Friday, April 26, 2013

Diagnose me: socio or victim?

From a reader:


Recently, with my lifestyle this past year living with complete fuck ups, alcoholics, drama driven bastards, I've come to notice that I easily start putting myself above them. I'm very intelligent. Graduated cum laude, have awesome friends and an absolute spontaneous lucrative lifestyle. Although, with the roommate situation (considering these 2 are the only ones I tend to attack) idk if I'm picking up sociopathic traits or I'm just coming out of my shell and saying fuck it I'm just being honest! I've done my research on sociopathic traits and I fit a LOT of them but I am also honest to myself in every way and feel completely justified in my actions and control. I've even had outside opinions and a consensus on how I've expressed my opinion towards these people as a strong validated one! But the further I look into it. I see that other characteristics of a sociopath fit me. I HAVE moved around a lot. I had a problem keeping close friends due to me putting myself above them at every chance I could because most of the time they were liars or posers putting off this front when I've worked so hard to get where I am! So I began looking at them as the weaker species if u may. Then finding weaknesses and attacking them for it because I was so pissed about their denial of who they are! I WAS financially irresponsible big time. I wasted probably 35 grand last year on bikes, a car, stupid clothes, drinks, passes, tickets, dining out, picking up tabs and just literally giving money away and also helping my girlfriend. I do have a hard time feeling true hurting emotion but then I jump back to my justifications of having been in jail before, I know that NO feeling in the world can be as bad as that so nothing on the outside world really hurts me much because its better than jail, I'm alive and free and everything has always been okay in my life and I know where I'm going and it's better than most people I've encountered and I feel superior to them not only because of my suspected sociopathy but because I've been through so much shit in my life and came out on top being smarter, with an amazing girlfriend and a lucrative career now. Another trait of sociopathy is talking in circles lol which I do a lot only because my mind moves so fast I just can't stop. It's like the avg human can speak 600 wpm, can listen to up to 1500 wpm and THINK at like 3000 wpm due to shortening of words, grouping and imaging. ME? I'm above that in every way and it's a fucking curse.

Anyway, I was considering to go see a doctor and idk if I would be DIAGNOSED with sociopathy or what lol. I have a lot of the TRAITS but my reasonings are justified! Am I a sociopath or a person who doesn't put up with shit and likes to feel better than others who were worse off than me but can't admit that they're just fuck ups and DO something about it.!? Ill be the first to admit my wrong doings, I do not lie and in fact I'm one of the most honest people my friends have ever known and my friends come to me all the time about advice, suggestions and guidance. I've never lied TO ANYONE about my life and where I'm going, what i think etc etc but if I'm in a rough spot I WILL lie to myself to pull myself through it and I have this saying to myself, well 2 actually. "Fake it 'til you make it!" And "Let Go, Let God"

I'm only writing u due to a question I typed into bing "what's the best comeback if someone calls you a sociopath" .. I was never considered a sociopath until the other night when my roommate, who I've just been being BRUTALLY honest with because I'm tired of his shit, said that a bartender thinks I could be a sociopath. So I looked it up and was thinking .. You know what's cool about being a sociopath? WE KNOW WE ARE AND QUITE FRANKLY DONT GIVE A FUCK!

Guess I've just been through a lot in my life from a pretty hectic arrest record for being caught doing things that any normal person has done like fighting but hurting the other guys so much they called the cops, or a DUI which I did jail for to get it dropped, and the rest of the stuff is traffic violations. Been to jail, but stuck it out and battled back to graduate even tho it took my 6 years and an extra $80,000, and have even been attacked by personal demons and seen both spectrums of the spiritual world if u believe in all that shit like I do now only because I've felt and seen some things in my life. (Talking in circles again) anyway.

I'm assuming you're a sociopath? Fuk idk. Can I get an opinion based on my rambling here? Or am I about to be victim of a sociopath? Lol I haven't a clue..

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Everybody needs somebody sometime

A reader asks: "Do sociopaths feel lonely? Sure, you can make yourself loved and adored by all, you have that brilliant gift. But what does it all feel like when that is stripped away? And also, is it common to have just a couple of close friends who know you as well as you can be known, and then just hundreds of people who barely know you at all?" My response:
Karl Marx says that religion is the opiate of the masses. That may be, but it's not the only drug in their cocktail. They have a lot of things that sociopaths don't have, one of which is the feeling of interconnectedness that comes from allowing considerations for other people to dominate their decision-making. It makes them feel that they are part of a web that is society. But even though sociopaths' decision-making isn't dominated by considerations for others, they still need people.

