Saturday, September 1, 2012
Guest song: Talking Heads
Making Flippy Floppy
Nothing can come between us
Nothin gets you down
Nothing strikes your fancy
Nothing turns you on
Somebody is waiting in the hallway
Somebody is falling down the stairs
Set someone free, break someone's heart
Stand up help us out
Ev'rything is divided
Nothing is complete
Ev'rything looks impressive
Do not be deceived
You don't have to wait for more instructions
No one makes a monkey out of me
We lie on our backs, feet in the air
Rest and relaxation, rocket to my brain
Snap into position
Bounce till you ache
Step out of line
And you end up in jail
Bring me a doctor
I have a hole in my head
But they are just people
And I'm not afraid
Doctor doctor
We have nothing in our pockets
We continue
But we have nothing left to offer
Faces pressed against the window
Hey! they are just my friends
Check this out don't be slick
Break our backs it goes like this . . .
We are born without eyesight
We are born without sin
And our mama protects us
From the cold and the rain
We're in no hurry
Sugar and spice
We sing in the darkness
We poen our eyes (open up)
I can't believe it
And people are strange
Our president's crazy
Did you hear what he said
Business and pleasure
Lie right to your face
Divide it in sections
And then give it away
There are no big secrets
Don't believe what you read
We have great big bodies
We got great big heads
Run-a-run-a-run it all together
Check it out - still don't make no sense
Makin' flippy floppy
Tryin to do my best
Lock the door
We kill the beast
Kill it!
Friday, August 31, 2012
Volume and nuance of emotions
"I thought you just told me that you have good hearing."
I was about to explain when I saw him understand, "Oh, you have bad hearing, but it is nuanced."
Yes! Exactly. I have bad hearing but it is extremely nuanced. In fact, sometimes I have wondered if my hearing became nuanced to compensate for my hearing being bad.
I was remembering this story recently and thinking, maybe this is a good analogy for how I interpret emotional cues. People always wonder, how is it that sociopaths are so mind-blind about somethings but can be so uncannily perceptive about others. I've had a hard time explaining it myself. But maybe it is just this: that it's difficult for me to hear certain things and not others because they are actually unrelated in a way that is not obvious to the average observer. Maybe the emotional cues I am picking up on use a different sort of perception, like less empathy, more sheer observational skills. Or it's more something that can be learned with practice, like reading people's microexpressions?
Or maybe it's hard for me to pick up on big picture things, like which emotion, and it's easier for me to pick up on small emotional nuances, like how that emotion is affecting a person's motivation in that moment. Maybe it's like Newman says, that sociopaths can do quite well with emotion as long as their attention has been directed to it (e.g. talking with a person one on one), but if there is too much background noise distracting, it will go completely over my head?
I haven't refined the theory yet, but I feel there is something to it.
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Recipe for psychopaths?
“There is no real recipe for psychopathic personality disorder,” she says. “The environmental factors are as ill-defined as the genetic factors, although antisocial behavior mixed with a history of punitive discipline, abuse and neglect seems to apply in many cases.”
On violence:
Psychopathy is not synonymous with violence, Skeem notes. In fact, she has found that psychopathic people often have no history of violent behavior or criminal convictions.
“An individual doesn’t necessarily need to be physically violent or a common street criminal to have psychopathic traits,” she says. Researchers estimate that about 1 percent of the general population are psychopaths.
Famous sociopaths?
Skeem points to Gordon Gekko, the unscrupulous financial executive played by Michael Douglas in the 1987 film “Wall Street,” as someone with all the signs of psychopathy.
She cites Ponzi scheme mastermind Bernie Madoff and Enron executive Andrew Fastow – ruthless, detached individuals who showed little remorse for robbing victims of their life savings – as real-life examples. Psychopathic traits helped them quickly climb the corporate ladder yet ultimately led to their downfall.
Good sociopaths?
Can such traits ever be used for good? Skeem notes that the bold, risk-taking bomb squad leader in the Academy Award-winning movie “The Hurt Locker” succeeded in a high-pressure environment thanks to psychopathic tendencies. Of course, some psychopaths do resort to violence and crime. But according to Skeem, youth and adults with high scores on measures of psychopathy can exhibit reduced violent and criminal behavior after intensive treatment, such as mental health counseling and drug abuse rehabilitation. “There is scant scientific evidence to support the claim of ‘once a psychopath, always a psychopath,’” she says.
One one size fits all, parting thoughts:
“Research on psychopathy has evolved to a level that it can greatly improve on the current one-size-fits-all policy approach,” Skeem says.
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Possessions and exploits
The latter is for my seduction or other romantic interests. Seduction has traditionally been an all of nothing endeavor, at least I can't really control it. Seductions are like wildfires, I only get to choose the beginnings and then they take on a life of their own or flame out. So I don't typically do them with people I hope to keep around for longer than a few months. For the exploits, the pleasure is in gaining and exercising influence over them. I am never infatuated with my possessions, but I am for my exploits. And I can feel possessive over my exploits. I pursue them because they give me a thrill. Will I win them over, what might that look like? Success is valuable only to the extent that it is evidence of my power. As one blog reader said, “There really is nothing more amusing or exciting or fun than turning a smart, beautiful, resourceful person into a personal plaything.” It is a game, but I am not necessarily interested in the spoils so much as the maneuvering.
The distinction is well illustrated by the literary character Estella, from Charles Dickens's Great Expectations. Miss Havisham raises Estella to break men’s hearts in a form of vengeance for being jilted at the altar, and Estella willingly does so with everyone but the protagonist Pip, who is in love with Estella. Pip notices that Estella does not actively attempt to seduce him like she does with other men. He complains, and she reprimands him:
"Do you want me then", said Estella, turning suddenly with a fixed and serious, if not angry, look, "to deceive and entrap you?"
"Do you deceive and entrap him, Estella?"
"Yes, and many others—all of them but you."
Like Estella, I do not seduce my possessions because I don’t want to lose respect for them and because they’re unsustainable long-term. As one blog reader wrote:
You find it hard to not objectify people, however it’s important so you just try with a few people that understand who you are. All the rest of the people who don't understand you are fools to you.
I have had a few relationships that have begun as seductions and morphed into something more serious but they almost always end because they never feel like they knew the “real” me.
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
The cure: self-awareness
Honesty with yourself is indeed the cure, and that includes realizing that you were a victim, and that although your ex was an ass, you must ultimately take responsibility for what happens in your own life. You have to be willing to face and accept the truth, no matter how painful it might be, so you can use it to make rational decisions about your future and what kind of life you want to live. Then you'll be equipped to handle encounters with sociopaths without getting burned quite so badly, if at all. All a sociopath has to do to enslave you is find out what you refuse to accept, and screw with your head and heart so that you see a connection between what you refuse to believe and what he wants to hide from you. Sounds like a lot of mumbo jumbo, I'm sure, but I assure you it's very real. Think back to how you were manipulated, and I think you'll find that at the heart of every lie you should have caught, there was a link to something about yourself, or life in general, that you couldn't allow yourself to accept.
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