Fight lets fight to prove who is better

Something long puzzling me finally seems to be getting a bit clear.

The background info would take long boring pages to describe, so I will just pick out some parts of it.

The phenomenon that never made any sense to me, yet happened at times usually "out of nowhere" always happened in a complex context of what was going on at the time. Different scenarios ongoing, different contexts, all very confusing to me.

Eventually it sifted out like something about some boys just wanted to fight. they made endless excuses to fight. "Picking a fight" was a term I heard somewhere and it fit what I was experiencing from some other boys occasionally. The thousands of specifics all could be given a lowest common denominator of they just wanted to fight me.

Never made any sense to me. The boys who did it looked like the other boys, so there was no way for me to tell which were the obnoxious ones in advance. Sometimes he would gather a bunch of other kids on the schoolyard to watch while he made words at me and then began to hit me; the other kids seemed to enjoy watching that.

Although sometimes there was no big show. I recall in San Francisco - circa 1945 - when I was nine years old and had my first pair of glasses, which my parents could barely afford, on the schoolyard I noticed a large boy quite a ways away, suddenly start running very fast in my general direction, cause unknown; but then he rammed hard into me, knocking me out and when I awoke on the pavement I found my new glasses had been smashed. I don't recall seeing that boy before or afterwards. The significant thing to me was that he was lots bigger and heavier than I was and that for unknown reason had deliberately rammed into me very hard. And my new expensive glasses, which made an amazing difference in what I could see at a distance, were shattered. Fortunately, the broken glass had not injured my eyes.

That I was always the smallest boy in the class might have had something to do with it. I suffered from asthma, and so I had to restrict my physical activities, part of it. I was ever the new kid on the block, as my father sought to find some place where my mother and I could live; both of us had severe asthma and doctors could not fix it, and the rumor was that out West there were places where asthmatics could live well. The epinephrine spray had not been invented yet, and it had not been figured out yet that the kapok in bedding, used during the war, was a cause of severe asthma; and that kapok mattresses and pillows followed us wherever we went, but not knowing that, it only seemed to mean the area was not the right area for asthmatics. So we would move elsewhere as soon as dad could get a job there. I was in and out of school after school, new friends suddenly lost forever again, over and over again. And also there ever were the strange boys who for no reason i could figure out, just had to assault me.

Near as I could figure out, they just liked to fight. And of course win, thus picking on me, the smallest boy in the class and who had no idea what fighting was about, having no siblings to learn from. And friends were not into fighting me, of course. So it was just this thing, out of the blue, some boy would suddenly pounce on me and start hitting me. Sometimes there were words just before that, some excuse for hitting me, apparently said to me but seemed more to impress the other boys and girls who gathered around.

Eventually it seemed that the purposes for picking a fight with me involved their gaining attention from their peers that way and perhaps making them afraid of him, which apparently was an advantage to him. Sometimes I noticed such boys had a cluster of boys and girls that followed him around, and was something he apparently craved.

In later years of school, I noticed that this enabled them to have intimate relations with the girls, too. Eventually I figured this provided a reproductive advantage to them; even in high school, the girls attracted to the tough boys were clearly pregnant. If the urge to assault people like me is a genetic thing, that would clearly be making more of them in the world.

Meanwhile the girls in school did not seem to notice that I existed. There were some really attractive young women in high school, that I enjoyed watching their beauty, but I did not know how to get a date with any of them. Besides, the pregnant ones clearly were involved with the tough boys. I had learned to be the automatically meek one, so the tough boys did not need to beat up on me physically any more to prove something.

I craved to interact with my peers, as they seemed to be having so much fun and I wanted some of that too; but from the beginning of schooling, I had also found out that I had no idea how to play the games they all were having fun playing. I could not "get it" about wanting to be a bit physically violent to others' bodies, nor the wanting to out-do them at something. And there were apparently complexities of invisible rules to each game, by which the others played, but at best I could only abstractly figure them out, and that part seemed useless to me.

