When I was little I was a gleaming diamond of a student: top of the class, charming, and popular. Back then, popularity was based on prestige, which itself was based on grades and scores, and I shared the best scores with my best friend. We were kings of the classroom, our grade was our dominion, and no one could usurp our thrones. Back then, everything seemed to go my way for the most part, and everything that didn’t I crushed under my tiny, but prideful feet. It’s funny to reminisce about it now, but when I was a child, I was a bully, an aggressive bully. There wasn’t a day when my fists didn’t feed on flesh. They were sustained by skin and bone. From what I remember, I fought constantly, even for the pettiest arguments (though as a child, no argument seems petty). When someone aggravated me, I’d pitch off my gleaming facade and bear down on them. I’d roll in the mud, tired and bloody, because of the simple fact that I thought someone was wrong. In those days, the most important thing in one’s life was the implication that you were right.

I reflect back on those times now, and I wonder what made me such a fighter. One of the reasons I’ve come to realize was most likely because, as a child, one doesn’t know how to handle the notion of being frustrated, when someone or something impedes your goal. When you’re at that age, you don’t have the skills to articulate your thoughts as well as you might like to, nor do you have the cognitive faculties to sufficiently cope with that frustration, so the only other option of solving your problems is through physical means. The fact that people gathered to cheer also didn’t help my case; being reinforced for aggressive behavior only promoted my use of it.

Aside from that notion, though, the prime reason I believe I was so aggressive as a child was because of my father’s temperament. To this day, I still describe him as a “big man with a short fuse.” His behavior around the house, around my brother and myself, acted as a model from which we learned. He also always seemed to get his way, and he did so by becoming aggressive and physical. That most likely translated to our young minds as an acceptable, and more importantly, effective means of achieving one’s ends. And even as I was engaged in a fight, I realized that the more reaction I received from my competitor, the more adrenaline I felt pumping through my veins. And to be honest, I felt a thrill and a sense of accomplishment in knowing that I could best another person with nothing but my blind rage. Hostility breeds hostility; and at an all boys’ school, classrooms were a breeding ground.

Fortunately, I grew out of that violent phase, and eventually became a person of opposite demeanor as an adult. Though I do contend that I remain an angry individual, I rarely use violent physical means to achieve my ends anymore. There are times when I reminisce fondly over the strength and ferocity I once possessed, especially when people condescend to me as if I were some sheltered rose, pampered and pomp my entirely life, but a discourse between fists doesn’t trump the rush one finds in a discourse between minds.