For me, the road to becoming an anarchist had many turns and twists. I started out what people refer to now as a moderate. Moderate meaning someone who takes on conservative ideas on some issues, liberal ideas on others. I was more conservative on foreign policy issues and liberal on domestic policy issues. In other words, while I thought of myself as a moderate, and was called a moderate, I was a full blown statist. So as you can imagine, becoming an anarchist is not something that happened over night. Since I discovered the ideas of liberty I have sought a way to describe my experience in simple terms, but that proved more difficult than I imagined it would be, despite the simplicity of some of the ideas (i.e. freedom means the absence of force; the state is the monopoly of force). However, I think I have found a suitable analogy.
Imagine you are poor and you stumble upon a job that requires you to wear dress shoes. Someone lends you enough money to buy whatever dress shoes you think are necessary and you begin to shop. Out of nowhere you spot the perfect pair of shoes. As you approach these shoes, you become more and more humbled by their appearance. You decide to hold them and begin to think: these shoes will be perfect for my new job. Absolutely perfect. But before you give them the automatic A, you begin to question the idea of perfection. Surely we have all heard the expression "if it seems too good to be true, it probably is." You begin to wonder if these shoes will last long, or fit right, or match your clothes in just the right way, etc. This point is crucial because it defines the point and basis on which you will make your decisions. There are some people who put the shoes back just because they seem a little too good (too good to be true), but others will try the shoes on. At first the shoes seem constricting. It may even hurt different places of your foot at first, or it may fit perfectly right off the bat. After walking in the shoes for a while, you realize that the shoe begins to conform to the shape of the foot. Your found the perfect looking shoe, tried it on, and now it is changing for comfort as well.
This has been my experience dealing with becoming an anarchist. The idea of non-aggression sounds really good, but would it actually work? Would things such as road building get done? But ultimately I took the plunge because the non-aggression principle is not about building roads or schooling children, it is about how we treat our fellow human beings. I simply could not accept the idea of legitimized aggression simply to have roads or to have schools... especially since so many other services don't require aggression.
Now that I have gotten over that barrier (the idea that it must not be too good to be true since it seems that way; it meaning the rejection of legitimized force) and have worn the shoe for a little while, I have found that it is easier to describe the ideas and think them through. The term "anarchist" is not a term that any longer sounds extreme or negative in any way.
Be that as it may, there still are some parties that I do not come right out and tell I am an anarchist the first time I meet them. Co-workers who are retired-detectives and current military members can be tricky, since teamwork and trust are so important. But that is to be expected in such a statist world. But all-in-all I am proud of my new shoes and anxious to show them off, even to my co-workers :)
