Bullying: What is it?

In media today, the issue of bullying comes up at an increasingly frequent rate. Some stories similar, some stories different. There's the teen girl who committed suicide after being bullied, there's the politician who says "they're bullying me" and even representatives of a specific trade exclaiming "we feel bullied."

There are many definitions of bullying. I thought I had a good explanation when I defined my own "modes of bullying" to show how the operation changes as people grow older and the bullying evolves.

In 2002, the Norwegian goverment signed a "Manifest against bullying", which in turn prompted the Labour Inspection Authority to make a legal definition of bullying that would be somewhat managable from a monetary perspective: The work against bullying is limited to cases that occure "repeatedly and over time", and much effort is therefore also put into reactive policies.

My latest analysis of the mechanics of bullying, however, leaves me with an even simpler, psychological view: Bullying is when someone exerts physical or pschological supressive/destructive power against someone who is not likely to defend themselves. That is, if the target is someone who IS able to defend themselves and protect their physical and mental health, it is only an attempt of bullying. Whether the deed is repeated over time is irrelevant. If the target was hurt, it was bullying.

While my understanding of prophylactic psychology is limited to some books and one single lecture, I have no hestitation to state that the bully targets people who feel they have little right to be true to themselves. And by extention, the target is someone who is more dependent on external affirmation, rather than internal.

If we turn our focus to the bully, it is typically believed (I find little hard facts, so I intend to find some bullies to interview) that their behaviour is a method to feel better than others. They receive their affirmation by by-standers, "lieutenants" and the submission of the target. Similarly, "lieutenants" seek affirmation from the main bully. Indeed, there is a very thin line between bullying and crime - and often, this line is crossed.

To sum up, bullying occures between individuals who have low or non-existant internal affirmation. None of the people involved have really found "the right to be true to themselves". The roles they play in the bully game reflects the roles they have learned that statistically increase their external affirmation - up to the point that "being bullied" is an affirmation of your existance, even when it destroys you mentally and ultimately will drive you to suicide.

It is therefore clear to me, that preventive actions should be concentrated round the improvement of internal affirmation. Putting our efforts into this field would reduce the number of people who are susceptible to bullying (the bully's target-market), it would reduce the number of "lieutenants", it would reduce the bully's urge to hurt others, and more by-standers would dare to interviene.

As a bonus, I believe that average grades in school are likely to increase as well, as low internal affirmation creates mental stumbling blocks in students.
 

Je t'aime

Some songs and videos touch me especially deeply. Especially, people making people happy, people connecting in a joint project. If anything brings a tear to my eye and a smile on my face, these are my favourite videos...

Lara Fabian is taken by surprise as fans spontaneously sing "Je t'aime" back to her.

Flash mob dance on European scale - never mind our differences, let's dance. Together. As one.

Be or do?

Today's thoughts stem from a question from a science-follower about how Virgin Mary could be impregnated without intercourse, to which the obvious answer is ... irrelevant (aka artificial insemination, people do it all the time). While the power structures may claim that the birth of Jesus is very relevant, my view is that it is as irrelevant as who is the President of the United States of America.

Please, give it some thought.

What is more important? That Obama is president, or what he does whilst in his presedency?
What is more important? That Dr. Lawrence is employed at E.R., or the fact that he's saving lives whilst employed at E.R.?
What is more important? Who Jesus is/was believed to be, or what he did/taught?

All this nonsense about "the bible is false, because I can't see any way this might scientifically work out" (the same way in which space flight once a scientific impossibility) is merely taking the attention away from the things that actually matter.

While so many ask, are you who you want to be?
The real question is, are you doing what you want to be doing?

Your heart's desire

I spent the weekend driving to Sweden and back for a personal erand. During the drive, I had a chance to listen to some audio books that were long overdue to listen to. One by John Berglund titled "The emotional language", and one by Randi B Noyes titled "The art of leading yourself".

Berglund's five hour "seminar" gives great insight into the human psyche from a professional point of view. There is no doubt Berglund know what he's talking about, and the emotional system he describes is quite logical. I'll quickly sum it up like this:

Something happens, which has a meaning, which generates an emotion, which is inside of you and leads you to make a decision, which is then turned into action.

There are no negative emotions, as the word "negative" implies that "it should not have been this way". Of course it should be this way - if something blocks your way, you SHOULD feel anger, the adrenaline gives you energy to overcome the obstacle. It is not negative, it is a difficult and/or painful emotion. Therefore, if you do not want to be angry because something happened, and you can not change what happened (we are all late for the past), you must change the meaning.

