About

Your Friendly Anarchist

In a cheerful manner, I am calling myself a Friendly Anarchist because I reject the Unfriendly Domination™ we are experiencing these times in our jobs and daily life and am happily experimenting with the alternatives I can encounter and imagine.
While my personal style of anarchism has not much to do with bombs and chaos (other than ice cream bombs and the permanent chaos on my desk, that is), I think it’s time to take our lifes back and lead them the way we want, without giving all our responsibilty away to governments and employers.
In this sense, I am advocating to pursue your dreams and passions, even though it might not be the easiest way to go. The energy you receive on the way will be much bigger than the energy you spend to get started!

Friendly Anarchistic Topics
On The Friendly Anarchist, special attention will be given to the topics of working and idling beyond the 9 to 5 grind, the creative lifestyle and how to do things (un)productively. In pursuing a life full of arts, deliberate dilettantism and the combination of idleness and activity, I hope to provoke thoughts and discussions about the artificial prolongation of the industrial age way into the 21st century – and the alternatives to it. While The Friendly Anarchist is an online publication, activity within the local communities I live in will always be an important part of the project as well.

My personal background
My name is Fabian Kruse and I´m a location-independent writer, thinker, artist, activist and idler. I have been writing under different keyboard names (the pen name 2.0, I suppose) on the interwebs since 1996, almost exclusively in German.
After graduating from Latin American Studies in Cologne, Bonn and Bogotá, I somehow refused to begin taking part in the rat race. While nearly all my friends entered graduate schools, trainee programs or started working in the office, I went to the Amazon and met many friendly indians that blew tobacco into my nose and got me thinking about life. On the way I started focussing on my long-neglected passions again and began to produce new writings and pieces of art, while living and travelling frugally in different parts of Colombia, the Amazon region, and Central America.
Actually, I am living on the cheap in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia. I earn my money with web design, texts and translations while concentrating on building a sustainable, friendly anarchistic lifestyle.

Influences and inspiration
I am heavily influenced by Second Wave Idlers and Escapologists (as in Second Wave of Norwegian Black Metal, but without the violence) like Tom Hodgkinson and Robert Wringham, but also by 21st century entrepreneurs and thinkers like Chris Guillebeau, David Seah, Trent Hamm or my Unschool mentor, Jonathan Mead.

On the arts side, I primarily enjoy the paintings of Pittura metafisica, Surrealism and Expressionism, as for example Giorgio de Chirico, Max Ernst, Salvador Dalí, René Magritte, Otto Dix, and many others. I also like the bright side of concept art, represented in my opinion by artists like Bas Jan Ader or the incredibly imaginative David Horvitz. Graffiti, especially stencils are another liking of mine. (The image in my header could be used thanks to the awesome Banksy and his team. Thanks so much, guys!)

In photography, heavy influence can be found in Lomography, leading from there to a fascination with documentary and especially street photography. I also like digging around the growing cartoon, illustration, comic and zine scene that’s thriving again (at least in part thanks to the internet). Every niche interest is able to find followers now, and while it is the web that initially allows us to connect around the globe, in a next step it can lead to snail-mail exchange of creative work I really enjoy (and feel a bit cut off from now, due to living in a country of notoriously bad or way too expensive mail services…).

Get in contact
If you’re interested in the friendly anarchistic lifestyle, have a 21st century job to offer, or just want to drink a beer or two while enjoying a Caribbean sunset down at the beach, don’t hesitate to contact me. I’d love to hear from you!

Real Life: Cartagena de Indias, Colombia
Mail: fabian [funny (at) sign] friendlyanarchist.com
Twitter: @fabiankruse
Tumblr: The Friendly Anarchist Tumblog
Flickr: Blue Lies
Some Galleries: Blue Lies
Collaborative Photoblog: La Presidencia

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