GlassRabbit's avatar

GlassRabbit

Giant hat, activate!
13 Watchers19 Deviations
4.1K
Pageviews
...and the lies we tell ourselves when we're kids.

I remember when I was a kid my parents told me to ignore the people who were bullying me and they would eventually get bored because they couldn't get a rise out of me.  Hah, what a crock.  Do your problems go away when you just ignore them?  Gee, I sure wish that my deadlines could go away just because I ignored them.  The truth is that this kind of advice just helps kids to internalize a victim mentality, that they have to just suck it up and suffer in silence until their problem goes away.  They become the ones "in the wrong" because they're not thin-skinned enough to take a little teasing from the kids at school.  But this just makes it worse because 1) the kid becomes more and more withdrawn, thus marking them out as an "other" and a ripe target for being picked on and 2) in the mind of a bully, a lack of response is a challenge to see how much more punishment the target can take before they finally snap.  By just ignoring something you make yourself even more a target because you don't resist and this sends a message that you can be pushed around with impunity.  I think this also carries on later in life as a withdrawn, introspective kid grows up into a withdrawn, introspective adult.  The more confident and outgoing people naturally and instinctively assert their will over those they see as passive or submissive.  In some cases, race can also work against you, especially for us Asian males who are stereotyped as quiet and/or submissive.

I don't blame parents though.  Much.  Parenting is hard and it's tempting to take the easy wrong over the hard right.  Oh sure, you could go the opposite direction and tell your kids that they need to take the people who are giving them problems 'round the back and lay them out but that's not really the right answer either.  I mean, how does it look if someone says some stupid shit to you and then you respond by slamming them into the dirt?  Plus, if you fight back, you become the problem because ultimately, while your tormentors did instigate the fight they did not themselves raise a hand against you.  School administrations are bureaucracies just like government agencies and they are unwilling to do anything unless somebody bleeds.  Don't believe their lies, they don't really care about you.  How could they, when they have hundreds of other little brats to worry about and what happens to one little, weak, insecure kid doesn't affect them personally?  So, already the deck is stacked against you.

What's even worse is when you start to delude yourself into going along to get along.  I remember when I was younger I used to comfort myself with the fact that I'd get a good job because I was smart and willing to do work while the rest of them were dumb jocks and they would never make it in life if they couldn't play for the NFL.  The responsibility for this little bit of idiocy lies solely with me because I didn't want to look at reality: if you're smart and willing to work you become skilled labor and labor is always a buyer's market, not a seller's.  You struggle to keep your job against the millions of people just like you who are smart and willing to work.  You're replaceable.  Meanwhile, those guys with the outgoing personalities and people skills who picked on you?  They have parleyed their way into management.  As a manager you don't have to have any real skill at the field you are managing.  You just have to be willing to make decisions and accept responsibility when those decisions turn out to be wrong...or pawn it off onto someone else.  But you know what's even worse?  When those bullies, far from being the dumb jocks you thought they were, are actually just as smart as you and end up going to elite colleges where they make friends, connections, and influence.  Well then, you'd better hope to God they're never your boss.  I guess on the bright side, it's a big world and that's not likely to happen.

Now, I know what I'm thinking - "Hey Ben, you sure spent a lot of time bitching about a problem and you don't really give a solution so what's the point?"  If you were thinking that too, you're exactly right.  I don't have a solution and I don't think that one size fits all when it comes to dealing with these kinds of problems.  I know that I was able to tough it out when I was a kid and sure, it left me withdrawn and somewhat dead emotionally, but nine years out from high school, I have never had to see the face of any one of those knuckleheads.  On the other hand, they went to Cornell, Columbia, and Yale, and went on to start their own businesses, and I joined the Army.  Go figure.  Would I do it this way again if I could go back?  Heck no!  It wasn't worth the price I had to pay.  But at this point, I don't know any other way.  Think back to Samuel L. Jackson's speech in xXx about the lion in the cage at the zoo.  Eventually he forgets what it's like to be free.  Yeah, that sounds about right.  It just took 15 years.
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In
As with many major worldwide holidays, Christmas is a time for me to look back and reflect on the year that has gone by.  So much has happened.  I will also be reflecting on New Year's Eve even though it's only like a week away.  Don't ask me why, I just do.  This year was one of both loss and gain in the Taliban Bunny household; some very kind and thoughtful friends put together a box full of Rarity-themed swag to send to me and it brings a smile to my face every time I look at it.  And hey, it's winter!  I don't need an excuse to go out and enjoy my favorite season of the year.  I have a job I can be proud of (occasionally), a car that performs well and is a joy to drive (occasionally), and ambitions for the future (occasionally).  Yes, this year has definitely a year to be thankful for and one can never be thankful enough so even though it's not Thanksgiving anymore, I'll say that I'm thankful to be me.