Over the years, I learned that there was apparently a standard treatment of boys like I was. It involved getting them to take the blame for capers the boys did, sometimes "scapegoating" or "getting left holding the bag." I was trying to learn how to be friends with the others and be involved to have fun with all of them, especially with the girls; but the result over and over again was some variation of getting beat up, or cleverly getting framed for mischief they were doing. It did not prevent me from desperately wanting to be involved with them; but I learned that there was something different about me that kept me from comprehending what it was all about.

I had become adept at learning things on my own. All I had to do usually was to dig in and I would figure it out. That worked in my school classes, but not for socializing, though I assumed all I needed was more experience learning about socializing by getting involved with whatever was going on. It seemed to me that in later years the boys of the type that would for no reason assault me, were now trying to trick me, having fun at that. It was apparently their game of "outsmarting" me. Why that was important to them, was incomprehensible to me. Meanwhile, I was quite smart in schoolwork; having been in and out of so many schools as I was growing up, often in the middle of a school year, where some states were a year behind or a year in advance of the school I had just been pulled out of.

So I had lots of practice at figuring out schoolwork stuff on my own; and became called a "brain" at times. I did not understand the ego factor, the who-is-better-than-whom stuff that drove the behavior of the boys that had beat up on me over the years. I did not feel smarter than anybody else, nor want to appear that way to others; but I did like to learn things, especially science. In high school, I was tested at 750 words per minute reading with comprehension; and the day the IQ exam was given, I was sick at home with severe flu, but I dragged myself in to school to take the test, muddling my way through it despite the misery, and got a score of 120. I graduated with four majors: English, Social Studies, Science, and Math. It was not my intention to do so, it just happened that way. I was reading a book a day in addition to my school studies; most of the extra reading was in science, philosophy or science fiction, or an occasional western novel. I got elected President of the newly formed Science Club in High School, even though I had no idea as to how to lead a group. Yet still there was this occasional mischief of "trying to outsmart me" in social doings; that was easy to do because I did not understand social doings but I craved to be involved with others anyway. Thus it was easy to set up a demonstration of how some boy was "smarter" than me. This was mostly a nuisance to me; it also later seemed associated with why it was so hard for me to get a girlfriend, since the girls wanted the guys who could beat up or outsmart other boys.

"Picking a fight" seemed to be the common denominator of all these problems. The boys who "picked a fight" and then won the fight - and they usually did, because the victim rarely had an interest in fighting - got lots of attention, were very popular with their peers and especially the girls. It had advantages, for sure. But I had no capacity for such behavior. It was important for me to figure out the phenomenon, so as to hopefully be able to cope with it.

It was not until a decade or so ago, that I learned of a psychological condition called "Asperger's" that described my condition perfectly; I then realized that all my struggles of throwing myself into intensively social situations, so as to learn how to be social, would never work; I simply did not have the neurological wiring to make it work, ever. In a way, that understanding was freeing to me; I no longer had to try to "learn" to be social like all the others. I was to be a fringe person, yet always interested in what others were doing; and I was seeking other ways to demonstrate my value to others, mostly hoping to find a compatible girlfriend as a result.

So the decades of life experiences of large variation, had identified a pattern of behavior demonstrated by some of my peers, that involved "picking a fight" and then making some big show of stuff, generally harming someone else as a result. Made no sense to me, other than ultimately it got the initiators to be intimately involved with the cute girls. Eventually it trickled into my consciousness that there needed to be no other reason for it to go on, since it enabled those kind of boys to reproduce themselves, while others like me did not have the opportunity.

Simple as that. Lowest common denominator.

My seeking understanding of what was going on in the world around me, had derived that pattern, that was identifiable in a wide variety of scenarios. Including politics, I have noticed in recent decades. The identifying characteristic was always the "wanting to fight." They would find all kinds of reasons to pick a fight. "Knocking the block off of one's shoulder" was one term of it, apparently a means of declaration for such shenanigans. Even the ramming of planes into the Twin Towers seemed like "knocking the block off of the shoulder', a call of "let's fight, fight" to prove who was "better."

