Thursday, April 12, 2012

About me? (part 2)


I responded:

This is very interesting.  I also never fill these sections out (or the offline equivalent) if I can help it.  Sometimes I'll put one or two things there, just to not seem like a total creeper.  I try to avoid any personal information.  Part of it is intentional -- less is more when the purpose of those types of sites is for people interested in you to stalk you, when really I want them to have to go to the source to get what they're really looking for.

I'm actually going through a period of particular ambiguity in my personality.  When I'm actively engaged in something, it's easy to sort of define myself with whatever I'm doing (like defining myself as a diver).  It helps me to function to be able to think of myself in a particular role -- I'm so-and-so's plus-one, I'm in charge of this Acme project, I'm X's mentor, or whatever.  Thinking that way helps me to focus on the performance.  Have you ever seen a television show in which one of the actors seems to have forgotten he's on screen?  And drops character?  I've been caught doing that a few times.

Even when people are naturally attracted to "me," i.e. I have not intentionally targeted with a version of me tailor made to them, it's hard to know what exactly that means.  Is it my strength?  My humor?  My solicitousness?  Unflagging support?  If I don't know what it is they like about me, I don't know what to keep doing.  It can be very disconcerting.  I feel like I'm being interviewed for a job and I'm not really sure what all the job entails.

At times like these I feel like an engine with the clutch disengaged.  I am nothing, but potentially anything.  Like a discus, I could be sent me off in any direction, but ultimately it doesn't feel like it matters where I go or where I came from.  I guess this is freedom.  It also makes me a total anti-consumer.  I don't feel at all defined by my belongings or my socio economic status.  It's nice to run in the rat race only whenever I feel like it, not because my successes/money define me.  But I also can't really force myself to do things I don't want to do.

Here's a BPD blogger (and SW reader) describing a similar thing for borderline personality disorder.

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

About me? (part 1)

A reader asked me this interesting question:

The more I meditate and the more detached from my emotions I become, the harder I find it to be, to describe myself to people.

I begin to feel as if a personality doesn't exist for me and is dependent upon the moment and what's going on.

And because of this, I constantly find it impossible to put anything in my "About me" on facebook. Almost anything I can think of seems to have some reason behind me not wanting to put it, or mainly I can't find any reason to put anything there... mainly because I don't have a scenario that I wish to set up with words describing myself, which I don't even know how to do. If this makes sense? There's no problem to be solved so how should I portray myself to the world in my about me? I can't be the only person with sociopathic tendencies to have this problem. I literally find it impossible to describe myself to others, because I feel anything I could say would be lying, other than, who I am depends on the situation and the person I am interacting with. It's like how sociopaths have trouble with stable personalities on personality tests.

I would be very interested in reading what you have to think about sociopaths describing themselves, in places such as an about me on facebook.




Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Original thinker

I was reading a New Yorker article (here is the abstract) about the Dutch artist/sculptor/engineer responsible for Strandbeests ("beach animals"), Theo Jansen.  He had an interesting quote that made me think about what a benefit it is to the individual and society to be able to think in an original way:

Mine is not a straight path like an engineer's, it's not A to B.  I make a very curly road just by the restrictions of goals and materials.  A real engineer would probably solve the problem differently, maybe make an aluminum robot with motor and electric sensors and all that.  But the solutions of engineers are often much alike.  Everything we think can in principle be thought by someone else.  The real ideas, as evolution shows, come about by chance.  Reality is very creative.  Maybe that is why the Strandbeests appear to be alive, and charm us.  The Strandbeests themselves have let me make them.

I don't know why I thought this was relevant.  I guess because sociopaths minds are so different than most people.  I think their minds, thoughts, and behavior can seem charming because of their uniqueness.  Sociopaths can have the innocence of an ingenue or the ruthless of the most determined predator.  There's something sort of refreshing about their brutal approach to the world.  And when we live in a world where "everything we think can in principle be thought by someone else," it might be nice to be around someone who is an entirely different "someone else" than you are.


Monday, April 9, 2012

Anti-authoritarian

A reader sent me this interesting article discussing how most of the individuals diagnosed with "antisocial" disorders, including oppositional defiant disorder, attention deficit hyperactive disorder, anxiety disorder, also happen to be anti-authoritarian.  The argument the author makes is essentially that the psychology professionals doing the diagnosing may overly value submissive attitudes based on their own path towards becoming credentialed:


Gaining acceptance into graduate school or medical school and achieving a PhD or MD and becoming a psychologist or psychiatrist means jumping through many hoops, all of which require much behavioral and attentional compliance to authorities, even to those authorities that one lacks respect for. The selection and socialization of mental health professionals tends to breed out many anti-authoritarians. Having steered the higher-education terrain for a decade of my life, I know that degrees and credentials are primarily badges of compliance. Those with extended schooling have lived for many years in a world where one routinely conforms to the demands of authorities. Thus for many MDs and PhDs, people different from them who reject this attentional and behavioral compliance appear to be from another world—a diagnosable one.

I have found that most psychologists, psychiatrists, and other mental health professionals are not only extraordinarily compliant with authorities but also unaware of the magnitude of their obedience. And it also has become clear to me that the anti-authoritarianism of their patients creates enormous anxiety for these professionals, and their anxiety fuels diagnoses and treatments.

I agree completely about the credentialing process.  I have even noticed the slightest tendency amongst sociopaths to sort of reify credentials into something that actually means something.  I don't know why they do this.  Maybe for the same reason I follow traffic laws?  It's just often easier to follow things that you may or may not understand...?

The only F word that I would hate to be called is fascist.

Sunday, April 8, 2012

Coachella: Where's M.E.?

I noticed that at least one person who reads the blog or follows me on twitter is going to be at Coachella this year, a music festival held in the California desert.  I will also be there during the first weekend (next weekend).

I thought it would be fun to play a little game of "where's waldo?"  Here are the rules.  You wear a SociopathWorld t-shirt, or write SociopathWorld.com in permanent felt pen on your person/clothing.  I will do the same.  If I see you, I will come up and introduce myself to you and (if you want) tweet a photo of you.  If you're not sure it's me, call me by my initials, I will respond.  I'll even tweet some photos of where I am, if I'm planning on being there for 30 minutes or more (I know how overburdened the mobile network gets there) and/or try to accommodate requests to be at a particular performance (requests can be made in the comments section of the blog beforehand or via twitter to @sociopathworld the day of).

I'm excited!
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