How This All Got Started

***

The setting is February, 2017, in Acapulco, Mexico. My man (@larkenrose) and I sat happily on the hard tiled floor in a wide open area of the Convention Center at the Mundo Imperial Resort, and we were chatting with two extremely neat and interesting people, Lily (@lily-da-vine) and John. The reason we were all there? Anarchapulco 2017!!!

I don't even remember how the conversation started. It probably began with me ogling her neat glass-blown pipes, and then choosing which ones I was planning to purchase right then. Lily and John already had caught my interest as human beings, just for being so down-to-earth, sharp, curious, knowledgable and generally enigmatic (which is saying something when you're already surrounded by anarchists to begin with).

The conversation then proceeded into a discussion about all the things we liked about Anarchapulco (currently the world's largest anarchist conference, in Acapulco, Mexico), and then Lily began to offer what started as almost complaints (no way! smirk).

Then the conversation did something rather neat over the course of a couple hours-- between Lily, John, Larken and I, it branched into ideas for new opportunities, I noted that Lily felt there were things worth considering about the approach to the conference, and the how to reach out to more liberty individuals in the community who were looking for something that felt right to come be a part of. I realized I was watching -- in action -- the beautiful and eloquent brilliance of how human interactions lead to more creativity, and more economic/market adjustment, and therefore more connections to different types of people, which then leads to more opportunities for more ideas, and so on ad infinitum.

~Lily & John - Two awesome people -- Photo Credit: a one mister Judd Weiss~

As with anything involving a vast group of unique individuals, there are always people who will find themselves wishing the event offered an additional aspect(s) to it. That is, the universal rule of humans is that no one event or thing pleases everyone in every way. In truth, the bigger the crowd, the less that becomes possible, and that's perfectly fine. The point isn't to try to attain Heaven on Earth in a conference, though I'm game for helping make one as badass as for as many as one could get!

Sure, Anarchapulco totally fired on nearly all cylinders for me, but when I really thought about it, I understood Lily's and John's perspectives, and I also found that my mind was suddenly drumming up new ideas for things that Anarchapulco just hadn't had... yet.

{Note: Stay TUNED FOR THE END of this article where I'll mention my idea.}

The Not-Really-A-Problem Problem W/Anarchapulco

Being a conference founded and set up by decentralized-minded anarchist/voluntaryist individuals, this event does not spawn into existence in quite the traditional sense many people who have attended conferences might be used to.

As the hitherto informally-titled 'Lead Cat Herder' Nathan T. Freeman put it so eloquently,

"People think we run a conference. What we really do is throw shit at a wall and try to catch some of it on the way down."

HAHA!!! And I could say Anarchapulco had its fair share of demonstrating that --- meaning, there were slips and imperfections, but that's what I found I really liked about it. It's not really meant to be a rigid perfected thing, because it was an organic and spontaneous idea to begin with, and comes about by a lot of very different people struggling to meet their lives around one really neat event once a year, from all over the globe.

And yet,
in several other ways, it's relatively set up in a way that feels familiar to many who've attended conferences before.

Lily and John suggested that some of the things which make Anarchapulco similiar to other conferences,--such as formatting and the speaker/talks at the core of it--could in theory be done differently, and therefore offer a different kind of appeal to still more and more liberty minded people.

I found myself excited about what they had to say and they both mentioned they'd talked to many others who'd attended the conference about these things to see what they thought.

Around all of this discussion, the MASSIVE explosion and success of the STEEMIT platform had been occurring, which Lily-Da-Vine has had her own success with (as have I), and in the past months Lily and John -- along with a few other fellow anarchists and Anarchapulco attendees-- have slowly formulated a rather badass emerging idea for a festival/conference that will likely follow (but not compete with) Anarchapulco! How cool is that?

~*~

A Forking for A STEEMIT FEST too?!

Steemit has become relatively big rather quickly, and a lot of anarchists who attend Anarchapulco are also Steemians! It was only natural that the discussion came up with @Lily-Da-Vine, @ErikaHarris, and @Modprobe; Lily, John, Larken and I even discussed it a bit back in February, if memory serves.

@lily-da-vine announces the concept of it here: Steem Fest Forking: Acapulco Edition

@ModProbe wrote about the idea here: Why I Am Forking Anarchapulco

Having experienced my own successes and fun on Steemit, as well as having made a ton of new and valuable connections because of it, I couldn't be more excited about the idea of a Steemian gathering in the beautiful Acapulco which already holds such a special place in my heart.

Lily expressed to me recently that she wanted to hear any ideas I have about the concept of a Steemfest AND about the idea of an Afterpulco -- A Forking of the original Anarchapulco which was previously discussed above. BEFORE I share my own,
I want to list the other places on Steemit that either the Anarchapulco Forking OR the Aca-SteemFest have been mentioned.
Check them out below, the titles are links to their articles about this, and I gave a short blurb from the article so my readers can glimpse what it's about.

A Couple of Ideas For The Great Forking of Anarchapulco 2018!

Anarchopreneurial Track

by @LeslieStarrOhara

I attended Anarchapulco 1 and Anarchapulco 3, and I lost count of how many awesome ideas for businesses I heard. Businesses that not only held a lot of profit potential, but that also could become a powerful force for disrupting statism. A lot of these ideas came from young folks who have tons of drive, but little in the way of resources or entrepreneurial experience. At the same time, there are many people at the conference who are already seasoned entrepreneurs with three or four successful startups under their belts.

