Category Archives: To Think About

How I Learned About Bullying at an Advanced Age and What I’m Doing About It

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bullyL2810_468x350The trouble with bullying, it’s hard to identify. We picture a ring of kids taunting the girl in shabby clothes or a huge monster looming over a scared skinny boy or the superior snotty rich guy with a nasal whine belittling the scholarship teen at school.

But is teasing an acquaintance about her new haircut bullying? Threatening to rear-end the driver who cuts in front of your car when you know you’ll never follow through? How about sending a series of text messages laden with ominous warnings to your business competition?

Like nearly everyone else in this country—except the bullies—I condemned bullying; but I’d never been the target of it. Until several weeks ago. A person on my street, whom I refuse to call a “neighbor” because he isn’t neighborly, became my personal bully. How did I know?

My body’s reaction. When he came over and began to yell, storm, and swear, my instinct told me to run or hide. Since I couldn’t do either, my autonomic nervous system went into overdrive. Every muscle clenched, my breathing increased, my intestines clutched, and I could hardly speak. Many people don’t react this way, but I’ll tell you, it’s hard to take action of any kind when your body’s automatic response to conflict and fear is to shake, run, or puke.

While a number of websites and experts address bullying as only an issue in childhood, it can occur any time. Merriam-Webster defines a bully as a blustering browbeating person; especially :  one habitually cruel to others who are weaker.

What had I done to cause this? Nothing other than come down the stairs and ask a question. This particular person decided he disliked me the first time he met me, and his negativity has escalated with each contact, for reasons unknown to me. Since my immediate response to aggression is terror and guilt (think of the stereotype of a rabbit), I became the victim.

The wrong response. Experts advise you can’t make a bully like you even if you do back flips. (Although I didn’t try that, not being able to perform back flips). You must change how you respond to the bullying. In other words, amend your response. Bullying doesn’t have its desired effect if the intended victim successfully stands up to the bully. Once you have identified a bully and know what to expect from him or her, you must choose not to be a victim. Take a stand and be firm.

Easier said than done, especially in this day of random violence, instant rage, and self-obsession. The advice: the victim’s anguish, fear, and dread get in the way of a successful defense. Because bullies often choose targets who appear unable or unwilling to fight back.

I was surprised my bully has so much hostility since I look harmless, feel harmless. I’m 20 years older, 30 pounds lighter, 8 inches shorter. Maybe that’s WHY he picked me, because he knows he can lord it over me.

That’s how at a very advanced age, I finally learned about bullying. Not by observing my children or grandchildren. Not by watching news coverage. Not by reading written accounts of it. Through actual experience.

However, I knew I had to refuse to let him control my behavior. If I ducked into the house every time he made an appearance or if I stood on the sidewalk yelling obscenities at him, I would be allowing him to dictate my conduct and lifestyle. Very bad for someone who’s spent a lifetime struggling to develop personal inner strength, courage, and independence.

How did I handle this incident, other than to dwell on it ten hours a day for two weeks? I translated his name into a code name, which helped trivialize him in my mind, to an extent. I now call him Stoney. Who can be scared of an adult with that nickname ? I researched bullying on the Internet to decide if that’s what was occurring and if my ideas on handling the situation were valid. They were.

I trotted out every good result to the incident I could think of. And there were a number. First–He didn’t say “fat, f—king old bitch,” so I must have lost enough weight not to fall into that category. Since I might have contributed to the situation by failing to turn on the charm, I’ve been very careful to avoid a grouchy old lady response to the world in general. I smile and greet all neighbors whether I know them or not. I fail to snap at incompetent sales people, instead using a low soothing voice to comment.

Finally, I got a super idea for a complex, scary novel. A writer friend of mine says, “Whatever happens to you, it’s all material.” So, see, the new book’s about this woman who’s afraid of her shadow. And there’s a threatening male neighbor bullying her and making her life hell. And on the farther side of the man’s house is another neighbor who looks exactly like the first woman, but is her complete opposite. She possesses the nerve and strength to perform outrageous acts, like sabotaging his electricity and filling his gas tank with water. And then the two women go back..and…forth….in…..how……they…….deal…….

