End of 2023 Thoughts: The Honor System of the Schoolyard Fight

I was born in the early 1970’s.   My school years were the late 70’s and 80’s.  I claim Generation X as mine.

         Although never a good thing in any generation or time, schoolyard fights do happen. I did not get into many, but I certainly witnessed a lot, and I did have occasion to participate in a few of varying moral importance. In the schoolyard fights of my youth, there were a couple of well-known patterns that we all seemed to know by childhood osmosis. The first one, of course, was that breaking one’s glasses was a really bad thing to let happen; everyone knew that. So, to prepare for a fight, threatening a fight, or to let everyone know you were willing to fight, you would take off your glasses giving them for safe keeping to a trusted person in the spectators.  There are others which I won’t bother to detail here, but if you too are of GenX, I’m sure you can think of more.

The principle I want to write about is this:  During a fight, when one kid went down in the dirt and did not get up (either by choice or not), the fight was decided and over: the end!  It was finished. The other kid had won.  The winner could take his accolades and the “spoils” of whatever the fight was about.  Now, if the winning kid had any “decent character” in him, he would try to be somewhat humble, walk away, shut the fuck up, and let that be the end of the issue entirely.  If the kid was simply a bully or of poor character, he would kick the kid in the dirt some more or jeer at him or never let that be the end of the issue. That was a fatal flaw in the schoolyard. If a winning kid was to do that, well, he may have won the fight, but his overall standing among everyone would be greatly diminished.  Everyone knew this.  This standard applied as much to girls as it did to boys, and everyone knew that too.

Growing up I was a good kid, and like I said, I did not get into many fights.  I was more likely the kid to be bullied or picked on. I was often afraid of everyone around me. I was certainly not keen to defend myself or anyone else if I could avoid it and I shunned kid dramas as much as possible.  For many reasons, I was just trying to survive and go unnoticed by the crowd.  As I reached my 20’s and well into my 30’s, I learned to fight in my own way and discovered I rather enjoyed it.  I found I had a caustic mouth and that my pen was often more powerful than any fist I could possibly make.  I could give a lashing to the best of them without touching a soul.  Frequently, I did not care about the consequences and would fight battles both for justifiable and righteous reasons and for petty and stupid reasons.  I had a lot of pent-up schoolyard angst and other issues to work through, and it came out as a willingness to verbally fight anyone willing to spar with me.  Thankfully, I have learned how dumb and unhealthy that is.

         I have spent years carefully evaluating my values and trying to figure out what exactly is important to me and what is not.  I still do NOT have it completely figured out.  Does anyone?  I still change and think and grow every single day as I am presented with new ideas and information.  I think that’s what we are supposed to do!  However, my ideas of who and what I want to be are far more well-defined than they were in the schoolyard.

         I can still be snarky and prickly. I think I have that in common with GenX folks in general especially if you buy into the Facebook groups with names like “GenX Women Are Sick of Your Shit.”   I will be damned if I will be afraid of anyone anymore.  But I have also found all the love, light, healing, and goodness in me that was always there and that is my gift and pleasure to give to all those around me. I have discovered that fighting righteous battles for those who cannot speak or fight for themselves is a fantastic use of my big mouth and my mighty pen.  I can advocate for myself and defend myself if I need to.  I can speak truth to power.  I can advocate for others. I can defend others.  I can sometimes even make people in power re-think an idea, decision, or action.  I can sometimes create a positive change for a person or a group.  I know deep inside my heart, NO ONE will harm my children if I can in anyway prevent it or at least without a reckoning from me in some way (if my children will allow that). I know now that the bullies I witness in my daily life picking on the weak no longer need to be feared.  I can stand up to them and use my talents to rally the troops of good people around me to help defend the weak in our midst. I can use my words, verbal and written, to fight some hefty battles for some awesome and important reasons. Sometimes I win.

.

I have learned another huge concept as well: not everything needs to be fought over.  There are many, many things, that as my daughter would say, we should just “chuck it in the fuck it bucket.”  I have learned to “assume innocence” of people in a lot of situations.  I have learned that even if someone says or does something stupid, rude, insulting, or even hurtful, it most likely doesn’t have anything to do with me at all and wasn’t even intentional.  I have learned many times the fights I may want to engage in now are over things that in 10 minutes are not going to mean anything to anyone.  I have learned that I do not have the time or energy to fight every single battle that comes my way.  I have learned that sometimes even if I could “fight” a battle and win, that I need to ask a few questions: Should I fight this? Is it worth it? Do I really care? What is there to be gained? Is this going to matter in 10 minutes? 10 hours? 10 years?  I have learned that sometimes I am most powerful when I allow my love, light, healing, and goodness to shine through instead of whatever fight I may have in me.  I have learned that sometimes it is WAY better to wave the white flag, acquiesce to the person or situation, let the other person win, and simply walk away.  In other words, hit the dirt and stay down!

Do I have this balance down perfectly?

