“What if I were to die! What if I could go back to life – what eternity! And it would all be mine! I would turn every minute into an age; I would lose nothing, I would count every minute as it passed, I would not waste one!”-Prince Myshkin in The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky
It is not that we have a short space of time, but that we waste much of it. Life is long enough, and it has been given in sufficiently generous measure to allow the accomplishment of the very greatest things if the whole of it is well invested.-Seneca
When I was a member of the IMT, ‘free time’ did not exist. I noticed straight away just how much free time was afforded to me once I was no longer wasting my time and energy reading IMT articles, internal bulletins and other publications of the sect, attending branch meetings, having discussions with ‘contacts’ and new comrades, attending demonstrations and other events for the purposes of ‘intervention’, planning for and attending all of the national events that took place, attending paper sales, and all of that crap. It was like being in heaven. I had forgotten what it felt like. At long last, I could take a breather. I could think freely, without feeling any guilt. I could read what I wanted and not be reproached by angry ‘comrades’. I could entertain new ideas, question old assumptions – and without any peer pressure whatsoever. How wonderful it was. I realised then just how trapped I had been as a member of this abusive organisation, which had denied me critical thought and intellectual freedom for two and a half years.
I finally have the freedom to do all the things I could not do as a member of the IMT. I have recently been reading Dostoevsky. I re-read Demons and Crime and Punishment over the last month and I have also read Notes from Underground, and I am now working on The Idiot. Once I am done with that, I will move on to his masterpiece, The Brothers Karamazov. This is stuff I would not have gotten the time to read if I was still a member of the IMT. Indeed, the first thing I did upon leaving was to mass-order a bunch of books, mainly literature but also history books and books about political theory, in order to take advantage of my newfound freedom. Delving into literature was a wonderful means of escaping from politics. As a member of the IMT I was bombarded with political propaganda every single day. Now I could take a well-earned rest, and explore a new world. I’ve read a lot less fiction than I feel I should have, and what could be better than the classics? Dostoevsky may have been a reactionary and a renegade from revolutionary politics, but even Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin acknowledged his talents as a writer, whilst despising his overall message. (Which reminds me of Trotsky’s ridiculous claim in his History of the Russian Revolution that the cultural achievements of Tsarism were just poorer imitations of Western models, and contributed nothing essential to humanity. I know of no Soviet writer who is as esteemed as a Dostoevsky or a Turgenev.)
My challenge to everyone who is in such an organisation is this – take just a couple of weeks off. Just make up an excuse if necessary, so your comrades feel less suspicious. And take the time to reconsider your commitment, and engage in non-cult activity – to read new books, meet new people, think new thoughts. This two weeks of non-activity should be a clarifying moment, and a chance for you to break free from the organisation’s control. Their hold over you requires keeping you busy doing things for the cult, which means less time to think for yourself. Taking a short break from the organisation undermines the milieu control of the cult. In my experience, we would get paranoid if a comrade ‘disappeared’. We would wonder about whether they were trying to slink away. If they had social media, we would bombard them with messages enquiring as to their well-being and whether they could come to branch. I envy those who managed to get away.
I am so thankful to be free.
So true!