I haven’t got a real way in dealing better with bullies, but felt the need to write about them.

I suppose using the same methodology as ‘Dealing with Dickheads’ may work (click here to read my post Dealing with Dickheads) but bullies are a fairly different category – or are they.

The reason I was thinking about bullies, is that it is Easter Sunday and this is supposed to be a significant moment in the religious calendar – but why?  Is it significant because a man allegedly came back from the dead – or is it a better moment because bullies nailed him to a cross.  Or, is it a more significant moment because throughout history religions have been the biggest bullies.

What do bullies do – they pick on the weak.

What do religions do – they pick the weak and make them slaves….

I’m having problems deciding which is worse.  Is it better to get a quick punch in the face from a bully and hopefully move on – or get sent on a life long guilt trip and never move on.

I have been spending a few Sunday mornings with the Jehovahs Witnesses – they are very nice people.  I am fascinated by their contetion that the Bible is the ‘word’ of God and not the word of man.  I have read their stuff which apparently contains evidence.  Now being an old Detective, it would appear that their understanding of evidence differs from mine.  The evidence I see regarding the Bible is, that it is the worlds most popular book (I haven’t checked if the Harry Potter series knocked it off top spot – if it did, this would be a sadder indictment on humanity than slavery to the Bible) and it falls into a category of books that has changed humanity – for the better, sometimes I think not.

Is the Bible actually the greatest selling bully manual.  Thou shalt not, just about everything, and if thou doth do, thy arse will burn forever.  Not real up lifting stuff.  It has a few good bits and some reasonable instruction on how to get on with thy brother and thy sister (so long as thy brother doth not want to marry another brother) and about being kind to the little children.  But, aren’t these instructions the natural order of things, in that fundamentally, we want to look after each other.   Me, actually thinks not.

I recently read a book (not the Bible) called:

The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes – and Why

I read this book as I was having a discussion with a mate about the apocalypse…. as per usual.  I said I didn’t believe all these apocalypse movies where the warlords would take over the world and it would be everyman, woman and child for themselves.  So, they said read this book – and I did.

It works out that in a survival situation, if it is ‘everyman for themselves’ the majority of survivors, 90 to 100%, will die.  Yet, in a survival situation where everybody works together, they look after the weak and vulnerable and share resources, between 90 and 100% will survive (for a great example of this read about Shackleton and his arctic expedition).

However, in over 90% of survival situations, it is everyman for themselves – it is almost certain that most will die – yet this is what we choose.

Perhaps human nature is not inherently good…..?

I have been a bully most of my life – mainly because my enemies have been so insipid.  Were are the ‘men’ of today, where are the true Statesmen (read my take on this – click here) where are the ‘saviours’ that get us all to work together so that most of us survive – I think the majority of them get nailed to crosses…

We cut down tall poppies, the virtuous, the good and the generous because we can, because to stand with them is hard, but to run off and look after ourselves is easy – even though by doing so we are almost ensuring our own death.

But of course I’m not one of those people, you are not one of those people….. it is them, or they, or anybody but us.  After all we always give to charity, always let that driver cut in front of us in traffic, let that person in front of us in line, volunteer our time to those that need it, support local causes, world causes, feed the hungry and shelter the homeless – of course we do all of these things.  Bullshit.  It is me for me and don’t get in my way, I’ll get angry, I’ll actually get cross and then nail you to it.

All sounds a bit bleak doesn’t it…. yet, we celebrate the story of a guy getting nailed to a cross and then coming back to life.  We eat some chocolate eggs to celebrate this, we have a few days off work, eat fish on the Friday and chocolate on the Sunday and all drive back home in maddening traffic on the Monday where we don’t let people in and think everybody on the road is an idiot except me.

On Tuesday we don’t think of the guy on the cross anymore, we feel the weight of the chocolate we ate more than the pain of a few nails through the hands.  We listen to the media (the Merchants of Misery) and they tell us the world is the same as before.

The bullies drop bombs on civilians, push over small children in playgrounds and film the entire thing for loading up to Youtube.

So after all that, I haven’t found a way to deal with bullies.  I haven’t found a way to deal with the church or religion.  I haven’t found a way to convince and atheist there is a God or  the believers to relinquish their faith.

Maybe being a better man sometimes is not about finding ways to fix things, but just accepting them.  Maybe the best way to deal with bullies is to ensure that you are not one.