I know this sounds like basic advice,

but this is tough.

School was double trouble for me,

not only was it nonsense, but it also came with bullies.

It was dangerous, so I stopped going,

it never occurred to me to call the police.

I thought everyone was getting bullied,

I didn't even complain to the school.

I didn't complain about my bad grades in programming,

the teacher marked me down because he got angry that I was copying.

It never occurred to me to go to the principal,

the bullies were already laughing.

---

There was this short kid getting beaten up,

and I tried to push away his bully.

Who was an A student,

and an addict.

Not only did the two turn on me,

but my main bully joined in two.

I don't fight,

because that would only make me a bully.

But, when I am in danger,

everyone is going to be pushed away.

---

The fight came to an abrupt end,

as my bully was already hurt, probably from his father.

SO the teachers got around,

for the first time in five years bullying was noticed.

Except that when I got back to my classroom,

the smartest of the girls, told me that they don't want me there anymore.

Just about at the same moment,

the school shrink came in, put her hand on my shoulder and said everything is OK.

The two that originally started the fight,

begun lying that I started the fight.

I told the psychologist to grill them until they start telling the truth,

and she finally got the real story out of them.

And they got punished,

I didn't do anything wrong other than pushing my bullies away.

Each of them, including the little one tried to fight me before,

I still didn't want the little guy to get beaten up, I know what it is like.

---

Few days later, my main bully, invited college kids to teach me a lesson,

they actually came into to the school.

I did not see the kick,

he must have been standing behind me.

I didn't really get hurt,

but I stayed on the ground to be safe.

The Russian language teacher saw me down,

and didn't do anything.

When I made it to class,

the bully that invited the older boys to teach me a lesson, was laughing at me.

I think the side of my face was red from the kick,

they would have been arrested if I knew to call the police.

I am certain they had knives,

there were four to six of them, they had look outs by the stairs.

My main bully was lying that I was beating him up,

it was either because his father was abusing him.

Or because his father was teaching him to shit on other people,

he was telling his kid how to destroy me.

Since I assumed this always happens to everyone,

I was fine, a little lonely.

After the big bullies came,

it was dangerous to go back to school.

So I went the other way,

wisely.

---

I saw my main bully watching me,

waiting for the buss that goes the other way.

They were jealous, they laughed,

who knows.

---

Th first time I crossed the street to wait for the bus that goes the other way,

meant I dropped out of school.

My parents were already angry for me pushing bullies away,

after five years of taking their punches, but I didn't care.

I was not a victim,

I was a warrior.

I won every one of those fights,

by not hurting them back.

Each time they came to attack me,

I became stronger, nobler, more powerful, smarter, more independent.

Isolation didn't hurt me either,

all I ever knew was bullying, and being alone, I used to enjoy it.

---

I had a Commodore 64, and I used Simon's Basic to teach myself about pixels,

I never liked playing computer games, I still don't.

But, I kept current, with every major game release,

I carefully paid attention, to the pixels.

Souls games are my favorite, of course,

never payed them but they are each a masterpiece.

---

That where the buss took me,

it took me into the world of Pixel Art.

It was an old underground World War 2 bunker,

that was filled with Arcade Games.

If I didn't go back to school,

I would have been coding my own intros, I would have become part of the demo scene.

I would have mastered it all,

but I went back, but it took the teachers four months to catch on that I was gone.

Four amazing months,

I never had the money to play games, I would only watch others play it.

My favorites were Asterix and The Simpsons by Konami,

and Street Fighter II by Capcom.

I also enjoyed Wonder Boy,

I just think it is really neat.

---

Even after I graduated that strange place,

and went to a much nicer school bullies were there.

The older they get the creeper they become,

one kid actually freaked out, as I didn't pull my hand away, I bet he still remembers that smell.

The biggest bully there, that seemed like a normal person,

was actually a neo nazi, I wasn't scared but I kept my distance.

---

It was time to pack by that time,

I ended up in Brooklyn, NY.

And again, as I was waking back from school,

the local boxer kid, started punching me in the back of my head.

