Sunday, February 10, 2013

Guest song: Valley of the Dolls



In the Valley of the Dolls we sleep, we sleep.
Got a hole inside of me, of me.
Gone with a boy, hard to destroy with love, oh.
Built with a heart broken from the start, and now I die slow.

In the Valley of the Dolls we sleep.
Got a hole inside of me.
Living with identities, that do not belong to me.
In my life I got this far, now I'm ready for my last hurrah.
Dying like a shooting star.
In the Valley (x3)

Pick a personality for free.
When you feel like nobody, body.
Gone with a boy, hard to destroy with love, oh.
Built with a heart broken from the start, and now I die slow.

In the Valley of the Dolls we sleep.
Got a hole inside of me.
Living with identities, that do not belong to me.
In my life I got this far, now I'm ready for my last hurrah.
Dying like a shooting star.
In the Valley (x3)

Back to zero, here we go again, again.
Racin' down into oblivion.
Back to zero, here we go.
I can feel it comin' to the end, the end.

In the Valley of the Dolls we sleep.
Got a hole inside of me.
Living with identities, that do not belong to me.
In my life I got this far, now I'm ready for my last hurrah.
Dying like a shooting star.
In the Valley (x3)




Saturday, February 9, 2013

Murderous children

This is an interesting article about the parents of one of the victims of the Columbine school massacre meeting with the parents of one of the shooters:
Approximately ten years and four months after Eric Harris murdered their child, Linda and Tom drove into Denver to greet his parents. The Harries declined to comment on the meeting. These are Linda’s impressions.
* * *
Wayne [Harris] was mystified by his son. Wayne and Kathy accepted that Eric was a psychopath. Where that came from, they didn’t know. But he fooled them, utterly.

He’d also fooled a slew of professionals. Wayne and Kathy clearly felt misled by the psychologist they sent him to. The doctor had brushed off Eric’s trademark duster as “only a coat.” He saw Eric’s problems as rather routine. At least that’s the impression he gave Wayne and Kathy.

They shared that perception with the Mausers. Other than the van break-in, Eric had never been in serious trouble, they said. He and Dylan were arrested in January 1998 and charged with three felonies. They eventually entered a juvenile diversion program, which involved close monitoring and various forms of restitution.

Eric rarely seemed angry, his parents said. There was one odd incident where he slammed his fist into a brick wall and scraped his knuckles. That was startling, but kids do weird things. It seemed like an aberration, not a pattern to be worried about.

Wayne and Kathy knew Eric had a Web site, but that didn’t seem odd. They never went online to look at it. “I found them kind of incurious,” Linda said.

From time to time, she wondered whether the Harrises were lying, or exaggerating. Her instincts said no. They did not strike her as calculating or devious; maybe a bit hapless. And Wayne was somewhat inscrutable. Honest, but not revealing. Linda believed them, but wondered whether the couple second-guessed themselves enough. “Honestly, if it were me this happened to, I think I’d still be questioning myself,” Linda said. “They did not seem to doubt themselves.”
But doubting oneself is only useful if there was another, better option available to you at the time given the information you had.

Friday, February 8, 2013

Winning streaks and outsourcing

I taught myself to feel anxiety about certain tasks for my continued health and welfare. I taught myself to be sensitive and careful about certain select things. And now it is sometimes hard to turn it off.

This is not a design flaw. If I had made anxiety easy to turn off, I would turn it off whenever it was inconvenient to me to feel that way.

I'll give you an example of why it might be good or necessary to not have control. I have never been a gearhead. So I have a friend who makes all of my choices of what to buy in those particular areas. Sometimes I question his judgment, think maybe I might like something else. I was telling another friend about this and he said, "so why don't you just buy what you want then?" But that's the thing. I have outsourced the decisionmaking to my gearhead friend. If I second guessed all of his recommendations, then really I have not outsourced anything to him. I have just decided to get his opinion about things. But that's not what I want. I want to not have to decide.

Similar with the anxiety. I used to not care at all. I used to do the craziest things. Then I didn't like the consequences, so at least in certain areas of my life I set my brain to thinking more about particular important tasks. At first I made it a game. Can I do this simple but important task better than anyone else? Then the game became about consistency -- can I achieve this level of superior skill for the longest streak ever seen?

