School, Suicide & Bullying

My earliest memories of school are bland, empty of much meaning or impact. I remember per-school with my sisters? No, they were too old, but perhaps I did get taken down the block by my slightly hung over father in a little red wagon to pre-school once or twice. I was certainly told the story often enough.

Bullying and abuse did not really cross my awareness until I was in 6th or 7th grade and when it did, there was and is only hurt confusion and pain. Somehow, I knew that it was not about me. That there was no way that I could be so important in these children's lives that they would act in such a way. What is clear, its that I understood, how and why we kill. How we ignore suffering and abuse, how we contribute to suffering every day, in millions of small ways and that it is truly the darkest shadow of humanity.

Why do we hurt each other, our friends and innocent bystanders? Those who are different, often prettier, smarter, or somehow slower, more vulnerable, those of us who cry easily. We are all targets. All you
have to be is a minority, it does not matter what kind. Bullies target
minorities, and in that I mean it statistically. It's like primate
behavior, and again, defenders of abusers, (for that is what bullies
are) are both sick and likely abused themselves. If something is seen
as normal, how can it be a problem? If verbal and physical violence is
portrayed and accepted and lauded in our society, in our foreign
policy, how do we then blame our children for taking up what we have
shown them on TV, video games and how we communicate within our
families and with our friends? We start to be abusive, sarcastic and
ironic to show intimacy, and even in our sickest moments, love.

 So how does this relate to a 12 year old boy holding a stolen gun
waiting for his bullies in the bushes in a small Oregon town in 1972?
I don't really know. I just remember being scared all the time. That
still I wonder how I make it through the world seeming so calm, when
it's all there inside me. The trauma, the violence, and worse; the
earnest hatred that was so calmly expressed, ahhh there indeed is the
root of my cynicism and nihilistic hatred of humanity and life itself,
for if this is life and human society, I realized I wanted nothing to
do with it.

 And sometimes reading the papers, I wonder, has anything changed at all?