Mental Health

So I have figured why there exist so much division in this country and probably the world and why we have the problems we are seeing reported on all too often.

When we grow up and play sports, two team leaders are randomly chosen.

Those two team leaders then pick teams from the remainder of the class.. Some pick sides because they like this person, or that or don’t like this person etc.

Where the boys are concerned, we then decide who is going to be the shirts or the skins, I liked the skins because I liked not wearing a shirt when playing sports but, your mileage may vary.

The game ensued and for the remainder of that day, or possible the week, the rivalry that existed and the winners generally taunted the losers, until there was a re-match.

My school was integrated and we had no bias between Blacks, Hispanics or any other ethnicity.  We were simply one team or another, and we all had a good time.

This was then elevated between different schools.

Each week there was a pep rally to spur on the team to victory against whatever school we were playing.

The signs posted in the school were slogans like “”Crush the insert name” or similar venue but, you get the point.  This was rather violent rhetoric for a sport.

In Football, there were injuries and some of that rhetoric I feel was carried out into the field, as there was constantly “un-sportsman like conduct.”

Here is the dichotomy between sports, and somehow making it personal.

In our PE class, most of us left our determination to defeat the other team, out on the field.  We either won or lost.  The winners got to brag for the day but they were hollow victories, as most of the class consisted of people who “had to take PE” but if it were up to them to decide, they would not.

The un-athletic kids were singled out and sometimes bullied by those that were more physical.

Sometime this was simply name calling but, often it was an easy mark for the less secure but more physically fit to elevate themselves; by pummeling the weaker kids.

The bullies were in fact, mentally challenged and made up for it by picking on, and in some cases physically injuring the weaker child, even though that weaker child may possess a superior intellect.  That intellect gets you nowhere when you are surrounded by several of your classmates, who happen to rally around the big kid, who needs to prove something to himself and prove for his physical prowess to keep the rest in line.

Not everyone is Heisman trophy material, and not everyone is suited to win a Nobel Prize for curing cancer!

Everyone has gifts and talents but,navigating our youth without becoming a psychopath or agoraphobic is key.

This week we had another mass shooting that represents a failure in our system.

While we can see that someone is physically fit, can hit a ball or run the bases, we cannot see what is going on in their heads.  We can’t see what is in their hearts and, encouraging them to “tell a teacher” if they are being bullied usually is a recipe for disaster, as the person being told on will enact revenge and; that revenge will be through his or her peers and it could be life threatening for the child being picked on.

In the animal kingdom, the weak or sickly are shunned from the pack and the predators take care of the problem.  The weak or defective become part of the circle of life.

Do we allow the weak or timid to become ostracized and bullied and take the attitude “save who you can?”

That is what we have been doing for the last 60 years that I can attest to.  Is it working?

Some of the physically weak go on to invent computers or control space craft.  Some discover a cure for diseases and some work out complex mathematical formula while not being able to move or even speak because of their infirmities.

Some of the physically weak carry a grudge, and one day when life has kicked them around as their self-esteem and lot in life is so bad, they figure out who is to blame for their lot in life “without looking into a mirror,” and they use an equalizer, a gun or other device.

The perpetrator was quoted by one of the victims. “I have been wanting to do that for a long time!”  This was after he killed a few folks, and started to kill some more. This was a ticking time bomb, much like the person who killed the news reporter and her cameraman.

It would be interesting to dig into this kids past.  Was he well thought of, could he play sports, was he a bully?

No Mr. President, we don’t have a gun problem in this country.  As much as you and the liberal left and those idiots in Hollywood want to make this a “gun problem” it is a people problem.

Some of us are simply “assholes” and we treat others badly and are not called on it.  We are not being held accountable for our actions and allowed to injure others for the shear enjoyment of watching them in anguish.  As we injure them, our “friends” egg us on, as they too are living vicariously through our actions, just like the Sunday couch potato quarterback who yells at the TV from his popcorn laden, beer stained lazy boy, at the players on the field or the referee for being blind or stupid!  Those actions to some; bring some meaning to their otherwise pathetic life.

We gather behind the team in some mob mentality, and if our team loses we may even destroy our own town in defiance of the bad calls of the referee, even though we were miles away sitting in some sports bar watching the game through a smoke filled room.

The common thread of most of these killers is they are left behind by the “system.”  “We saved the kids that we could.”

No, you failed.  Each and every life that goes through school needs to be watched for signs of either the bully or the bullied.  Neither are healthy mentally, and both should be watched and worked with so they don’t become the next in-mate, or the next mass murderer.

I also feel that Hollywood and the entertainment industry is culpable as people are desensitized to this kind of activity.

Mr. President, people are desensitized to this because it is on 250 cable channels, and if that is not enough they play realistic video games that are nothing more than training simulators for them to go and become efficient in killing, in wholesale fashion.  These kids that spend hours in a “closed door room” or their parent’s basement; playing these games must by their very nature, become mentally impaired! 

The NRA is not the problem, they are an easy target by the un-thinking idiots who want to “take action!”

Mental health is the problem, as only a sick person would commit such horrific crimes and I am amazed that this is not what we are talking about, and looking for ways to abate it.  Is this because it does not fit into an agenda?

Guns, the NRA and the 2cnd amendment are easy targets for the un-thinking among us.

Action Step!

Hire some mental health folks, place them in each and every school in this country.  Get them engaged in the process of looking for tomorrow’s mass-murderers or tomorrow inmates, and allow them to do what they do best! Bring personal accountability back into the schools.

-Best

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