Word of the Week #152:
I have never been too inclined towards male bonding, and only recently am I beginning to understand why that is.
Apparently, there comes a strange time in guys’ lives, between the age when they realise they are different from girls and the age that they realise they are attracted to girls. In this period, every boy decides the kind of man he will become, albeit rarely realising this at the time. Or ever.
It is around this age that boys receive a simple choice: To bully or to be bullied.
I still cannot understand why this happens. Blaming it on just the Y-chromosome feels weak and dismissive.
I was always strong enough to stop bullies, but not to stop bullying. This left me in a strange limbo, which soon, it solidified into solitude. Eventually, I grew accustomed to it.
These few years were among the loneliest of my life. And I spent them doing what every lonely kid does: I read, I watched, I observed. I learned how to understand the world around me. Oddly enough, since I was entirely alone, I grew up not caring about public perception or approval.
I knew my definition of self, and it was not a function of the people around me.
Unfortunately, the other boys that I watched seem to remain stuck in the roles they chose as children. They see the world as predators and prey, and they will do what they must to survive in their roles.
And we wonder what happened to concepts like compassion and courtesy. Compassion and cannibalism can rarely go hand-in-hand, right?
So, do you want to fix the world? I can tell you what to do: Fix the children.
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