From: liam@alehaus.uucp (liam)
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Subject: Re: Freedom of Speech....definition
Date: Sun, 04 Oct 92 19:18:53 CDT
Organization: The Alehaus, a Brewer's Witch affiliate, alehaus@brewich.hou.tx.us

markbr%radian@natinst.com (markbr) writes:

> In article <2ACA1C06.13737@news.service.uci.edu> cortese@skid.ps.uci.edu (Jan
> >In article <3220034@hpcc01.corp.hp.com> radzy@hpcc01.corp.hp.com (Lynne Radz
> >>darsie@eecs.ucdavis.edu (Richard Darsie) writes:
> >>
> >>> often I take out my old yearbook and look at the pictures of my old
> >>> tormentors, trying to banish their influence over me, and look with
> >>> deep sadness at my own visage from those years, which positively
> >>> radiates self-hatred, and tell myself, "You're not him anymore."
> >>> Sometimes I even believe myself.
> >>
> <stuff deleted>
> >This kind of disturbs me.  When seeing myself, I've goen through "That's
> >not you" a lot.  Now, I'm doing my best to tell myself, "She didn't know
> >how to stop that, and no one else knew either.  She did her best, and
> >she tried so hard to like herself.  Finally, she suceeded."  I CAN'T
> >tell myself that that's not what I was, and not a part of me.  That
> >skinny, ugly kid with the glasses IS me, or a part of me, and I don't
> >want to turn her out in the cold any more than she already was.  She
> >deperately needs for someone to hold her and tell her that she's a good
> >person and someone loves her very much -- that's my job.
> <stuff deleted>
> >Sorry to say this; I don't want you to think I'm criticizing you or how
> >you handled what you went through.  I'm just asking you to please love
> >those sad people in your past; they need someone to love them very
> >badly.  They were hated and despised by everyone who came in contact
> >with them, including themselves.  They don't need hate and comtempt
> >from you guys, too.
> >
> >Blessings,
> >Janis 
> 
> Let me stick my $0.02 into this. I never had the kind of active dislike
> those of you that have spoken had. I'm sure it helped, that I was a) male,
> and b) the tallest, or one of the tallest kids in class, all the way through
> high school. On the other hand, I had *very* few friends (1 or two, maybe).
> Another reason I believe that I was not picked on was that there is more than
> one kind of outsider: there's the little kid in the flannel shirt (well, up 
> north, anyway), who picks their nose flagrently, and *wishes* they could be l
> the other kids. *They* get picked on. I was a rarer kind: I had no desire to
> be like the other kids. A *lot* of what they did was uninteresting. This
> attitude clearly came across. Normally, I was ignored, other than the *very*
> occasional weird reaction (the kid in high school who came up to me one day,
> and said he wanted to meet me after school (to fight). My reaction was "why,
> and why would I want to?" I didn't go to meet him, and didn't hear anything
> more about it. Of course, as I said, I didn't have much in the way of friends
> Luckily, I had books. And I lived in a city where I *could* get away from the
> turkeys (as my wife didn't and couldn't). All I think of, when I look in my
> yearbook, other than cringing at the short hair, and how *young* I looked,
> is to think that I (then) would still like & be happy to know me (now).
> 
> 	mark (the Silverdragon)
> 

        I know the feeling very well, only with not only was I tall and 
thin but I was also SMART ( a cardinal sin in school ). I talked with an  
accent (Irish to be exact) until I was about nine(it still comes out when 
I'm angy, drunk, or excited). I also was quiet(and still am, though you 
wouldn't know it by the way I ramble somtimes) and PAINFULLY shy, thus 
making myself a perfect target for a great deal of abuse. The common 
thing was to catch me in the lockeroom at gym and try to eiter a) rob me 
b) beat me or c) get me mad enough so that I would lapse into my accent 
and laugh at me until I either swung (which usually didn't happen) or 
until they got bored and tried a or b (above). they didn't go through the 
protocols of chalenging or jumping me after school ( they did it in the 
halls). I did try to defend myself (and even succeded a few times) wich 
usually got me in the office for fighting (and expelled from 5 schools).
        It seems that we live in a society that teaches it's young that  
intelligence and having felings are bad things (particularly the males) 
and people that show these "undesireable" qualities are to be set upon by 
thier piers and cast out from 
thourgh and wonder If this is the trend, then what will it be like in the 
future?  It seems that we aretaught intolerance almost from the word go 
and yet we wonder why kids today are shooting at each other over the 
color of thier shoelaces.  I look back at those days now and think about 
what some very IHMO wise people told me "people do not understand 
differences, what they don't understand they fear, what they fear they 
attempt to destroy".  WHat they were afraid of was being stupid (or at 
least looking the part) and not being superior.  I see the same thing 
happening when a woman shows any sign of having a brain or a mind of her 
own (as the ladies on the net have stated in previous posts). IMHO, the 
reason for this treatment is in a feeling of inadequecy(sp?) on the part 
of the abusive individuals in question.  In short, I think that they are 
just afraid of being shallow or stupid and in their attempts to prove 
juast how superior they are, they prove their fears beyond a shddow of a 
doubt.
                Just putting my $.02 in.
                                        Blessed Be,
                                                 Liam

------------------
%A@%n (%W)
Origin: The Alehaus -- Houston, TX -- 
     "Old witches never die....they just move in different circles"