From: markbr%radian@natinst.com (markbr)
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Subject: Re: Freedom of Speech....definition
Date: 2 Oct 92 18:05:55 GMT
Organization: Radian Corporation, Austin, Texas

In article <2ACA1C06.13737@news.service.uci.edu> cortese@skid.ps.uci.edu (Janis Maria Cortese) writes:
>In article <3220034@hpcc01.corp.hp.com> radzy@hpcc01.corp.hp.com (Lynne Radzykewycz) writes:
>>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 like
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)
Newsgroups: alt.pagan