Weighing the pros and cons

I frequently get asked if I could choose to stop being a sociopath, would I? Or would I choose to remain the way I am? I tell people that I would change, because I've already lived half of my life this way and I'm a novelty seeker and it would be interesting to live life completely differently. I think what people are really asking, though, is whether I think it's better to be a sociopath or better to not. Although there are certain advantages to being a sociopath (e.g., ruthlessness or outside the box thinking), there are also disadvantages, like being unable to predict when a lynch mob will come after me or not being able to sustain relationships or employment positions. It can be frustrating and lonely sometimes. I feel like I often misunderstand and am misunderstood. So it's really a mixed bag.

I was thinking about this when I read this NY Times article about a high school long distance runner with multiple sclerosis. Before she was diagnosed she was completely unexceptional as a runner. After she was diagnosed, she became one of the fastest runners in the nation. During the race, she loses feeling in her legs. While other runners have to fight through the pain, she feels nothing. This allows her to keep up a remarkable pace, however when she gets to the finish line she always collapses into her coach's arms.

At the finish of every race, she staggers and crumples. Before momentum sends her flying to the ground, her coach braces to catch her, carrying her aside as her competitors finish and her parents swoop in to ice her legs. Minutes later, sensation returns and she rises, ready for another chance at forestalling a disease that one day may force her to trade the track for a wheelchair. M.S. has no cure.

Does this give her an unfair advantage?

Though examples of elite athletes with M.S. are scarce, some have speculated that Montgomery’s racing-induced numbness lends a competitive edge, especially given the improvement in her times since the diagnosis.
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“I think there’s a benefit to numbness,” he said. “I don’t know anyone in their right mind, though, who would trade this; who would say, ‘Give me M.S. so I have a little bit of numbness after Mile 2.’ But I think that’s when she gets her strength.”  

Of course besides the very real possibility of a wheelchair, there are other drawbacks to her condition:

“When you push to your limit, your body usually sends pain signals to warn you that you’re damaging tissues,” said Dr. Peter Calabresi, director of the Multiple Sclerosis Center at Johns Hopkins. He has not treated Montgomery.

“Pushing that limit is what endurance sports are all about. But if you can’t feel those signals and push from tingling to extreme or prolonged numbness, you could be doing damage that we won’t even know about until down the road. It’s a paradox.”

Sound familiar to any of the sociopaths out there? Ignoring normal fear, pain, and other emotional cues to do outrageous things, with both the advantages and disadvantages of doing so?

(On a related note to the previous post about people's perceptions being tainted by their previous experiences, those people who know nothing about her assume that her finish line collapses are seizures, fainting spells, or simply due to her being a wimp, as opposed to the less obvious but correct answer of multiple sclerosis).

(Also look here for thoughts on advantages and disadvantages to being ordinary vs. extraordinary).  

Cruelty

A reader asked me, "what's with the cruelty?" I responded:

A good question. Have you never felt the urge to destroy? You probably have, but didn't think of it that way. Let's say there is a piece of cake sitting out on a counter -- perfect little piece of cake. What do you feel like doing to that cake? Isn't that destruction?

If it were possible to both have our cake and eat it too, then things might have worked out differently between you and your socio. Because that isn't possible and because your socio chose one way and not the other, you perceive/experience cruelty. But what is the use of a perfect little piece of cake that just sits out there forever on the counter, never to be eaten?

The hard way

I've realized recently that I go through cycles of liking to do things the easy way or the hard way. I almost quit music in secondary school (I wasn't particularly talented), but I ended up majoring in it at university because it was the most challenging thing that I could be doing at the time and I enjoyed the thought of turning a weakness into a strength. I eventually tired of the struggle so when I left music I chose law because I did well on the law school admission test, so I figured I was well suited for it. At that point in my life, I didn't want to bother with my weaknesses, only capitalize on my strengths. Since then I've alternated between focusing on either my weakness or strengths, maybe every few years or so.