       Oh, HELL NO!!  Ask my husband!  Ask my children!  Ask anyone around me! I can mess this up multiple times in a single day. But I am way better at this then I was even 5 years ago.  I continue to work quite diligently at perfecting my discernment and judgement of situations to get it right much more often.  I am much happier and more peaceful within myself and with others because I have worked so hard at this and because I do get it right much more often. My relationships with those who matter most to me have improved.  I have more energy and time for the people and causes that are important to me.  I believe I am more genuinely myself than I have ever been in my life. That makes me proud of myself even if it makes me not the most popular or liked person in every room I walk into.   

         All should be well, but it isn’t.

         There is something that keeps gnawing at me.

         Something is not settled.

         What the hell is my problem now?

         I think I may have finally figured out what keeps nagging at me.

       Here is the crux of the issue now:

         When I wave my white flag and choose to give up and go down in the dirt, or I have truly lost a fight, why has it now become acceptable, for the “winner” to keep going with damaging, hurtful, painful, humiliating kicks to the ribs??  Why is that okay??  Why isn’t the person who does that considered to have a fatal flaw and be seen as diminished by everyone else?

         More importantly, what does the winner think I’m going to do or should do then, especially if it was by choice that I hit the dirt and stayed down??

         While reflecting on 2023 and discussing this with my husband, I came up with numerous examples of situations of this.  Some examples were insignificant and almost silly and some very significant with lasting consequences to some important relationships both for myself and for others around me.  I made a list of some of the times over the year when I found myself in a situation in which I had lost, or I had really tried to wave my white flag or lay in the dirt and let the other person have the win only to find myself being kicked a few more times.  The longer my husband and I talked, the more startled by the number of examples I could write down.

         One of the first examples happened to me at the very beginning of 2023.  I had gone to my credit union to cash a Christmas check made out to both my husband and me.  My husband had signed the check but because I was depositing it into my single account rather than a joint account the clerk was questioning whether she could do that without my husband present.  The clerk was new, and we didn’t know each other.  I was in a hurry but I’ve never had a problem doing this before.  This was annoying.  I became  frustrated.  She got frustrated. We debated and disagreed back-and-forth for a few minutes.  Eventually she became so frustrated, she ended up throwing her pen in the air and walking away to get someone else to help me.  The next clerk who came to help me deposited the check without any further discussion or issue. No big deal:  end of story.

         A couple weeks later, I went back to the credit union to cash my paycheck and purposely avoided that clerk by waiting in line until another clerk was available and going to that window instead of hers.  I just didn’t feel like seeing her or talking to her.  I just wanted to cash my check and be on my merry way.  While doing my business with the next clerk, the first clerk came over and confronted me about why I did not come to her window and let her help me. I said something like, “I just didn’t want to.” This answer was not sufficient for her. She kept asking me why I did not go to her window. I gave a couple vague half answers until I finally, literally raised my hands palm sides outward in a gesture of submission and said, “Really, it’s no big deal.  Just let it go. It’s fine. It’s all good. Just let it go.”  I was aggressively waving my white flag. I was eating mouthfuls of dirt. Please, lady, you won. Please, just walk away.  Nope!   She had to kick me a few more times.

         She kept demanding that I explain why I waited to go to another clerk.  She then brought up the previous interaction and made a comment suggesting that I had been trying to do something illegal by depositing the check into my account.  At that, I put my pen down, figuratively took my glasses off, looked her dead in the eye, and told her she needed to page her manager immediately because we were going to have a significant discussion which may or may not result in me walking out with the entire sum of all my accounts in cash and the termination of my 30-year account at that credit union.  The situation deteriorated loudly becoming quite the spectacle from there.  

         The manager did show up.  I did not terminate my account or leave with all my cash.  I was issued an apology. The clerk ended up in tears. 

         Why in the hell was that necessary?? I did not want any sort of confrontation with the clerk. I did not want to fight with her. I did not want to discuss the previous situation with her.  I told her it was no big deal and to let it go.  In my mind, she had won the situation.  If I had been left alone, I’m sure the next time I went into the credit union I would have gone to her window without a second thought and moved on with my life.  Why did she have to keep kicking me??  I experience this nonsense frequently and I see it around me constantly.

         Here is an example from someone I know:  A young woman took a new job she was very excited to get. She started the job with great enthusiasm and vigor.  It was newly created position in a large department of a huge corporation.  She is a very young woman fresh out of university and newly licensed in her field.  This was her very first job as a licensed individual.  Perhaps it was unwise of her to take her very first licensed job in a newly created position, but the employer said she could do it and had assured her there would be plenty of time, mentorship, and guidance to help her.  Within a few months, it became clear that the corporation had not thought through what they desired of this newly created position and was not prepared to give the time, mentorship, or guidance that the young woman needed to develop her skills in her field. Even worse, she was being expected to handle sensitive professional situations that a twenty-year veteran would have struggled to navigate. The corporation became increasingly critical of the young woman, and she increasingly hated her job. After hours of discussions, many tears, many feelings of failure and disappointment, the young woman decided to wave her white flag and go down in the dirt: she resigned her position.  She felt defeated.  She felt like a failure, even though she was not.  Worse yet, she was now without a much-needed job.

