Tag Archives: loneliness

Prickly People Need Love, Too

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free hugs_edited-1

Slightly more enticing than the average guy wearing a “FREE HUGS” sign around his neck.

A couple years back, The Man took me to see some a friend perform standup comedy at a local club. One of other comedians doing a set that night was from out of town, and it might have been his first time in the desert. He tried out what was obviously a joke he had just thought of on his way into town, about the saguaro cacti and how they held their arms with a pugilistic attitude, making them all look like they wanted to fight.

He didn’t get any laughs with that joke, and I think it was because it was too easy, and it didn’t go far enough. Those of us who live here know that they don’t all look like they want to fight. Some of them do, but some of them look like they want to shake hands, reach something off a high shelf, or push people away, or hold them tenderly. A lot of them look like they want to hold you tenderly.

A lot of them look like they’re really proud to have sprouted arms that resemble genitalia, and then want to show those appendages off to you.

The point is, saguaros all have a lot of personality, in a way that can’t be said for every type of plant. They’re distinguishable, and while there are some with a particularly classic shape, no 2 are alike, and they’re easy to anthropomorphize.

Hard to hug, though.

Not impossible. But difficult.

Empathy

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Go ahead. Criticize this comic. I dare you.

Go ahead. Criticize this comic. I dare you. Your opinion means nothing to me. Unless you like it, in which case your opinion means everything.

Usually, I don’t use people’s real names in my comics out of respect for their privacy, but in this case, I feel the need to write the name. If, by some magical coincidence, that dude recognizes himself as the perpetrator and wants to apologize for the 3 years of hell through which he put my vulnerable, pre-adolescent self, he’s welcome to step up. I get that I was an annoying kid, that I was weird and a know-it-all and and a tomboy, that I dressed all wrong and didn’t comb my hair enough and had zero ability to read social cues. So you know what would have been cool, if you found me so terrible? Leaving me the hell alone. Not calling me names, not encouraging everyone else to call me names, and definitely not punching me in the face on the school bus. I can attest that it actually does not kill you to be compassionate toward people you don’t like. I do it all the time and have not yet died from it. Sometimes, if you’re really compassionate, you can offer them a few words that may actually help them become less odious. Sometimes people really don’t know what they’re doing wrong, and they could use a little help.

But we still get people like the ones in panel 6, who go around justifying their own jerkiness with circular reasoning. You know how you could stop bullying? By not being a bully. It’s so simple. If it’s not simple to you, then guess what: you are what is referred to in popular parlance as a sociopath. Unless you actually believe that you’re the only real human being in the world and other people are merely set pieces for your drama, you can reduce the amount of suffering in the world by not causing it. Don’t hurt other people to make yourself feel better.

Obviously, there are always going to be narcissists, but we have a choice. We can bow down to the tiny percentage of cruel humans out of fear that we might be singled out as the next target, or we can stand up to tyranny by protecting those who have less power, because there are actually more nice people than horrible ones, and there is power in numbers. We don’t have to fight. All it takes is a few kind, honest words. If today’s kids get anti-bullying lessons (i.e. are taught empathy and compassion) then maybe tomorrow’s adults can fix the terror of a world that wants us to believe that might makes right and that self-esteem is a zero sum game where you can only win by taking from someone else.

I’m not thin-skinned, but bullying is just another form of abuse, and like all abuse, it leaves its mark. It’s an indelible trauma. Yes, it will happen, but no, we can’t ever normalize it. The crimes of childhood have to be forgiven, because children’s brains aren’t done yet, but for adults to condone awful behavior is not forgivable.

Having grown into my dragonhood, I’m over my childhood, but I’m never to going to be over the childhoods of people who are still children. I’m never going to stop protecting people from monsters.

Dragon Comics 65

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After years of in-depth study, field observation, and careful introspection, I have begun to unravel the mystery of humans.

By coincidence, I just saw this article, which highlights some issues that simply weren’t discussed when I was a kid, regarding the challenges suffered by the gifted child, the isolation and the expectation, ways in which pull-out education can fail them, and the connection with depression. In the typical public school classroom, and even, at times, in GATE classrooms, there is little room for a certain type of eccentricity, or behavior that crosses a particular line.

Of course, these days it seems like schools are much more accepting of students who are different, but in general, there’s still a sense that public school does have a tacit goal of enforcing conformity.

I don’t think that being smart/creative/different necessarily leads to depression. It’s probably more a combination of how it feels to see the world through outsider eyes and how those who can pass as “normal” (seriously, no one is normal; just some of us have fewer weirdnesses to hide and/or do a better job of suppressing our anomalies) respond to and treat those who are different. If our culture celebrated weirdness, this article wouldn’t have been written.

When I was as student at Antioch College, hotbed of radicalism, “You’re weird,” was offered as a compliment and received as such. The response to, “You’re weird,” was, “Thank you.” A lot of people blossomed and became themselves at that time, in that place. But most folks I know, then and now, suffered tremendously at the hand of the majority in the years before college and spent our young adulthood working through it. While discussing last week’s comics with a friend, she revealed a story about how a teacher responded when she complained of being bullied that frankly horrified me; regardless of what I went through, I never had a teacher deliberately compound my suffering, or appear to enjoy it. (Although I certainly felt bullied by certain teachers at certain times, this story was simply cruel, particularly as it occurred in response to a cry for help.)

When I look at the Girl, I see a human with perhaps more humanity than is usual, a child who instantly takes the hand of a developmentally disabled kid and asks them, “Do you want to play?” even if she’s well aware that the other child isn’t capable of speech.

Most of us lack that simple kind of compassion, one that not only tells us immediately how to respond to someone who is different, but allows us to do so without any thought of shame or confusion.

From what I read, and what I see in schools, our educational system is working toward becoming kinder and more compassionate. Maybe in 20 years kids won’t be collecting these kinds of stories, holding within them a casket of pain dulled only by emotional success in adulthood. Maybe we’ll all learn to be like the Girl, there for those who need us, so accepting of our differences that we hardly even see them.