LIFE LESSONS

BULLYING YOU ARE THE CAUSE - II

Writers are by nature voracious beings. They feed off emotions. They need drama and melodrama and comedy and tragedy and everything in-between - it's a justifiable need, for creation must be fed.

One takes in, regurgitates in the brain and then spits out the results of that regurgitation. Emotions are food, and the more of this food one consumes, the more one regurgitates and spits out in new words.

Here's the thing though: Sometimes writers are known to manufacture emotions; that is create false situations or rather bring to being certain states which will guarantee an emotional reaction, be it in a person or a group. I have been guilty of this myself.

After writing the previous piece, I held one fear: That of the piece itself generating the very thing I was arguing against. Certain writers are more voracious than others. Certain writers are more sensitive than others. And some, well they'll just grab at anything, the hunger blinding them to the fact that they are in effect stalking prey and biting off emotional chunks at every opportunity.

Writers are also competitive. Not only against the hordes of others like themselves but also with themselves. This competitiveness is healthy generally, for how can one perfect one's craft if not by comparison with and 'learning' from others?

Again, some are better writers than others. We cannot all be this wordy perfection we aspire towards and perhaps see elsewhere. Human nature being what it is, this comparison through competition often takes a nasty turn, as some writers need to bring others 'down' in order to reach higher plateaus themselves...

I am being very vague and hypothetical here. There's a reason.

Sites such as Wattpad should be 'safe spaces'. Here's where we are at our most vulnerable, for we 'expose' ourselves, we divulge our pasts, we delve into others' histories... sometimes we even 'bare all' trusting that others will be kind to our words and to our disclosures - and by default to 'our selves'.

I mean look at me. Fine example. You can delve into all the horrors I have endured, the stupid things I've done in turn, and generally gain access to my most private self. I am trusting you. I am handing over my life; the good, the bad, the ugly, and maybe, maybe at times the profound.

I am trusting that you will read, interact, perhaps gain some understanding and even learn a thing or two so you don't make the mistakes I've made. That's why I'm here.

This is not a Social Media site. This is a writer's site. Different rules should apply. Yes, we interact, comment and exchange thoughts and opinions. Yet writers and readers are supposed to unite in this 'safe space' without fear, without suspicion or dread. To my horror, I am discovering that bullying is rife here also.

Something died in me yesterday. I was speaking to young people, warning them of the dangers of online bullying, telling of my own experiences, and yes, providing some defences or at least some coping mechanisms - ones which worked for me.

Yet my article on the subject became itself a beacon, attracting both bullies and victims. Who is who? Do any of you know? There is certainly a victim and a bully, but if you go by appearance alone, or by the words exchanged, you will find it hard to call this anything other than a 'cat-fight' where two people hold grievances and these have been dragged along to here, negating the very message I have tried to convey.

You have to wonder whether either read the words. Or bothered to process them? I mean here I am speaking of the very scenario taking place below, in the comments! I am telling them both what NOT to do, yet here they are doing it! My message is nullified. My message died. And yes, something in me died also as a result.

This safe space feels no longer safe. This writers' site has become yet another social media platform, similar to the one I barely escaped from last time. As a writer, having all my private life entrusted to you, my vulnerability has grown a thousandfold.

Will this change me? Will I fear, every time I upload more of my 'private self' for your consumption? What the hell? Do I now have to have this niggling thing in the back of the mind that I am going to be responsible, be the one causing any subsequent bullying coming my way?

What is wrong with you people? Don't scour this site for your emotional binges! Don't take the words of others and manipulate them to better serve your own neediness and hunger! There's a world outside of here. Go feed there, go find your dramas and melodramas and comedies and tragedies and whatever else you devour to produce words outside of here! There are seven billion people who can satisfy your voraciousness for emotional input. Don't feed in the ground you spit out in! This is sacred ground, don't foul it with your excrement!

Compete by all means. But do so from a position of respect. Life is not vertical, as I pointed out in another piece. There is no ladder here, there is no need to claw your way up, push people off, get pushed off in turn and generally gaze up at backsides knowing others are gazing at yours with envy. The ladder has no end, get that into your heads! Get off it! Or spend a lifetime chasing an illusion, surrounded by other deluded ones, as real life takes place in linear form; in those untrodden paths and undiscovered by you wondrous places.

I feel shattered. I feel a great disappointment. I also have to watch my back. This sucks. I have to now wonder whether I would have posted my work here - had I been made aware that I am as vulnerable and open to unwittingly instigating bullying in this space too. A space I assumed 'safe' because it was populated by writers and readers... both noble callings.

I believe in the sanctity of words. I revere words. I stand in awe of those whose works make me pause and think and yes - at times point to my own inadequacies. I guess I erroneously assumed every writer feels this same reverence. My bad. I didn't factor in that others subsist on greed and see this forum as a hunting ground.

I said writers are by nature voracious beings. I stand by that. What irks me is that this voraciousness is present HERE.