The big corporation then proceeded to report the young woman to her professional licensing board for possible inability to perform her professional skills safely.  Allegedly, this corporation reports all professionals to their licensing board if they do not complete their first probationary year of orientation. WHAT?!?!

         That sounds like kicking someone when they are down in the dirt to me.  Why is that necessary?  Who does that serve?  The corporation has won; it no longer had to deal with a difficult situation that it created!  The corporation no longer needed to figure out a new position that it had poorly planned prior to hiring someone and it no longer had to figure out what to do with an employee they hired but was not prepared to invest the appropriate time, orientation, and mentorship.  So, shut the fuck up, walk away, and let that be the end of the situation entirely.

         The young woman had to hire an attorney and pay a lot of money she certainly did not have to answer the charges alleged against her with her licensing board.  In the end, every single charge was completely dismissed as unfounded!  What a waste of everyone’s time, energy, and money!  All the corporation did was cause excruciating pain, humiliation, and fear to a young new professional woman.  Why isn’t the corporation viewed by everyone as having a fatal flaw and its reputation diminished???  But, it is not.

         Let me give you another personal example.  I used to drive an old and rather dilapidated van.  One of my headlights had gone out and I had the bulb replaced.  I was driving home the following evening and was pulled over by the police.  Two officers approached my van; one officer was obviously a new cop and the other was the veteran cop instructing him.  The veteran cop came to my window and informed me that I was not speeding and had not made any traffic violations. He said the reason I had been stopped was because my headlight was not working.  I was surprised and informed the officer that I had literally replaced it yesterday.  The younger officer went to the front of the van and gave the hood of the van a good thump and the light turned on.  He and I both started to laugh.  Clearly, my old decrepit headlight had a faulty wire somewhere in it of which I had been unaware.  It was obvious I had not been purposefully driving around with a burned-out headlight.  The older cop remained stoic, asked for my required paperwork which I gave him, and went back to his squad car.  When the veteran officer returned, he informed me that he was giving me a written warning about the headlight and that “I better get that fixed right away” to which I agreed with him.  The younger cop was still at the front of my van pleasantly smiling at me and making funny comments about how hitting the hood of my van had “fixed my problem for the night.”  I received a written warning which seemed a bit unnecessary to me, but I did not argue or complain, and I remained pleasant and polite.  However, the older cop could not let that be the end of the situation.  After he gave me my written warning, he proceeded to give me a lengthy and condescending lecture about the illegal nature of a very small ornament I had hanging from my rearview mirror and how he “could give” me a ticket for that and the headlight.

         Really?  Why was that necessary?  You have “won” the situation.  You are the person with the power and control.  I am not “fighting” you.  I am not arguing with you.  I am being completely cooperative and pleasant with you.  If you really want to give me a citation for either of those two issues, then do so and leave me alone.  Do you really believe it is necessary to jeer at me now and threaten me? 

  I looked toward the younger officer at the front of the van.  He no longer was smiling. In fact, he no longer would even look at me or his partner.  He was looking directly at the ground and continued to look at the ground until they left. At least in this situation, I am confident that veteran cop’s overall standing in the “schoolyard” of the police station was diminished in the mind of at least one fellow officer. 

         What is going on in these situations? Has everyone forgotten this basic honor system?  If someone goes down in the dirt, you won.  Take your accolades, shut the fuck up, walk away, and let the situation end.  Did this honor system ever even exist outside of childhood fancy?  I don’t know.

         I truly want my life to be one that is filled with love, light, healing, and goodness that is shared freely and liberally with all the people around me as much as I can possibly give. I believe that is the only thing of me that will last beyond my final breath.

This is a fundamental truth and value for my life.

         However, when I am in the dirt, I have waved my white flag, I have said I am sorry, you have won the fight, but you still decide to come at me and give me additional blasting, painful, humiliating blows to the ribs, how do you think I may be inclined to respond?   

         Well, let me tell you:

         Unfortunately, most of the time, all my love, light, healing, and goodness goes right out my ears.  This may very well be my fatal flaw.  Admittedly, I may need to work on this.

         If you have won but do not have the good character to take your win, your spoils, be a little humble, shut the fuck up, let the situation go, and walk away, then I am going to dig deep into that little girl, alone, afraid, tired, ignored and more intelligent than most of the assholes with which I am dealing. I am going to rise out of that suffocating filthy dirt to a mighty height, stature, and volume. I will unfurl my razor-sharp talons that I have hidden and protected with marigolds, sage, lavender, sweetgrass, cedar, mint, dog hair, countless books, to-do lists, dirt, leaves, basil, impatiens, scraps of yarn and thread, and crumbs from good toast with peanut butter and homemade jam.  I will take off my glasses, look you dead in the eye, and sink every one of those talons squarely and deeply into your fucking chest—–and I promise you, you will see it coming.

         Then, I will walk away, and I won’t look back.

.

Addendum:

         The first several people who read this blog before it was posted online wanted to discuss further the implications of this phenomenon.  We had discussions about how this came to be and what society or an individual could do about it.   Those were very interesting discussions.  Perhaps I will write more about those things sometime.  But, for now, these are my thoughts and all I have to say on the matter.