It was such a successful tactic that I kept adding tasks to care about. It's funny, in my mind and in my life I must have hundreds if not thousands of these little games going on by now. All simultaneous. All keeping my life together. And they are sort of important, that's why I singled them out once upon a time to care about. But now when something goes wrong, the feeling of loss or letdown I feel is out of all proportion to the relative significance of the small skirmish lost. Because it's not just the one mistake, it's the end of a winning streak.

It's sort of laughable, that I have made myself like this -- chosen the choices I have led which have, when compounded with hundreds of similar choices, made me care a lot about certain little things. I should maybe rethink the plan. But I also now better understand why most people are the way they are -- why nature or God has chosen to reinforce our important decisions like mating with emotions like love. We have to give ourselves some sort of system to rely on when our minds might be distracted -- some way to make sure that important things don't slip your mind or through the cracks. And my system does that too, and probably just as well or better than emotional reinforcement. But my system takes an incredible mental toll. And when my mind gets taxed just slightly above what I have expected it, I can push myself into mind sickness. So that's why I might have to reconsider my system. Or maybe I should just to outsource more.

Thursday, February 7, 2013

Manifesto of a non-monster

This is from a self-identified sociopath reader wanting to correct some of the misconceptions of sociopaths:


I am a sociopath.
I am drawn to power, yes, because it fills the void.
I do not inwardly comply with society's social rules, laws or ideas of right and wrong. I do not live by any other human being's moral code, I have created my own that suits me to perfection. I comply with society outwardly only when it is useful; my 'mask'.
I believe that all sociopaths cannot be thrown into a simple category, each sociopath is an individual. I believe there are different levels of sociopathy, and that it can be cultivated and developed to help or hinder both other people in the sociopath's life and the sociopath. The right recipe is excellent, the wrong recipe is a disaster. 
That said, I believe many 'normal' people label every vagrant that displeases or harms them a sociopath. Is sociopathy more common than we thought in the past? Yes. Is it that common? No. 
This gives the average person the impression that every sociopath is a ruthless monster with no good intention or remotely safe and healthy motive whatsoever.
Am I selfish? Yes. I want what I want, and will not deny myself what I want unless it goes against the code I have created for myself.
Am I dishonest? If I feel that I must lie--that it is necessary--then I will. I lie to keep up the mask for my own survival and enjoyment. 
Do I have dark impulses, thoughts and desires? Absolutely. Do I give in to them? Only when it doesn't go against the code I've created.
Do I have the desire to 'destroy' an innocent person just for the fun of it? I love to destroy someone, it is a fun game to play and I love games, but I would never seek to destroy or harm someone unless they were an enemy of mine or someone I did not respect.
Am I addicted to drugs, alcohol or promiscuous sex? I do not respect an addict because I view addiction as weakness, which I detest. I have no addiction.
Am I cold or frigid in bed? I enjoy sex. It is an expression of freedom, where I can enjoy my body and get closer to someone I respect. I am open and responsive in the bedroom. However, I am incredibly picky until I have chosen the one I wish to sleep with, which is the reason I have been in the same relationship for 5 years now. I have chosen.
Do I cheat on my significant other? I have been entirely faithful, from the first day to now. I do not lie to him or steal from him either because I respect him. He knows that I am a sociopath. 
Do I steal? Absolutely not. Unless I was hurting badly for money, I would not steal because if I were caught the reputation I have worked to create and uphold would be obliterated or tarnished.
And I have never harmed an animal, I'm vegetarian in fact. I despise anyone who harms an innocent and defenseless animal. It is the humans that disgust me; animals are driven by instinct.  Man has reason, and still continues in his repugnant ways. 

Not every monster is a sociopath, not every sociopath is a monster.

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Dating other sociopaths


From a reader asking if it is a good idea for sociopaths to date other sociopaths:

My reasons for thinking we're a perfect match:

1)   Point: We need a challenge; everyone else is just too easy to win over. 

      Personal experience: When friends ask me how I do it, I shrug and say something banal because it is useless to try to explain. I feel that “game” is a skill that is fine-tuned throughout life, and even a lifetime of practice will not be of desired effect unless one already possesses an uncanny knack for reading body language, understanding weaknesses and individual needs, deciphering subliminal clues people unknowingly give off, and minimal emotional involvement. The ease at which I get what I want can actually be frustrating. I usually lose interest right after I acquire my target's complete attention and/or whatever I need from him. As I slowly let it go (so as not to burn bridges just in case I ever need that bridge again), I usually get some sort of a love confession. It’s a nice ego boost, but it honestly annoys me. Maybe it annoys me because it reminds me that I am incapable of feeling anything back. More likely, it’s because I have to waste my energy trying to let him down easy. Yet even more likely, it's probably because it reinforces the fact that I'm failing in my search for another of equal mindset. 

