Hobgoblin_of_Stillwater
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User ID: 2108
Hobgoblin_of_Stillwater
11mo ago
The word is "
Hobgoblin_of_Stillwater
9mo ago
I listen to music if I'm doing some otherwise rote, mentally unengaging task, such as transcribing text from paper. I'm pretty sure music is distracting when I'm trying to do something that requires focus. The exception, however, is digital drawing; I always listen to music while drawing, and find it's actually an important part of the process.
I have been trying to appreciate music more, as well, by closing my eyes and making an effort to closely listen to entire albums without thinking about anything else. It's an interesting experience, to be sure.
Hobgoblin_of_Stillwater
10mo ago
That may be!
However, that one social media posting isn't the only evidence I have. Let me provide some additional context.
During my time in school, when I confided in my homeroom teacher about the bullying, she offered the same perspective that I am presenting now: "Perhaps they just want to be your friends."
At that time, as a socially clueless kid, I couldn't comprehend what I was hearing. My model for human relations was simple: All human relations can be neatly separated into "friends" and "enemies". If someone wants to be your friend, they are kind to you and do fun things with you. If someone is picking on you, they are your enemy who wants you to suffer. Viewed within this framework, my teacher's words were blatantly absurd. I had no idea how to understand that, so I concluded that she was my enemy as well, trying to gaslight me into silence to avoid having to deal with me; this was the only explanation that fit into my model.
She wasn't the only one who told me that, though. My father had an anecdote to share: "there was this one guy who always picked on me, but when one day someone else tried to hurt me, he was my fiercest defender, and in the end he became my friend." This too didn't fit into my model, so... well, I couldn't exactly accuse my father of gaslighting me, so I just kinda... ignored it.
In retrospect, though, I think it's likely that both my teacher and my father were right.
Hobgoblin_of_Stillwater
11mo ago
Basically every live-action series, as I don't watch them at all. So: The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, CSI, Stranger Things, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Black Mirror...
Most modern Western cartoons, such as: that one with the crystal lesbians, Loud House, Gravity Falls...
Video games: Mass Effect, The Last of Us, Life is Strange, Dark Souls, Resident Evil, Doom (2016)...
Hobgoblin_of_Stillwater
11mo ago
Question about forgotten essay:
I remember coming across writings on Africa somewhere online, a year or two ago. I'm not sure if this was a single essay, or two different essays, but I remember two striking fragments:
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A description of a group of African laborers waiting (for work, or for the bus? I do not remember). The author was struck by the way these laborers could spend huge swathes of the day just waiting and doing literally nothing, save for moving themselves to stay in the shadow.
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A description of a horrifically poor African village, where the sun heat was so exhausting that the inhabitants could just barely put in enough work in the fields every day to feed themselves, and spent the rest of the day lying listlessly in their huts.
I think the same essay (or another on the same website?) also had a discussion on why African countries have so often degraded into dictatorships.
Does anyone remember what I may be talking about?
Hobgoblin_of_Stillwater
9mo ago
Back when I was in elementary school, I distinctly recall answering this assignment with "I want to be a brave special forces soldier, fighting mutants to save humanity." What can I say, there was that one computer game I had really loved... My teacher responded with an angry note: "Don't kid around, give a serious answer." Well, that was my serious answer! Okay, humanity-threatening mutants might not exist, but that little detail aside, that was my dream job all the same.
As I grew older, I wanted to be a video game journalist. As far as I knew, they had the best job ever: they played awesome games all day, occasionally got up to hilarious banter with their fellow journalists, and had fans sending them letters and hanging on their every word. I even started a personal project to play every notable video game in history, so that I could rightfully claim the title of "the most historically knowledgeable gaming journalist ever!". Let's just say I grew out of this dream over time...
I'd say (based on my own experiences, as both a bullying victim and a bully) that this contempt is not even a necessary element. It's perfectly possible for a kid to gladly participate in tormenting the class's punching bag - not because the kid feels any malice towards them, but simply because it's one of the many fun things to do with your in-group, akin to sharing an inside joke. The notion that the punching bag is actually suffering doesn't really... cross the kid's mind; the kid might not even realize he's being a bully.
In fact: Bizarre as it sounds, it is possible for a bully to torment the nerd mercilessly... and, simultaneously, want to be friends with him, wondering why the nerd remains withdrawn.
Let me share a personal anecdote: For some years, I attended a school in which I was mercilessly bullied, by pretty much every boy in my class. We're talking things like tossing my clothes into the trash - things that might not warrant calling the police, but definitely cross the line of casually teasing your friends. Shortly after graduating, I found a social media site where my former classmates were commingling and chatting with each other. Out of morbid curiosity, I looked at what they were saying about me, and what I saw was this:
"A" and "B" were two of the people who had bullied me the hardest. Apparently, what I regarded as merciless torment, they regarded as harmless roughhousing! It was hard for me to believe, actually; it seemed remarkably clueless of them. However... upon reflection, I had to admit: at other times in my life, I had been involved in bullying other people, and somehow hadn't realized what I was doing until much later. I guess the bottom line is: kids can be really, really oblivious sometimes.
By the way, although ImpassionaTwo's argument is largely weak and hardly worth debating, there is one valid point they make:
The nerd's limited social awareness renders him more susceptible to bullying, not just because his awkward behavior makes him a prime target for becoming the class punching bag, but also because he's unable to truly understand what is going on. The things I said above - that bullies aren't necessarily sociopathic sadists; that otherwise friendly and well-adjusted people may still bully others, and may even feel amicable towards the very same people they're tormenting - are unfathomable to a nerd who operates under a simplistic, strictly rational model of human behavior. And so, the nerd suffers under what he sees as inexplicable malice - unaware that his tormentors may be simply clueless, socially awkward in their own way, and not merely implacably evil.
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