The World Is F'cked, Ladies and Gentlemen

The bully in the playground becomes the bully in the country and the bully in the world

This is not a polite essay. It is not for the faint-hearted or for those seeking comfort in soft-spoken truths. “The World Is F’cked, Ladies and Gentlemen” is a visceral, unapologetic confrontation with the societal rot that masquerades as civility. It is a cry against hypocrisy, a lament for lost courage, and a rallying call for awareness. Through deeply personal experience, political reflection, and cultural critique, this piece unearths the bullies in boardrooms, parliaments, and within ourselves — and dares to ask: how long will we keep pretending before we wake up? So here we go!

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Yes, I’m starting harshly.
Why? Because I’m done with hypocrisy.

When you spend years in places where people hide rudeness behind poker faces and pursed lips — where entitlement seeps from every pore like a slow, toxic gas — eventually, the stories you used to tell yourself to excuse their behavior stop working. You see them for what they are.
Most of the time?
Bullies. The bullies.

If you’re still reading, hear me out.

THE FIRST BULLY

The first bully I met abroad wore a suit.
Polished, Italian-looking shoes. Tight trousers (well, they were the style back then), and a jacket that said “I'm important” in that self-conscious way some people dress for the office. His white shirt was spotless. He had a rugby player’s build — think Rooney. If I’d seen him outside work, the word that would’ve come to mind was “thug.”

But this one had a degree. He’d passed through the gates of university, entered the civil service, and begun his climb up the greasy pole — which suited him, really, because everything about him felt slick. He knew how to kiss the right asses, and he didn’t even flinch while doing it.

He was an office bully. I have no doubt he was a playground bully, too. It was in his bones. And without proper guidance growing up, he just kept going — same behaviour, different battleground.

IS ARMY THE SOLUTION FOR BULLIES?

For men like this, I sometimes think the army would’ve been the right place. Not because bullying should be rewarded, but because under the right leadership, the raw force inside that behaviour might be redirected. Masculinity — true masculinity — could be channeled into something better.
Cowardice hides behind bullying. But courage, when called forth, can turn even the most toxic habits into tools for strength and service.

This was just the beginning.
Because once you see one bully, you start to see them everywhere.

The most obvious ones?
They sat at the top. Politicians — the kind who broadcast authority not through wisdom, but through domination.

THE BULLY AND THE POTS

Funnily enough, the man in power at the time had the same build as my office bully — stocky, street-fighter posture, and a way of speaking that could slice or seduce, depending on what the room demanded. He didn’t need fists. He had language. And he used it masterfully — to coerce, to shame, to pressure people into submission.

He bullied an entire nation into obedience.
Into injections, into isolation, into turning against one another.
He turned suspicion into virtue.
Snitching became a civic duty. Banging pots became theatre for the “common good.” And if you didn’t comply? You were cast as the enemy.

Brutality and coercion, masked as moral duty, became our daily bread. And once that kind of bully is let out of the bottle — whether he or she wears a suit, a smile, or even high heels — they don’t go back in.

Don’t be fooled by charm. Or softness.
Bullies wear all kinds of clothes — and some of them walk tall in stilettos.
Gender doesn’t change the game. Entitlement does.

EU LEADERSHIP

I see it now, I see it in many places but I will talk about EU. So yes I see it in the EU leadership, and honestly, I cringe.
I cringe at how low we've sunk. Where are the orators of the past?

None of them were perfect — far from it.
But at least there was passion. At least there was presence. At least there was the courage to speak from the gut, the heart, the soul — and not just from a memo or a media briefing.

Where is a Nicolae Iorga, with his intellectual fire and love for the Romanian spirit?
Where is a Churchill, who, despite all the controversies, could ignite a nation with a single sentence?
Where is a Mandela, who turned decades of suffering into wisdom and forgiveness, not spite?
Where is an Adrian Păunescu, roaring through poetry and music and protest, unsettling both dictators and apathy?
Where is Václav Havel, a playwright who used words as weapons of light in a system of darkness?
Where is De Gaulle, who stood like a mountain for national dignity?
Where is Martin Luther King Jr., who painted dreams with syllables?
Even Kennedy, flawed and groomed for legacy, at least could inspire — because he believed in ideas.

WELCOME TO THE NOW

Now?
We have carefully programmed mediocrity, performing empathy like a role in a second-rate play, mouthing concern with dead eyes and curated soundbites, while entire regions slide into chaos.

