Bullies And Rebellion

I wasn't exactly a rebel as a child. Well, in a sense I was maybe. I hated cops and the government and authority and shocked my parents with my talk about anarchism. But apart from that... I tried with extreme force to fit in. Follow all the rules. Be a good boy. Do what the teacher says. What the adults demand. I was worried very much that somehow I would fail at fitting in to society.

This all changed when the bullying started (I wrote more about this elsewhere). My bullies threatened to kill me, and I thought they would (and still think they could have). I realized three things out of this. First, my good grades and good behavior won't help me here. They were worthless. Second, the whole system makes no sense. You go to school to get a good job, for the chance to be successful in life. But at the very schools you might get killed or traumatized for life by schoolyard bullies, teacher sexual abuse and so on. How paradox!
And the most important thing, "fitting in" in my situation could mean death. This was a red line I couldn't cross.

At first I tried to reason with myself to find some other way out of this. But the first sparks of rebellion were awakened in me. So I became a rebel. This, for example gave me the inner strength to get a school degree after all. I never could have gone through with it in another way. What was funny was that the everyday adults, who I hated now, like my neighbors, suddenly respected me more. "He seems so to have so much more self esteem now!". If they only knew what I thought about them.

Much later, at one of the All-Out Demolition! parties I met one of my further bullies again, and even he was pleased by the way I had become.

So rebellion does not only work, sometimes it is necessary path of life and you can't do without it.