      Rationale: Dating another sociopath would be much more invigorating, as it would be a constant challenge for one another’s attention. As stated in Robert Greene’s “The Art of Seduction”, the most successful couples are those in which both people have mastered seduction. Without this, we get bored. We need a game, and an incompetent opponent is no fun after the first round. 

2)   Point: Save the emotional acts.

      Personal experience: I do manipulate, but I do recognize that if I want to remain in respectable societal standing, I have to play towards the emotions of the people I deal with. In my past relationships, I have had to fake what I am not feeling (i.e. pretend to comfort the guy when he’s upset, force myself to do the whole stare-into-each-other’s-eyes thing, convince him that I feel the same way, etc.) I’m not sure if there are other socios out there that feel this, but strong expressions of love and sadness are the two emotions I feel the most phony mimicking. I can literally feel the insincerity seeping out of my pores. Near the end of relationships my tolerance for such acts fizzles out, and I am accused of not caring…and since I generally don’t, he ends up hurt. While I have never felt sorrow or regret from this, I also do not want to leave a trail of broken hearts behind me. It’s essentially damaging my reputation and whatever connections I might need to make in the future. 

      Rationale: Tending to a lover’s emotions is tiresome and an enormous waste of time. Dating a sociopath would eliminate this rollercoaster of ridiculous emotional performances, and we would be able to live in drama-free harmony. Paradoxically, it would actually be a more honest relationship. 

3)   Point: We are attracted to those who are both book-smart and street-smart.

      Personal experience: I am attracted to intellect and power, and I assume that most other socios are as well. I’d rather marry an ugly but manipulative and successful genius than a sexy-as-hell but dumb-as-a-rock superstar. I saw that you mentioned the 48 Laws of Power. I cannot discuss this book with anyone I know. They lack the ability to see the rules as one entity from which we must derive certain principles, based on what our situation and goals are. I consider craftiness along with the ability to gauge situations and handle them with appropriate tact to be my definition of "street-smart". Lacking this quality is a complete turn-off for me. Being book-smart is also essential for my attraction to another; if I feel that I am capable of getting better grades on a factually-based exam than someone, I can't take them seriously. In my dealings with dating, I have come across only one person who has mastered both areas. I have insincerely told several people throughout my life that I "love" them (usually out of obligated reciprocation); I'm unsure of what my take on love is, but I can honestly say that what I feel for that one person is closer to love than what I've felt for anyone else.

      Rationale: There are plenty of book-smart people out there. There are also plenty of street-smart people. To have both is rare- and those who have both have an edge over everybody else. Most socios are able to recognize this potential for success, for they possess it within themselves. Naturally, we are attracted to excellence. Therefore, we are attracted to other sociopaths.

4)   Point: Being a "chameleon" can only be understood by others like us.

      Personal experience: I change my persona depending on what I need and who I am around. My groups of friends are eclectic and from all walks of life. In the past, when the guy I'm with at the time has met a group of friends who views me differently than he does, disaster ensued. "Who are you?", "You didn't tell me you used to do such-and-such things",  "I talked to so-and-so...I don't even know you", and so on. I am forced to purposely avoid letting my significant other meet certain people or hear certain things, in an attempt to maintain his view of who I am to him.

     Rationale: Who we date is usually a frequent escort. That being said, it is difficult for someone who isn't a social chameleon to get along with more than one group of your friends- or anyone who sees you in a different light than your lover does. Dating another sociopath means that he/she will easily fit into your eclectic groups of acquaintances. He/she will understand the necessity of mimicking and will be able to recognize when it is being done. He/she will also be able to mimick, which eliminates the "why do your friends hate me?" mediation and the "what was that all about?" explanations. He/she will understand that the "you" that you are pretending to be is just an act.

      I could probably continue, but I'll wait for some feedback first. Please do note that I am presenting this from theories I've derived from my own experiences. Also note that I am not referring to full-blown psychopaths, sadists, or those that might only date to extort things from/harm the other. Rather, I am referencing "mild" sociopaths like myself, who understand self-interest and are frustrated with dating simpletons.

Join Amazon Prime - Watch Over 40,000 Movies

.

Comments are unmoderated. Blog owner is not responsible for third party content. By leaving comments on the blog, commenters give license to the blog owner to reprint attributed comments in any form.