It still makes little sense to me, why it is so important for people to sometimes do that kind of stuff.

It was often portrayed in the comic book as I grew up; but that was obviously intended to be goofy behavior to be spectacular, keeping the reader's attention.

Anyway, the current politics here in America, off and on for many decades and even more so at the start of this millennium, seems to have a lowest common denominator of people wanting to fight. Some people are trying to get things done for the country; others are ever trying to pick a fight. Striving to interfere with what others were trying to do, is a way to instigate a "fight."

Although I know that the urge to do this "fight" instead of constructively working together to achieve mutual benefits, has no true political affiliations, currently the "GOP" seems to be almost exclusively doing this kind of activity, apparently just wanting to fight. For no apparent reason; they just want to fight. And are very practiced at fomenting irritation to others trying to get the job done, and embroiling them in a fight of some kind, thus distracting away from the task at hand - the task of helping America - and grabbing attention to themselves. They seemed to have been somehow hired by some of the super wealthy, to take over government so as to reduce the taxes on the profits of the super-wealthy corporations; simple as that. Thus the present GOP seems to be merely hired mercenaries brought in to fight. And the Democrats who are trying to help America per those who elected them to do the job, are too often caught up in this fighting thing instead of being able to get the job done for America. The GOP has not always been that way; in the past, they have been able to do a good job of guiding America. But nowadays, it seems to me that they are just sunk into this "picking a fight" thing.

In other words, they like to fight. they don't like to build or learn about nature to help restore nature or advance civilization; they only want to fight, to tear down.

And like the kids on the schoolyards, all that fighting stuff gets lots of other people to gather around and admire the ones picking on and doing the abuse of someone. And in later years, the assaulters usually would first work to spread rumors that their intended victim was an abuser, and therefore the proclaimer would be a hero by beating up on the victim. Quite a clever technique, to keep people from realizing who were the actual abusive ones.

Part of such groups under the control of those who crave fighting, is that their members do not dare think on their own, or at least dare not vote any other way other than the way demanded by their fighting leaders. Thus they vote as a block, no matter the cause. And nowadays it seems to generally be with the intent to tear down the Democrats, so as to then take the helm of the country, like they did from 2000 to 2008. And look what they did then; what actually happened, nevermind the fluff and show. Always with excuses, of course. Got to have two major unwinnable wars with those who could not attack us in return, for example. Wars are apparently great fun for those who crave to fight. Although those in Congress are not those who have to go slog in the dust and dodge bullets; but they like to get lots of attention thereby. Fabricate cause for widespread fear, then go spend the nation's money to go bash somewhere, shifting huge moneys to war corporations and it all going with little financial accountability - who dares interfere with the nation's security by investigating where the money goes? Easy setup for endless scams.

So the bottom line is the identifying of those who have the motto of "fight lets fight to prove who is better" instead of "let's build together that which will help all of us."

It is a phenomenon where a few folks are striving to rip off the others, for the exclusive benefit of those few; thus gathering around lots of admirers hoping to get some of the fallout from the action. And it goes on without restraint, due to the craving of large parts of the population, to watch the drama of others fighting, taught such as in assaultive sports games.

The key to the understanding of it all, may well be, instead of the apparent obvious, actually instead is the unseen unidentified third party: those to whom are being proved who is better-than whom.

Although in the earlier background, fighting was about bushwhacking someone to rob them and take their mate away, long ago; nowadays such as in Congress, "fighting" is really about proving who is "better," to those who are watching. Generally, that has the same overall result as in the earlier reason for "fighting:" to rob them and take their mate away, so as to out-reproduce them to take over the next generation.

Walruses do it, whales do it, wolves do it, cattle do it, elephants do it, some monkeys do it too. "So," as it is said, "what's new?"