Cancer brings anarchy to life, lots of it.
It disrupts, upends and shakes you like a snow globe. It brings with it disorder, lawlessness and upheaval. It brings about mayhem, misery and messiness.
Cancer has a power that threatens, compromises, and impacts our health and well-being. It’s a power that overwhelms us and oppresses.
So, how do we respond?
When anarchy visits us, we give it back.
We rebel. We punk it out. We make mischief. We become life anarchists and we make pushing back our modus operandi.
But how do you do that when you have cancer and are undergoing treatment?
By calling its bluff, not giving up and being defiant. Yes, I know, when you are on your knees vomiting and it’s enough to just get through the next minute, how do you do that?
You carry on vomiting. You take the hits minute by minute. You keep on refusing to be beaten. You protest. You DIY.
Anarchist thoughts act as positive forces in shaping our health and well-being. Punk is anti-cancer and rejects the authority and power it has over your body.
We aren’t talking about taking to the streets to burn tyres and throw bricks at the Police. We are talking about taking to the streets and going for a walk to prove that we can still exercise during cancer rather then vegetate at home. That’s courage and tenacity.
We are talking about going to a shop, visiting the park or taking a short trip out.
That doesn’t sound very anarchistic does it? Well, believe me (and if you are going through chemo and/or radio, you will know) these seemingly ordinary everyday acts are actually little acts of resistance. They feed into a recovery and help us gain strength. They are what we might call reaching for the STARS – slow, tiny acts of resistance (Bosanquet, 2017).
Walking to the end of the street might not look punkish but when you’ve just had a gruelling 10 hours chemo treatment that has knocked all the stuffing out of you, this is a real act of rebellion.
To engage in tiny acts of resistance is what hope punks do because we are stripping cancer of its control. If you ask yourself whether this really makes a difference, yes it does. Sometimes the most radical thing you can do when you are in the thick of poisonous treatment is just to get up in the morning.
If you are knackered and you can muster the energy to make yourself a cup of tea, to most people this wouldn’t mean a thing, they’d probably laugh at the simplicity of it. But during treatments, life gets complicated and messy which is why sticking the kettle on is an anarchic act.
Doing the every day is disobedience, insubordination, subversion, and opposition because when we do nothing, cancer is winning. Cancer should not be allowed to establish itself as the status quo and it won’t if we employ resistance as a way of securing and protecting our health and well-being.
The intersection of resistance, health and power is where we beat the odds. As you start to respond to treatment and you feel more yourself, your acts of resistance can grow larger in size and you can do more. That little walk can turn into a 5 mile walk. That little trip to the shops can turn into a big trip abroad.
Self-care is the ultimate resistance.
Anarchy will be good for your soul and for your health.