So why not put these two groups together in a loosely organized setting, with the intention of nurturing some of those ideas, and see what happens?

Open Mic Night : A Listening Lounge

by @ErikaHarris

It took me forever to find, accept and use my voice.

This is no small feat in a world that tries its best to train and restrain us. Like service dogs. Or circus seals.

But the truth is that we speak and write ourselves into existence. Our talk, and our text, becomes our reality. So our wordplay is important.

I'd like to create a warm and attentive atmosphere in which creative people can gather and express themselves: poets,
storytellers, singers, musicians, comedians.

It's a little like an open mic night... but with DEEPER LISTENING built in.
Imagine yourself inside that circle of random chairs. You are the center of our kind attention, as you share your craft for up to 10 minutes. When you're done, you rejoin the circle. You then receive another 10 minutes to either hear feedback (of how we were impacted by what you shared), and/or you tell us how you were impacted by sharing it.

Check Out Lily & John On Anarchast w/ @jeffberwick!

~How Two Anarchists Defected From the US to Mexico With $50 In Their Pockets & No Passports~

~*~

And Now For My Idea-Contribution to The Forkening: A Spread-Out Event, And A Circle-Minded Framework

One of my own thoughts about a potential switch-up from the formatting of Anarchapulco, is to take it away from just being Speaker-oriented/One Person Leading A Workshop thing--which is reminiscent of the classroom/church congregation--and having it be more of an organic design.

It occured to me there are no squares in nature. The classroom setup is often based on fitting the square. A square audience format, with a guy at the head. Anarchapulco's speaker events are in this basic structure, and I'm not complaining about it, but here is the opportunity to think beyond that a bit.

Will It Be A GOODBYE To The 'One Guy/Girl + Audience' Style, Perhaps?

The engagements in school that I always felt were more natural, were the ones where the teachers preferred to put the chairs in a big circle and have the class sort of volley the discussion equally among all the individuals.

I imagined,
instead of...

a week-long speaker/event type schedule, with ONE person on a stage talking at an audience,

there were an event with a marketplace of Ideas/Topics, and each Topic or Activity had it's own space, it's own circle or room or building for it, and anyone who wanted to discuss that topic, trade goods/service related to that topic, or teach about that topic could do so in that area.

There could be a room/building/circle for people all discussing health/food, sharing recipes, vendors selling foods, discussions arising about it, where anyone can end up having the floor to speak, depending on how the conversations go.

There could be a room/building/circle for music -- performers, vendors, creators, writers, or anything related to that.

There could be one for Philosophy.

One for Investing/Financial activities or topics.

One for Bitcoin/Cryptocurrency.

One for varied worldviews, from spiritual practices to ideas for how to live better.

One for Relationships/Love.

There wouldn't really need to be one central focal meet up point, and different planned activites could be centered around the varied Idea/Topic Circles.

This also goes along with something that many Anarchapulco-ans LOVED about Anarchapulco most of all -- myself included:

Of all the speakers, or the side events...

what was hands down the thing that MAKES ANARCHAPULCO SO MEMORABLE, for most of those who attended,

is all the conversations and discussions that occur naturally among varying groups of Voluntaryists/Anarchists who effortlessly gather at random times in random places during the week that Anarchapulco is on.

It was the experience of a bunch of minds and hearts colliding together AT THE SAME LEVEL, all able to easily communicate and share in an effective and direct way, in a more close and intimate setting than in a huge room with a couple hundred.... it was this experience that people found MOST amazing and most memorable.

That is to say, it was less about what was offered AT the event, and more about the fact that a ton of anarchists went to the same place at the same time and HUNG OUT TOGETHER!

The attempt of the Great Forkening, it seems, is to look at what people enjoy doing when hanging out in small groups with other anarchists, and incorporate the favorite things about Anarchapulco -- people connecting to do business, people connecting in life-changing discussions and activities, people of varied backgrounds learning from one another about all sorts of things, people all getting to learn about valuable projects being worked on by like-minded people, in areas of their own personal interest-- and then flinging all those things together in some region of the city of Acapulco.

The final neatest part about this idea is the whole potential that it may not be centered at one convention center or location. It may be a spread out event without one central point to it. Several mansions or homes rented out by anarchists around a certain 2 or 3 mile stretch of Acapulco, is one idea presented already, and then I incorporated my concept of each of those mansions/buildings being given an Idea/Topic as its theme -- then everyone who is interested in anything related to that subject would go in there; vendors, creators, speakers/conversationalists, etc.

Even if NONE of this is what the Great Forkening ends up looking like, I don't care! It's just neat to watch a bunch of like-minded people co-create something for the sake of connection, good work, relationship, creation and fun!!! I hope to hear from others what their thoughts are on all this.

I also cannot wait to see if/when an Acapulco Steemit-based Festival springs up. There is so much happening, and a lot of people loved Mexico and wanted more excuses to hang around there or go back. Well, here are your chances, get in on the ideas and offer to collaborate or fund these things while they're still in the early stages! We all want your help making this awesome.

~*~

From Left: Carey Wedler, Lauren Rumpler, Myself -- Anarchapulco 2017