be the unifying rallying cry that OWS could finally manifest? Maybe. Is this the time? Adbusters proposes October 29th. The Robin Hood Global March. Torches and pitchforks. And our TGW masks. If this is for real, my fellow travelers, let’s make ourselves heard! Anyone in?

Click here to view the embedded video.

When I was small, this meant that I was constantly asking teachers and authority figures to clarify whether something was something I actually had to do, or whether I could maybe trust my own judgment instead. And if I chose to go with my own judgment, the consequences would be whatever they naturally happen to be, or are you implying there is some kind of enforced punishment? And what will the punishment be, in case I still want to pursue my own course of action? I mean, it’s not going to be death, right? Unless you’re threatening me with death, I might decide still to go my own way on this one.

That’s pretty much how all my interactions with authority figures have gone from the nursery up through, uh, now. I always want to know what is the price of my freedom. What will it cost me to do whatever I want at all times? I want none of your “It isn’t done!” or “You will not!” because, technically, I very much will, and if I do it, then I suppose it is done because it is done by me and I exist.

Freedom, as we all know, is hell. Conceiving of yourself as moving freely through life without anything more than a sense of easily violated cultural norms to guide you is a real pain in the ass, and can lead to depressive thoughts, or, as it was for me when I was young, suicidal ideation. Free people are responsible for themselves. Free people have no master to appeal to.

I remember my students in New York would often express their understanding of various situations in literature or in the world as manifestations of their lack of freedom, especially compared to mine. They wanted to believe that I must be from a rich family (very not true!), that I choose things on my own or make up my own ideas. Somehow they seemed caught in a loop of thinking that freedom is something that Americans are constantly aspiring to achieve, even though only a privileged few can touch. Just like they want to protect wealth and excess when they have nothing, they feel it’s their duty as un-free people to celebrate freedom when they see it in others. They’re glad someone has the right to do what they will, even if they never can. They’re glad queer people can be out now, but they’d never consider whether they might be a little bent. They’re happy we have freedom of speech, but they really don’t want anyone to hear them saying the wrong thing.

I know that part of this attitude toward authority is worse now than it was when I was 19 because of financial upheaval, the militarization of the state, increased police presence and brutality, and the insistence of the state that we love it all. At Penn Station today, there was an Amtrak-produced film playing in which various Amtrak customers talked about how calm and safe it makes them feel to be surrounded by armed police at all times. Nod along! It feels so good, right? Police sure are there to protect free speech downtown at the protests, too, right? We all feel so good knowing they’re there.

I feel like Kids These Days grew up never feeling like punishment might just be worth getting to do what you want, because the punishment was always unbearable. The reach of authority was too great. If you do what you will, you won’t just pay for it now, today, for the next week or year; you’ll be set on a totally different path of life that will lead down into death and you will always remember that this was the time that you chose to disobey. You’ll be One of Those People.

I know some of you grew up with some sense of human authority, right? So what is it that makes the idea of authority so different now?

This was a friend’s status update. It jolted me to read it. In fact, I’m not sure how he intended it, but it took me back immediately to this documentary I watched in grad school, Daddy & Papa, about gay couples adopting kids.

Now, I’ve never wanted kids. It predates any realizations about being a homo and in (what then seemed it would forever be) a difficult position w/r/t kids; in fact, it’s one of my few lifelong certainties. I pull a lot of W.C. Fields schtick about not being able to stand the little nose-pickers but the fact is, other than infants (anathema!), I’m just a little awkward with them, don’t usually know what to say to them and, okay, I don’t find them particularly interesting. But there’s no great animosity. Once in a while I like them, if they’re weird and smart.

But you get backed into things sometimes. So for instance I’m watching this documentary and one proud father explains his longing to adopt. He sits there looking at the camera, holding his partner’s hand or some shit, and says “we were just looking at the rest of our lives and thinking, what if it’s just more dinner parties and gallery openings?!” [cue: the saddest music in the world]

I like dinner parties. I don’t have a strong feeling about gallery openings, but I suddenly felt like I’d go to the wall for them. I walked out, indicted and angry about it. This is how I’ve come to be occasionally affiliated with nutcases like the “childfree” set. (If you’re not familiar, these are the people who refer to mothers as “moos” and kids as “crotch droppings,” among other terms. They’re frightful, but I’d be lying if I denied occasionally feeling more closely aligned with them than with the culture of parenting, if only because I know they don’t think of me as some soulless, dinner-party-throwing monster.)

The fact is, yes, you lose a set of guidelines for what you’re supposed to do after you settle into a career if you don’t have kids. And everybody needs new chapters, and I do think a lot of us who don’t have kids, even the ones who emphatically don’t want them, occasionally have a twinge of roadmaplessness.

I think about my parents’ lives: childhood, high school, college, graduate school, first job, first kid, second kid, by the time we were out the door and superficially independent, they were 50. That’s a lot of your life accounted for, given an outline however broad.

What’s the question I’m left with, long past the end of my proscribed outline? It’s the same question as everything else, I guess. Though it’s a bit grand for these glib ditherings, inevitably I think of Grace Paley in a little introduction she wrote, talking about a friend she had met in 1957.

After that we talked and talked for nearly forty years. Then she died. Three days before that, she said slowly, with the delicacy of an unsatisfied person with only a dozen words left, Grace, the real question is — how are we to live our lives?”