Sadly, it has not been all sunshine, rainbows, and lollipops.  Being in the Army is nothing if not sacrifice and even in a garrison environment, I have never been in more pain in my life.  It's not anything serious.  It hangs over me like a thundercloud and makes my everyday interactions just a little bit more difficult.  My hearing is shot to hell thanks to weeks of riding around in Bradleys and M113's, both as a driver and a passenger, and I've developed tinnitus that wasn't there before.  Missed conventions, missed opportunities, lots of things have passed me by.  I thought I wouldn't care; I never had to go home for the holidays when I was in college and I don't particularly miss home in the way that some of these corn-fed Arkansas white boys and girls do (sorry, Arkansas, I'm just quoting Black Hawk Down!) but it makes me sad when I think of all the things that I wanted to do but couldn't because of the Army.  Such is life.

Then there was my bid to try out for Special Forces, which did not go as planned.  More depressing than the knowledge that you don't have the self-discipline or heart to do it is that moment when you find out nobody else thought you could do it either.  Whether they thought it didn't suit you personality-wise or they thought you were too weak, it cuts like a knife in your gut to know that even the people you thought were your friends didn't believe in you.  It's not a question of betrayal.  This is your friends having a more honest outsider's perspective, because they know you in ways that you don't know yourself.  But that doesn't make it hurt any less.  It also brings up a bitter memory of a guy I knew back in training; he was on a Ranger contract and due to attend RASP after graduation and pretty much thought he was hot shit.  I thought he was arrogant, and he kept on encouraging me to give up.  Kept telling me that I could still be a good conventional soldier and that some people just weren't cut out for SF.

I can see that arrogant little shit laughing right now, as if he was right all along.  I can't accept that.  I can't.

But I refuse to end this on a negative note.  I mean, it's Christmas!  Christmas means drinking and making merry, and being excited for the new year!  So here's to 2015.  Here's to opportunities yet to come, because I know they are coming and I will seize them with my own two hands.  It's not the tip-of-the-spear high speed career that I had envisioned when I first joined up but I need to consider: I've been in the Army two years.  The SF guys I've met had an average of about 6 years experience in the conventional Army.  A 20-year career overall seems like short time but it's really not, in the grand scheme of things.  So for now, I'm still a medic.  I'll wait and bide my time, until I can come back with a vengeance.  If you need an IV on Christmas morning, stop by my room.  My door's open.
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In

My New Workout

3 min read
Teabee's APFT Workout - "Rebirth"

Requirements:

1-2 20lb dumbbells
Perfect Fitness Multi-Gym Pro or something similar.

Alternate between strength days and cardio days.  Sunday is a rest day.

Every day:

As many pullups as you can in the morning before work.

On strength days:

(30 second break in between)
  • 50 Hand Release Pushups
  • 50 Situps (Use the MGP if you don't have something to hold your feet)
  • 20 Bicep Curls
  • 50 Crunches
  • 20 Shoulder Presses
  • 20 Leg Raises
  • 20 Dips using the MGP (I do regular dips, the only difference is that your legs are straight out and you use your heels for balance.  Do not throw your ass down to do a dip, it's all in your arms and back)
  • 10 Pushups using the MGP (It forces you to go deeper and further down) [Yeah, it's only 10; by this point I'm pretty smoked but it's just for fun.] OR 10 Bruce Lee Situps
  • Stretch
On cardio days:
  • Without breaks (unless getting water), do 20 minutes each on the Treadmill, Bike, Elliptical, and Stair Master
  • Stretch
So I came up with this after a long chat with my good friends tavorbuckweiser, and Scarlet Nightmare about fitness and losing weight.  Although I was one of the people giving advice, it was also kind of a transformative talk for me, so I decided to put my money where my mouth is and prove that what I said was not just liquid inspiration.  I call it Rebirth because it kind of is.  For those who don't know me, I was in the process of training up to go to Special Forces Assessment and Selection.  Unfortunately, I didn't work hard enough to meet the minimum standards for the course and after months of not showing the desired improvement, I was kicked out of the SF preparation program and told to come back when I was strong enough.