Most understand the appeal of the easy way, but doing things the hard way has its own value (and Thoreau?). The Swedes understand this. Although most Swedes have access to some sort of cottage or summer home, many of these homes intentionally do not have indoor plumbing, an attempt to be closer to nature. I spent some time there with a friend and she much preferred cooking up a porridge on the side of the road with a camp stove, or a soup on the deck of a ferry, to anything remotely more convenient. Even though my visit was on the tail end of summer in the chilly Arctic Circle, she insisted that part of the experience of any trip was to sleep outside whenever possible. We would go days without using a normal toilet, much less shower. I was sometimes tempted to put my foot down and insist that we take advantage of modern amenities and conveniences for a change, but I didn't. And even though I have been on much more comfortable and more exotic trips, this one has remained my favorite I think largely because it required struggle. It required me to be resourceful and more actively engaged in every moment of the trip, whereas waking up in crisp hotel sheets and stumbling down the hall to a buffet breakfast required no thought at all. The former meant living every minute and the latter invited passivity and complacency, it's own sort of (worse) struggle.

When I first started writing the blog, it was in an effort to understand why my life seemed to self-destruct every few years. I thought maybe finding the reason why might keep it from happening again, but I seem to like to struggle. There's something rewarding about doing things the hard way, at least for now. And as artist Chuck Close said:

Get yourself in trouble. If you get yourself in trouble, you don’t have the answers. And if you don’t have the answers, your solution will more likely be personal because no one else’s solutions will seem appropriate. You’ll have to come up with your own. It's always wrong before it's right.” 

Starting over

I have been doing the same thing for around 3 years now.  That's my typical expiration date before I let things fall apart.  And that's really what it is for the most part.  I was talking to a friend about this.  I don't think it's self-destruction for the sake of self-destruction.  It's just abandoning my current life for something different, letting my life raft sink.

I thought of the analogy of an etch a sketch toy.  Let's say that you've spent about 3 years working on an etch a sketch drawing (it took you so long because you have a very flat learning curve).  Finally you get to the end, or maybe just as far as you would like to go on this particular design.  What do you do now?  You shake it up and start over.

You could keep it, maybe frame it and hang it up on the wall.  One time when I was in East Germany I actually visited someone's house where that's what they had done, essentially -- assembled puzzles, then varnished the top, put them in a frame, and hung them on the wall.  Not really the point of a puzzle, I thought.  The point is not to have a pretty picture of something to look at.  The point is the process of the puzzle, the enjoyment you get from cutting your teeth on some new game.  Same with the etch a sketch.  Same with life.  To me the point isn't to get to a certain point in my career or relationships or social circle or geography and just stick with it.  To me the point is the process: the planning, the initial steps, the reassessment, the further plotting, the execution, the tenacity, the fulcrum.  Often I don't even stick around to see the final product.  Sometimes I leave the puzzle half finished.  Once I am bored of sufficiently assured of my success (at least in my own mind), I am ready to move on and start over on something else.  

I know there is something coming up that could change my life drastically in about a year.  Otherwise I might be busy shaking things up right now.  But it's kind of weird timing, both close enough in my two year plan that it makes sense to keep doing what I am doing until then, and long enough away that I'm itching to get on with it.

Narcissists vs. Sociopaths (part 4)

(cont.)


Can Someone Really Be a Very Low Empathy Narcissist and Not Know It?

Yes! Narcissists won't often know much about their state. Just look at Bernie Madoff in this article -- he feels very uncomfortable about the idea that he might be a sociopath.  Sure, he knows he did a  bunch of bad things. But at the same time, he knows that deep down he's good inside. That's that typical narcissist self-deception; he's trying to avoid any shame, or even any awareness of shame.

Malignant narcissists will often do terribly cruel things to others. They'll tell themselves that the other guy had it coming to him. For a classic malignant narcissist, see this story.

Like Madoff, the malignant narcissist in that story, Raucci, thinks of himself as a very good guy. He really puts himself out for his friends. In a sense he's correct, and that should be the clue that he isn't a sociopath. Were he a sociopath, he wouldn't take other people (and whether they are with or against him) so personally.

Sociopaths aren't nearly as dangerous as narcissists. Narcissists get on self-destructive crusades, because it makes them feel good. Sociopaths avoid crusades, because crusades are expensive.