Our hard-wiring makes us social creatures, even sociopaths. How do you punish a criminal? Put them in prison apart from the rest of society. How do you punish someone who is already a prisoner? Further isolate them in solitary confinement. People go crazy without social interaction. Sociopaths aren't immune to this, despite being labeled "antisocial."

Sociopaths, like everyone else, get satisfaction from sharing our world, which is probably one reason why most of us have or strive for at least a few intimate associates in whom we confide. Even the Wizard of Oz seemed relieved to finally be discovered and be able to share the truth with someone. I am always charmed when someone sees through me. Obviously not everyone can or would want to share our worldview. For those that do not or cannot, it seems best for all concerned that they continue to be deceived.

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Self-reference

Via exp.lore.com:

"In the end… We are self-perceiving, self-creating, locked-in mirages. We are miracles of self-reference."



Based on the ideas in Douglas Hofstadter’s 1979 classic Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid.

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Beliefs (and Mormonism)

A blog reader recently asked me if I really believe "that ridiculous story that came with the Book of Mormon." Here's what I replied:


Someone else was asking me recently about my beliefs. I thought of an analogy that might help explain. I was in New York and wanted to meet up with an old school friend. We were trying to figure out a good activity given the weather constraints -- 40% chance of rain. She explained to me that in that part of the country, 40% chance of rain doesn't really mean that there is a 40% chance of any precipitation, rather it refers more accurately to the amount of rain you could expect that day -- 40% of what would be considered a good downpour (100%).

My beliefs are very similar to this. I don't expect to have absolute certainty about anything in my life, in fact I don't think I do have absolute certainty about anything in my life (including my own existence, despite Descartes' brave assertions). So I assess all "facts" in my life in terms of not just likelihood that they are true, but also the amount of what they are that is true. And then there is the uncertainty in the assessment itself. I may guess that there is a 40% chance of rain (or 40% of "rain"), but what if I am only 40% certain of it? Or maybe I only feel like I understand 40% of it, so what does that mean in terms of how much or whether I believe? Add that to the fact that I have never really felt the need to define myself, not by my beliefs, not by my what I "like" on facebook, not by my profession, or my religion, or my gender, or my race -- and that even if I were to try to define myself I am constantly changing, more like smoke and mirrors even to my own eyes than anything more tangible -- and I really don't spend hardly any time thinking about what exactly I believe.

Despite all of this uncertainty about what I may or may not believe, there are patterns in my behavior that suggest that certain things are more important to me than others. I keep showing up to church Sunday after Sunday. I pay 10% of my money to my church. Every time someone asks me for something church related I say yes. Does that mean that I have some underlying belief about things? It must, or maybe I just like doing those things for whatever reason. Or am afraid to not do them. And how tied up are those feelings of like and fear with whatever my beliefs are? I don't know.

It's not like I think my beliefs are any more or less ridiculous than others. And if I had been raised with a different set of beliefs and shared that different set of beliefs with my family and a support system, maybe I would "believe" those things instead. Although the Mormon religion is sort of uniquely suited to my mindset -- we're all gods in embryo and will continue to progress until we have unimaginable power? Yeah, that appeals to me. I like that combined with the Mormon story of Moses, who is shown a vision of just a fraction of time and expanse of the universe and faints. Upon waking Moses says about his experience: "Now, for this cause I know that man is nothing, which thing I never had supposed." So I like that too, this idea that we all have a universe of potential but that we don't come even close to expressing a fraction of that potential yet. It makes me feel like there is a lot to look forward to still.

Monday, April 22, 2013

Quote: self-importance

From Brain Pickings:

Think of it: zillions and zillions of organisms running around, each under the hypnotic spell of a single truth, all these truths identical, and all logically incompatible with one another: ‘My hereditary material is the most important material on earth; its survival justifies your frustration, pain, even death’. And you are one of those organisms, living your life in the thrall of a logical absurdity. 

Robert Wright in The Moral Animal
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