Hello everyone, @clayboyn here, I decided to move my coffee thoughts over to the Philosophy Trail, because most of the thoughts are philosophical in nature and fit the theme of what I want this account to be. That being said today's mug was brought to you by "some frozen Starbuck's junk that I never drink but it was free so WOOOHOOO?" If you are new to this thematic post series I'm doing, it's all about discussion and perspective, so feel free to discuss, debate, or share your views below.
Today I was thinking about the concept of bullying and how it manifested in my life and what it is ultimately about. I am sure we all have our thoughts and perspectives on what bullying is and our perceptions of the person perpetrating the actions, but as someone that has dealt with both sides of the issue and come out being a quite positive individual and I feel a much better person due to self reflection, perhaps I can shed some light through my experiences. First and foremost, I feel that bullying is all about the victim mindset, the person doing the bullying views themselves as a victim and they are attacking either verbally or physically the thing or person threatening to them. In turn I don't feel you can be a bully without being a victim in your own mind. We should avoid "counter-bullying" tactics because it perpetuates a cycle and produces more victims and bullies.
To me, the reason this issue is so hard to wipe out is because children are not self aware and depending on how introverted they are or oblivious the parents are, they grow up into adults that maintain these behaviors. The problem with "malignant" problematic behaviors is that it's almost impossible to create a self aware adult and the only way I feel that it is even remotely possible is for the individual to decide that something needs to change. To draw a comparison to psychology which plays a huge part in this, Freud could figure out "what's wrong with you" but giving you the tools to fix it is where psychiatry and or self awareness would come in. Honestly I'm not sure how much good psychiatry can even do in some of these instances because I had been to plenty of therapy and the most I was ever diagnosed with was "depression."
What is depression really though? In my mind it's more about a lack of self love than any external factor. If we're being authentic and being the type of person we know we want to be, then depression disappears under most circumstances. I think the only real exceptions to that are when we have unhealthy attachments or an unresolved fear of death/loss that manifests itself due to an external stimulus. In the end it's just better to keep in mind that everyone has to deal with issues and become self aware at their own pace. Don't allow yourself to be bullied, but don't bully someone back either. Remove yourself from the situation and then proceed however you best see fit, just don't perpetuate the cycle. The more self aware individuals we have raising more self aware children, the faster we break all of these toxic cycles in society. Namaste.