Using Your Brain and Having Fun at the Same Time: How Reading Keeps Those Gray Cells Active

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family readingI always have to chuckle up my sleeve every time someone reveals—ta da!—how reading is good for you. Readers obsessed with books have known this forever. Still people regularly conduct studies, write articles, and send information out to the world on the subject. However, one I ran across recently, “This is your brain on Jane Austen—the neuroscience of reading great literature,” drew my attention because I’m a Janeite, a fan of all things Austen. I’m in favor of anything that can be done to increase her readership.

This particular research had a special slant. Michigan State University professor Natalie Phillips, in collaboration with Stanford’s Center for Cognitive and Biological Imaging, studied readers’ brains when perusing pleasure reading and close reading. Close reading stimulates more areas of the brain than casual. So it could be that my ingesting dozens of romances as fast as my eyes can move for sheer entertainment isn’t as good for my brain as studying their plots and language in depth.

The “ah-ha” approach to brain research with its sense of discovery occurs every five years or so, especially in regard to kids and books. Since at least the 1980s, researchers have found children who are read to and familiar with books from infancy have a strong foundation, not only for learning in school, but also for personal adjustment and satisfaction. Yet we trot out statistics over and over, as if someone is arguing against us.

I guess what my father taught me to say as a tiny child is true: the ontogeny is the epitome of phylogeny. I didn’t know I was absorbing by rote Ernst Haeckel’s recapitulation theory. The history of the egg is like the history of the race. Or the development of an individual to maturity resembles the growth over time of a group. In this case, yes, society must realize over and over that reading is good for the brain and the soul just as a person can have this discovery.

There’s more. Content of the reading material affects the brain in different ways. It activates sections related to movement and touch, as if people were putting themselves into the story. Smell, taste, sight are not exempt. Fantasy like Harry Potter seems to produce neural reactions that are above and beyond those created by other narratives. Interesting that the content of the reading material affects the brain in different ways.

I’m not sure what studies have been launched in regard to pornography, but we probably already know what it activates.

Hands Off! Laissez-Faire. Not My Problem. Do We Have Collective Responsibilities for the World Around Us?

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common good house buildingRecently I was biking along a park path when Mother Nature called. I spotted a city facility nearby, so off I hopped to make a visit. After I’d done my business, good citizen and supporter of public hygiene that I am, I flushed the toilet. Not a gurgle. Tried several more time to no avail.

Noticing several men nearby at work to set up for a public event, I approached them to tell them of the problem The first and younger one said he had no phone and didn’t know how to contact a manager anyway. The second and older had a phone as well as a manager’s contact info, but he informed me, a clogged toilet was “not my responsibility.” I suggested the restroom would quickly become his responsibility when five hundred angry party-goers were forced to duck behind bushes to relieve themselves.

I’ve always felt the collective good is something we all share a responsibility for. Not that we need to do back flips to help. Neither that we interfere in someone’s private interests. But something occurring in the great wide world that affects a number of us should be an item to which we pay attention.

Years ago a friend from Eastern Europe told me one problem with communism had been that no one felt answerable for anything because they felt no ownership. The government was in charge and to blame for anything that went awry. If your apartment needed repairs, you didn’t need to arrange for them. You simply stood around and complained. Since the collective was in charge, in fact no one was in charge.

A number of religions and philosophies urge us to take shared responsibility for the common good. I have to think a cooperative approach would benefit us most of the time. While repair of a broken lav comes nowhere close to the plight of millions of refugees in Europe, still the principle seems the same. If something’s busted, fix it.

Not everyone agrees with me. Perhaps they can convince 7.6 million Syrian refugees.

What Is Real and What Is Not? Hallucinations, Creativity, and Lives Well-Lived

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I rarely read nonfictioschizophrenia-awareness-hallucination-260-70641n, believing that fiction exposes the truths about life and humans better than a scientific approach. One book I inhaled recently, though, was Hallucinations, by neurologist Oliver Sacks. While the book is fascinating on its own, illustrating the phenomenon evidently can be experienced by nearly anyone and caused by birth, injury, drugs, disease, or insomnia, I was especially intrigued by its use in writing and other creative endeavors.