Brooklyn was my home though,

I called the police, I told them I would not press charges.

While they said they couldn't do anything,

they were all gone.

Before I moved to the state I am in now,

the bully walked by me and using the F word explained that he does not like Poles, as in polish people.

I was too scared to say anything,

but most of the polish people I knew were very cruel to me.

---

I always tried to make friends,

but, it was difficult.

The part of me that made me win every fight without fighting,

by being strong, and dignified.

Is not comfortable around people that do alcohol, drugs,

that go to bars, and live in that creepy culture of get plastered, get stoned, get laid, get wasted, lie, cheat, and steal.

I became strong, not by running away from fights,

but by not punching back, by taking the hardest path, and the easy roads are just not for me, they are frightening.

I tried to help many people in my journeys,

but help must come from within.

One time I mumbled something about helping people a decade back, at a Chinese restaurant near by,

and a lady almost yelled at me "That is not your problem, not your responsibility."

I admitted to her "I know that now.",

but before I thought we had to help each other.

I never really helped anyone get out of any trouble,

I think it was because I didn't look like a wise old man.

Nobody was listening to me,

but I tried!

---

My big advice, is to remember the Dean, the principal, the police,

don't let anybody push you around.

If you get an unfair grade,

don't just stand there like I did - go to the principal, and make yourself at home.

If you are too scared to speak, say so,

"I have trouble speaking because I am scared, please give me a moment to gather my thoughts."

If bullies come after you, you have to call the police, to help them,

the police needs to investigate their parents.

No child is born a bully, the worst of them are victims of abuse, if you get the police on it early,

then you maybe able to save your bullie's mind from permanent damage, where they stay a bully for life.

---

My last piece of advice is tough,

if you drop out, that is life telling you that you don't belong there.

See, I went back to school because I was scared of becoming homeless,

but poverty is an error, it is not meant to be your driving force.

Poverty is a mistake that Humanity didn't know it made,

poverty is not your fault.

You have to fight the errors,

you have to challenge poverty with knowledge.

Not spend your life time running away from it,

or towards some stick and carrot promotion.

If the schools fail you,

then you go to the library.

Audio Books started flourishing just about ten years ago,

this is the first time in Human history that we can really get into books, without any effort.

Don't drop out completely,

for one the kids in the back row need to understand that they are not stupid, they are just too mature to memorize garbage.

Call out the teachers,

the curriculum, write to the local newspaper.

The Deans and Principals know that schools are bullshit,

at the very least they owe you lunch.

---

If you just rise above the nonsense,

the constant memorization of noise, the overwhelming mediocrity.

Your mind will grow,

flourish.

Get your mittens on all the books about education,

mass incarceration, politics and corporate fraud, and try to figure out how everything works.

If your Biology teacher proclaims "Weed to be an herb.", like mine did,

don't just drop out like I did.

Get up, and say "Let's see what your employer has to say about that",

go to the Principles office, and face the wrath that will come from it all.

Learn to stand up for what is right,

because this is your world, by the time you are their age they will have long retired, and will care even less.

The world needs Heroes, those who stand up for truth,

and learn to find entertainment in rage and anger that is causes.

---

I didn't let years of bulling hurt me at all,

I became stronger and wiser for it.

If misfortune finds you,

rise up, back away, and forge your own path in life, aim away from mediocrity, and the easier wrong.

Misfortune, especially one that you can't help, is good training,

it will make you a ridiculously overpowered warrior, and a ridiculously cheerful one too.

Besides, the moment you rise above your troubles,

you come into the company of all the great warriors an thinkers, prophets and philosophers, dreamers and artists that came before you.

You can't allow yourself to be stressed out by broken schools and equally broken bullies,

or anything that is broken, that is not mean to drive you.

This is your life,

and you are meant to bloom towards greatness.

You must not hide or run away from broken things,

we are all meant to become great beings.

And if you become lonely, use that to your advantage too, take to the trails,

and remember what Henry said.

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach,

and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary.

I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life,

to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms..."