Noyes has a life experience approach. Basically, she does not have Berglund's professional background, though she does make valid points about, among many things, following your heart's desire. I'm glad I listened to Berglund first, so I could avoid certain caveats that would otherwise have gone by undetected. The one question that started to bug me was "if you learned that you have one year left to live, and there was no shortage of money, what would you do? Would you keep your job?"

Interestingly, no. While I thoroughly enjoy my job, I have to admit that there is one set of things I love to plan, to try to find time for, and try to put into life: It's my travel/bicycling/writing projects. According to Noyes, then, this is what I should be doing for a living. Alas, today, it's something I spend money to be able to do, it does not actually bring any money in.

It should, however. Just by putting together a photo book from Paambi, I could theoretically get something off the ground before I start the longer writing session. I also see how I want to dive into some of the adventures uncovered during my trips and research various aspects. Who is that guy who died by the road in France? What is it about this tiny village that makes me want to return? How about staying at this unknown place for a couple of weeks to paint, take photographs and get to know people?

And as Berglund says, there is no "but", there is "and". You can't say something true and then negate it with another truth. They are both truth.

Therefore, I would love to do all this AND my current situation of being employed means I'm not able to do as much of this as I would like to. AND I have a mortgage to pay and a family to feed. If I can make each trip/project self-funding, I guess that would be an important first step.

Tzolkin origin

In my quest to have a properly synchronized Tzolkin, I find that no source I have found describing the Tzolkin calendar so far give a specific synchronization date for the first Kin of the calendar. Many date converters seem to agree on July 15th 2012 as the date for 1 Imix, the first Kin of the latest Tzolkin calendar.

However, my source for the "Spellwave" make July 20th 2012 to Kin 53, which means that Kin 1 then must be May 28th 2012, a whopping 48 days - almost one castle - earlier than the most prevalent tzolkin calendars.

Searching more for Spellwave, there really are no references on Wikipedia, and the sources do seem a little sketchy. How authentic is the Spellwave? Is it inspired by the Dreamspell, which is a newer invention related to the 13-moon calendar?

The research continues...

13 days a week

As I dive into the realm of the classic seven liberal arts, I obviously start with the end; astrology. I take this subject seriously - as in the purpose of tracking objects in space and relating them to things occuring on Earth. Let me reduce this to a more modern view: the frequency of which we observe certain things in space gives a time scale to which we may measure the frequency of things occuring on Earth. Let me reduce this one more time for you: Things tend to occure in waves, and a way to measure the wave length is by means of objects in space, which we then turn into a calendar.

So by doing these reductions, I end up with a study of calendars and the effect these may have on culture and psyche.

Example: A person is born in the "Western" zodiac of Leo. While this person might find a lot of what is written about the traits of Leo to be true, chances are that merely reading about Leo will make the person emphasize these traits about themselves. As it is repeated by everyone throughout life, it becomes part of the identity and the psyche and thus a self fulfilling prophecy.

While many will use this to prove astrology to be fantasy, it may still be a useful tool for your psyche in the same sense that the power of placebo also is a powerful tool to keep people healthy. There are many approaches to my study into astrology, yet the gateway to all is the calendar. The calendar dictates the cycles of astrology and the cycle of culture. The cycles, I'm sure, affects psyche.

Most civilizations today have adopted a 7-day week with a 5+2 or 6+1 rhythm. The calendars we put on our walls, our journals, everything related to time tends to follow this format and locks us into a 7 day rhythm. Each week is a "long tick" for our collective psyche, and we measure project time and business time through these ticks. The pace of life, so to speak, is greatly affected by the frequency of these ticks.

Imagine that these ticks were further apart. Instead of a 7 day rhythm, we adopt a 13 day rhythm, adopted from the Tzolkin Wavespell. As an experiment, there is no need to change your work schedule. Instead, work days should not be considered a part of the wave per se, but rather appointments you have made throughout your 13 day week.

The Wavespell goes a bit further: Each day "kin" (day) in the wave (week) has a specific "tone" which, when studied closely, resembles a 13 day sprint cycle, when you look at it from a software development point of view. Further, each wave has a pupose. Four of these waves make a castle (month) whose cycle also has a developmental aspect to it. Each castle also has its colour and purpose, which resembles a full five castle / 20 wave / 260 kin project cycle.

You do no need to believe that these are energies that affect our life on these specific days. Rather, by following this schedule, your life should become more orderly. The effect on society if all followed the same schedule would be tremendous.

And so, the experiment begins...