When I took college philosophy and psychology classes, students continually debated the definition and reality of, well, reality. For example, how do I know that the color blue I perceive is the same color blue that you do. In short, how do we know what is real and what is not? Certainly this question slops over into religious faith. Of all the ideas of an afterlife, how can we be sure of heaven, ancestral spirits, Nirvana, or seventy-two virgins?

In short, we can’t. Scientists may have ways to measure, probe, evaluate, but absolute certainty is beyond even them. Throughout Hallucinations, Sacks reiterates the complexity of the causes of hallucinations. The impacts, however, are complex and enthralling. All our five senses can be affected. Because we interpret external sensations for our internal view of life, hallucinations can be a metaphor for all of humanity’s misinterpretations of one another and our values.

War is a prime example. No, let’s take social media as an example. Every simpleton with access to the Internet and the media delivered by it feels perfectly free to state his opinion on every matter under the sun, as rudely as he wishes. While I may believe that Trump’s opinions about immigration deserve no consideration, lots of earnest individuals seem to disagree with me.

Who’s to say who is right and who is wrong? We are able to respond only for ourselves, although we may believe otherwise. If I apply this theorem to writing, I open myself and my work to an infinity of possibilities. Alice in Wonderland, Hunger Games, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Catch-22, every work of fiction is predicated on “what if?” Frequently fantasy and imagination play a big role in creation.

Hallucinations approximate this condition. (I have difficulty distinguishing among hallucination, delusion, and illusion. All seem to be individual responses to what’s out there in the physical world, or reality, as it could be termed. So I’ll just use ‘hallucinations.”) Sacks may not have intended his volume to be a workbook for writers, but that’s one interesting application.

Even more interesting, writing is a way to share our realities. Here are some quotes from famous people that seem true to me, perhaps even real.

  • All our knowledge has its origins in our perceptions. Leonardo Da Vinci

  • There is no truth. There is only perception. Gustave Flaubert

  • We don’t see things as they are. We see things as we are. Anais Nin

Sadly, Dr. Sacks passed away recently. He left a legacy of his books, insights and thoughts. Sample them at http://www.oliversacks.com/ and http://www.newyorker.com/contributors/oliver-sacks/all/1

Is Sexism Ever Justified, Even When Trying to Combat Reverse Discrimination?

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 überarbeitete junge frauI had a woman writing prof in college who claimed women couldn’t write convincingly about male characters, but men could create female characters quite well. (Think Madame Bovary and Anna Karenina.) Since that time I’ve searched book after book with memorable characters to see if that holds true.

I’ve some resentment toward men who presume to write strong, full, sensitive ladies. Shouldn’t women be writing about women? Opportunities for women writers are limited enough as is. We’ve a harder time getting published, our incomes are less, we receive less critical acclaim. Men make up only about 35 percent of fiction readership. Despite 80 percent of sales being romances, primarily written by and about women, and most readers being female, our interests are relegated to lower importance than men’s.

So why on earth should women read a male author pretending to be a woman?

Because he’s good, damn good. I recently finish Nick Hornby’s Funny Girl. Marvelous. Perhaps best known for About a Boy, successfully translated into film, Hornby often gets mislabeled as “lad lit” or facile. These denigrations ignore his skills. His style flows with nary a hitch, allowing him to convey complex themes and concepts as tastefully as swallowing a spoonful of honey.

Then, of course, there are his female characters. In his newest book, the personas are predominantly men. But you can’t get a more appealing, thoughtful, humorous heroine than Sophie, who shows Hornby’s remarkably close attention to the traits and perspective of women. Meaning she seems to think my thoughts.

So I guess it’s time for me to get over my bias against male authors writing about females. Like any type of discrimination, to prejudge a group limits our own knowledge and enjoyment.

“When women stop reading, the novel will be dead.” British author Ian McEwan