Now we have PR-trained figures — not leaders — playing to polls and market research, not to people’s hearts or the weight of history.
We have bullying wrapped in polished smiles, managed by spin doctors who no longer bother to pretend they’re not manipulating.
We have fear, fear, and more fear — algorithmically tailored and injected like venom, slowly, relentlessly, until the body politic is numb.

They don’t guide. They engineer. They design their speeches to anaesthetise, not awaken. And they succeed. They win by turning people into tired, anxious, confused followers. Brainwashed. Exhausted. And eventually — cannon fodder. Carne de tun.

Not for causes rooted in justice, dignity, survival — but for wars ignited by arrogance, ignorance, old greed in new clothing, and the recycled poison of religion used as justification for mass murder.

And then, the anger that’s been fermenting — not channelled, not given voice — it explodes sideways. Not upward, not where the power lies. No. Sideways.
At those who are “different,” who are easy to isolate and blame.

IT STARTS WITH WORDS

Because that’s how it starts.
Not with bullets. With words.
“Cockroaches.”
“Vermin.”
“Subhumans.”
New versions of old hatreds are always just waiting backstage.
It begins with a sneer, a whisper, a smear campaign — and then moves into fists, weapons, sanctioned violence.
And once it’s done, once the rage has been performed and the scapegoats punished —
They’ll go home.
They’ll drink a beer.
They’ll chant at a football match.
They’ll flip sausages at a barbecue.
They’ll bow their heads for a quick prayer.

And the cycle will start again.

SELF LOVE SELF LOVE LA LA LA LA

And still, I am stunned — stunned — at the level of hypocrisy we drown in.
All the slogans. The posters. The influencers preaching:
“Love, love, love.”
“Self-love.”
“Peace.”
“We are one.”
Dollops of love. Served cold. Or hot. With a side of performance.

We are one — sure.
As long as we belong to the same tribe.
As long as we repeat the same script, play the same game, agree to the same silences.
Step outside of that?
Then you’re out.
To hell with you.

How easy it is to look at the bully — in your office, on your TV, in your government — and stay silent.
How easy to mimic their language, to laugh at their jokes, to echo their cruelty without even realising that something in you has withered.
How easy to accept the propaganda because thinking hurts, and standing alone hurts more.

Maybe — just maybe — the quiet one, the strange one, the one who resists, has a point.
Maybe they see something worth seeing.
Maybe they deserve not agreement, but space.
The right to speak, to stay different, to remain human.

Because when bullying becomes culture —
When cruelty is camouflaged as pragmatism, or “the way things work” —
When silence is rewarded, and questions are punished —
It doesn’t die.

It thrives.
It adapts.
It becomes a way of being.

And then, the soul of a society is slowly, methodically, replaced by a hollow shell
Shiny, smiling, and dead inside.

DEAD INSIDE? WHO CARES?

Dead inside?
Who cares — as long as there’s another bottle of beer to drink,
another football match to shout at,
another overpriced retreat to “find ourselves,”
another yoga destination to Instagram on the flight home,
another all-inclusive holiday where we studiously avoid anything remotely local,
another mega concert where we lose our voices but not our silence where it matters,
another exotic destination to disrespect and drain,
another sacred relic to trample on with our selfie sticks,
another patch of green replaced by tarmac because god forbid our cars get dusty,
another cruise ship to float on while pretending we’re someone we’re not,
another illusion to buy, wear, flaunt, and toss away before the next one comes in fashion.

It’s all fine.
It’s all “normal.”
It’s all good.
Until it’s not.

Until it affects us.
Until the discomfort reaches our doorstep,
until the war sirens aren’t distant,
until the electricity doesn’t come back,
until the price tags scream louder than the headlines,
until the “other” is us,
and the fear isn’t theoretical — it’s felt in the chest, the bones, the silence.

And maybe then — just maybe — the inner bells will start ringing.
Not the ones we borrowed, not the ones we mimic.
But the ancient ones. The real ones.
The bells that remind us what it means to care.
To think.
To resist.
To speak.
To remember.
And to return —
not to the past —
but to the soul.

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In the end, this isn’t just about calling out bullies or exposing broken systems — it’s about summoning the inner bells we’ve long silenced. The ones that know better. The ones that ache when cruelty becomes casual and silence becomes survival. This piece asks us to remember the soul we once carried proudly, before the masks, before the spin, before the apathy. Not for nostalgia’s sake, but because without that soul — our society isn’t just dead inside. It’s already decomposing. And if we don’t act, speak, care — it won’t be long before we forget we ever had a heartbeat at all.

Until next time, be well!

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