That's just how it is in the Army.  You either pony up or fall by the wayside.

I don't know what happened to me after that.  Something inside of me just broke, I guess, because I found that I didn't care about anything, least of all fitness.  I became a quitter.  In a way, it was even worse than quitting at Selection because I quit before I even had the chance to really try.  So many people encouraged me, both within the community and outside of it, and I let them down.  I was deeply humiliated.  A quitter like me doesn't deserve to stand in the same company as all those great people.  So now, I think I can finally say that I'm starting to pick myself back up again and not feel sorry for myself but as Worst Pony says in the show, baby steps.

I think I can finally accept that Special Forces may not have been the life for me at this time.  Maybe it never was.  But I'll find my special talent eventually.  Nobody stays a blank flank forever.
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In

Do it, Filly #3

1 min read
A flash animation combining original content and clips from the show.  It would be set to "Whole World is Watching" by Within Temptation (with guest vocals by Dave Pirner) and be about Twilight's rise from Celestia's favorite student to Princess of Friendship with flashbacks to key episodes about the magic of friendship interspersed with ponified versions of Sharon den Adel and Dave Pirner singing.  So, in other words, a ponified version of the song's music video.
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In
I'm a huge fan of Super Robot Wars.  Not only do I love tactical RPGs, but I'm a big fan of mecha anime and the crossovers they do with the full blessing of the companies involved*.  It's wondrous to see your favorite mech's attacks animated in beautiful HD while a rendition of their theme music blasts in the background as you explode inferior enemies from other works.  It's such an exquisite feeling.  But it wasn't until the doujin game, Battle Moon Wars, came out that my mind was opened to the possibility of making a similar game for non-mecha works.  It combined the various properties created by Type-MOON to create a solid crossover TRPG that I still play to this day.

Of course, I have my own preferences for what I'd like to see in such a game.  If I were king for a day, it would go something like this:

Real:

- A Certain Magical Index
- Puella Magi Madoka Magica
- Deus Machina Demonbane (Leica Route)
- Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha
- Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's
- Read Or Die the TV
- RWBY

Super:

- A Certain Scientific Railgun
- Full Metal Panic! Fumoffu
- Kill la Kill
- Marvel Anime: Iron Man
- F-Zero: the Legend of Falcon
- Dengeki Stryker

Other:

- Hellsing Ultimate

In this game, the prevalent theme would be the conflict between magic and science, which is steadily changing the world in all sorts of (in)convenient ways which is why, incidentally, a lot of the Reals happen to be from stories that feature a lot of magic users while the Supers are more science-based.  This was intentional and part of the method of my madness.  You see, much like Real Robots, shows with magic in them tend to be based on a set of consistent rules that underpin the setting and explain much of the powers.  Stories where the characters' powers are derived from a more scientific origin tend to be a little vague on things like upper and lower limits, as well as whether such powers are common and/or plausible.  A lot of this was suggested by the setting of A Certain Magical Index, where magic is a commonplace power useable by anybody, in contrast to the Espers of scientific origin who are in many respects unique.

I also feel that the themes of a lot of these stories are highly compatible with each other; both Sayaka Miki's character arc in Madoka Magica and the story of Dengeki Stryker give two differing interpretations of what it means to be a hero while the theme of impending war between magic and science gels well with the anime adaptation of Iron Man (Iron Man commonly tries to stem the somewhat inevitable tide of weapons proliferation) and Hellsing.  Coincidentally, the rivalry between the Church of England's Hellsing organization and the Roman Catholic Church's Iscariot unit is too good to pass up when you factor in God's Right Seat and Necessarius.

The problem is that this is where my train of thought ends.  I'd love to put together some scenarios but time always seems to be an issue.  Oh well.

Unable to attend Bronycon this year.  This makes me sad.  I'm preparing for Nightmare Nights Dallas, which is after we return from a rotation at the National Training Center.  I think it's a nice reward after a full month of suck.

*The licenses to many mecha anime are owned by a few select companies in Japan, making copyright issues less painful to work through.  Also, their intellectual property laws are a little bit less labyrinthine but not much.
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In
Featured

Lies our parents tell us by GlassRabbit, journal

Christmas Reflections by GlassRabbit, journal

My New Workout by GlassRabbit, journal

Do it, Filly #3 by GlassRabbit, journal

My ideal crossover game by GlassRabbit, journal